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overtime protections
Biden Labor Department Finalizes Pro-Worker Rules on Overtime, Retirement Savings
"Democrats are delivering for working people!" declared Rep. Pramila Jayapal as the AFL-CIO noted that GOP ex-President Donald Trump "gutted the rules that required overtime pay for millions of workers."
Apr 23, 2024
Roughly 4.3 million U.S. workers will now be eligible for overtime pay under a new rule finalized Tuesday by President Joe Biden's Labor Department—in stark contrast to his Republican predecessor's rules that severely limited the number of workers who were eligible for required compensation when they worked more than 40 hours per week.
Under the new rule, employers will be required to pay overtime premiums to salaried workers who work more than standard full-time hours if they earn less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year.
Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, may now have to defend his 2020 rule that set the overtime pay threshold at just $35,500 per year, leaving out millions of workers.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) noted that the updated rule was "a major piece" of the Executive Action Agenda released by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which she chairs.
"This is a HUGE pro-worker initiative by President Biden," said Jayapal. "Democrats are delivering for working people!"
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, who Biden has nominated to fill the role permanently, said it is "unacceptable" that lower-paid workers "are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay," while hourly workers are eligible for overtime pay.
"This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time," said Su. "The Biden-Harris administration is following through on our promise to raise the bar for workers who help lay the foundation for our economic prosperity."
The Labor Department posted a chart on social media showing how under Trump's policy, only workers who earn less than $688 per week are eligible for required overtime pay. The full rule is set to go into effect in January 2025.
The chart offers a "good split screen with the GOP," saidSlate reporter Mark Joseph Stern.
"It isn't just that Trump's Department of Labor fought overtime pay—it's also that Trump appointed anti-labor judges who are about to block Biden's new rule," he said.
The former Republican president's appointed judges could also block a new Federal Trade Commission rule introduced on Tuesday, which blocks companies from including noncompete clauses in workers' contracts.
"Both reforms happened because of Biden and in spite of Republicans," said HuffPost labor reporter Dave Jamieson.
Along with the overtime rule, the Labor Department announced a new policy aimed at safeguarding people's retirement savings from their financial advisers' conflicts of interest.
The finalized retirement security rule requires "trusted investment advice providers to give prudent, loyal, honest advice free from overcharges," said the department. "These fiduciaries must adhere to high standards of care and loyalty when they recommend investments and avoid recommendations that favor the investment advice providers' interests—financial or otherwise—at the retirement savers' expense."
"Under the final rule and amended exemptions, financial institutions overseeing investment advice providers must have policies and procedures to manage conflicts of interest and ensure providers follow these guidelines," the agency said.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said the nation's largest labor federation has "been pushing for the fiduciary and overtime rules since the Obama administration."
"It's really this simple," said Shuler. "Every worker deserves their fair share of the wealth they help create and every worker deserves to make sure their hard-earned money is secure."
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Biden Admin Proposes 'Much-Needed' Overtime Protections for 3.6 Million Workers
While welcoming the move, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus also urged the president to "not to consider the job done with this proposed rule, and pursue a relentless commitment to fair overtime pay."
Aug 30, 2023
Labor rights advocates within and beyond Congress celebrated on Wednesday after the Biden administration proposed a federal rule to restore and extend overtime protections to 3.6 million more salaried workers earning up to about $55,000 a year.
"For over 80 years, a cornerstone of workers' rights in this country is the right to a 40-hour workweek, the promise that you get to go home after 40 hours or you get higher pay for each extra hour that you spend laboring away from your loved ones," said Julie Su, who is acting secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) because her nomination is stalled in the U.S. Senate.
"I've heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don't come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices," she said. "Today, the Biden-Harris administration is proposing a rule that would help restore workers' economic security by giving millions more salaried workers the right to overtime protections if they earn less than $55,000 a year. Workers deserve to continue to share in the economic prosperity of Bidenomics."
Informed by 27 listening sessions, the rule would ensure most salaried workers earning less than $1,059 per week get overtime pay after 40 hours; clarify which administrative, executive, or professional employees should be overtime exempt; automatically update the salary threshold every three years in line with earnings data; and restore overtime protections for U.S. territories.
"This proposal is a crucial step in creating a stronger, fairer economy."
"Once again, the Biden administration is listening to workers' voices by taking these much-needed steps to strengthen overtime protections," declared Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project. "Ensuring this proposed rule is finalized and implemented as soon as possible is essential because workers don't deserve to wait any longer for the benefits this rule will provide."
Economic Policy Institute president Heidi Shierholz—a former DOL chief economist—similarly praised the proposal, saying that "EPI is encouraged to see this important regulation move forward. The overtime threshold has not been properly updated for nearly 50 years, robbing millions of workers of their basic wage and hour rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act."
"Currently, a worker making just $36,000 a year can be required to work 50- or 60-hour workweeks with no additional pay," she noted. "This proposal would ensure that employers have 'skin in the game' when they ask these workers to work long hours. As a result, these workers will either get those extra hours back or they will get higher wages when they do work long hours—whether through salary increases or by earning time-and-a-half overtime pay. This proposal is a crucial step in creating a stronger, fairer economy."
Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also applauded the DOL's move to "advance this key pillar of worker justice" while stressing that "it doesn't go far enough," leaving "too many behind when a larger increase to the threshold could give millions more families breathing room in their budgets at a time when they desperately need it."
The congresswoman highlighted the CPC's "long history of advocating for bold action" under then-President Barack Obama in 2014, 2015, and 2016, as well as in the caucus' 2022 and 2023 executive action agendas under Biden, who was Obama's vice president.
"Our caucus understands this is about basic fairness: People should be paid for every hour they work," Jayapal emphasized. "It is also about economic justice: Workers should not be forced to donate their time over 40 hours per week to their employers, especially for those who work at wealthy corporations that are raking in record profits."
“The CPC called for the overtime threshold to be raised to $80,000 per year, which would cover 55% of workers at one-and-a-half times their regular pay—and grant fair pay to 26 million new workers," she added. "We urge President Biden not to consider the job done with this proposed rule, and pursue a relentless commitment to fair overtime pay, which would be a powerful demonstration of his pro-worker commitment. We cannot rest until we've exhausted every option to ease the burden on working- and middle-class people."
The current threshold of $35,568 was previously raised from $23,660 in 2019 under then-President Donald Trump—the current front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. With only a few longshot Democratic challengers, Biden is expected to face the Republican nominee next year.
The Associated Pressreported Wednesday that "the new rule could face pushback from business groups that mounted a successful legal challenge against similar regulation that Biden announced as vice president during the Obama administration, when he sought to raise the threshold to more than $47,000."
Publication of the administration's notice of proposed rulemaking kicks off a 60-day public comment period. Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator at the DOL's Wage and Hour Division, said Wednesday that "public input is essential as we consider the needs of today's workforce and industry demands, and we encourage continued stakeholder input during the public comment period."
"We are committed to ensuring that all workers are paid fairly for their hard work," she said. "For too long, many low-paid salaried workers have been denied overtime pay, even though they often work long hours and perform much of the same work as their hourly counterparts. This proposed rule would ensure that more workers receive extra pay when they work long hours."
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Though Noting It Should Be Higher, Sanders Backs Obama Pay Bump for Overtime Workers
Update of labor protections, said presidential candidate, will prevent corporations and large employees from shirking their responsibility to pay fair wages
Jun 30, 2015
Though he was quick to note that even more Americans deserve fair compensation for working more than 40 hours per week, presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday endorsed President Barack Obama's announcement that he will soon update overtime pay regulations--a move that will give approximately 5 million middle-income workers a bump in their annual pay.
"We've got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded," Obama wrote in an op-ed announcing his decision. "Right now, too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve. That's partly because we've failed to update overtime regulations for years--and an exemption meant for highly paid, white collar employees now leaves out workers making as little as $23,660 a year--no matter how many hours they work."
Under current overtime rules, full-time employees who work at least 40 hours and make more than $455 a week (or $23,660 per year) are considered management and are not eligible for overtime pay. But the new proposal--which can be implemented by executive order and without congressional approval--would raise the threshold to $970 per week (or $50,400 annually).
Jared Bernstein, a former White House adviser and now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explained in the Washington Post on Tuesday why protections for this kind of workers were initially imposed:
Because [the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, legislation that included a national minimum wage and time-and-a-half pay for hourly and certain salaried workers after 40 hours of weekly work] needed to preempt the possibility that some employers might just label someone a salaried worker to avoid having to pay time-and-a-half. So a salary threshold was introduced, below which workers were automatically non-exempt. The problem is the threshold wasn't regularly adjusted for inflation, and while it has been sporadically raised, it has fallen well behind its historical levels, once you adjust for inflation (the new rule also proposes to index the new threshold to either price or wage growth; which one will be decided during the forthcoming comment period, where outside stakeholders can weigh in on the proposed rule).
According to Bernstein, who praised the move by Obama, it would be very difficult to "come up with a rule change or executive order--i.e., non-legislation--to lift the pay of this many middle-wage workers." It's especially important, he said, "because we live in a time when the bargaining power of many who depend on their paychecks is much diminished relative to the clout and power of those whose income derives from their wealth portfolios."
Sanders, who has made raising workers' wages and combating the nation's extreme levels of economic inequality a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, said Obama's move is good news for the nation's struggling workers.
"Businesses no longer will be able to shirk their responsibility to pay fair wages by simply labeling workers earning as little as $24,000-a-year as supervisors," said Sanders.
If it was up to him, however, Sanders said he would have raised the eligibility for the salary limit even higher--up from Obama's $970 per week to $1,090.
Earlier this year, Sanders and 25 other senators sent a letter to the White House urging the U.S. Department of Labor to modernize overtime regulations. In the letter, they detailed how many U.S. corporations had exploited antiquated regulations to avoid paying time-and-a-half for workers who put in more than 40 hours a week on the job.
"These long hours are straining middle-class workers and their families," the letter stated. "Since the 1970s, average salaries for middle-class individuals have dropped even while salaried workers have increased the hours they spend on the job. Strengthening overtime protections will help millions of middle-class families."
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