Sunday, May 22, 2016

Overtime upgrade

This week President Obama endorsed the new Department of Labor rule regarding overtime pay for workers who acquire more than 40 hours a week. Basically, it raises the threshold for those salaried workers who currently work for unpaid overtime.

Previous to this rule, which goes into effect in December 2016, if you made more than $23,660 per year, you were exempt from overtime pay. The DOL has doubled that amount, so if you're salaried and make less than $47,476, you get overtime pay when you work more than 40 hours. And this amount will be revisited every 3 years to make adjustments based on cost of living and average salary wages.

Another big plus is that exemptions for salaried workers who have managerial duties are also stopped. Which means (and this is close to home since my wife is a manager at her job) that employers will either have to compensate managerial workers for overtime, or limit them to a strict 40 hour work week.

Either of which is fine for us. I'd be happy with my wife either being paid for her 50-hour work weeks, or being home at dinner time and on weekends.

This is a good thing, and a fair thing, and I only hope we continue to see workers protected by their government.

Hey, it ain't so bad to see a lame duck president still doing good things for us working Americans!

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