Make less than $55,000? Labor Department wants you to start getting overtime pay
Some 3.6 million workers would receive overtime pay under a newly proposed by the Department of Labor.
The change would guarantee eligibility for extra pay for most salaried workers earning less than $1,059 per week, or 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,” Acting Secretary Julie Su said in a statement. “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.”
Currently, the threshold for earning overtime is $684 a week, or $33,568 a year. Under the new proposal, the threshold would also get automatically updated every three years based on workers’ earnings, Insider reported.
President Barack Obama had previously attempted to raise the overtime threshold to $47,476 in 2016 but that was blocked by a federal court. The latest proposal has not been finalized. Comments will be taken over the next 60 days with possible finalization by April 2024.