Dive Brief:
- Think the new Department of Labor overtime rules are getting some attention? NBC News reports that the DOL has pushed back it final OT rules because tthe agency received 270,000 comments in response to a initial version.
- The new OT rules, which would affect about five million Americans, will likely be pushed into 2016, according to NBC.
- Right now, the threshold for white-collar salaried workers to earn overtime is $23,660, meaning that workers who earn more than that amount -- below the poverty line for a family of four - can't be paid at a higher rate if they work more than 40 hours a week or 8 hours in a day. The proposed revision would raise that to $50,440 for 2016, with the expectation that it would be indexed and rise according to an inflation or wage-related metric in the future.
Dive Insight:
The Wall Street Journal was the first media outlet to report on the delay, quoting a panel discussion member at an American Bar Association conference last week. Employers had been expecting the rule to go into effect late this year or early next, the Journal said.
If nothing else, a delay in the final new DOL OT rule will give employers an extension in planning on how the rule would affect them, since the details are fairly clear (though they may be changed in the final version, of course). Employers will likely get 60 days to implement the rules, experts said.
Employee supporters are hoping for a new final rule to go into effect in the first half of 2016, so Congressional opponents don't have extra time to "derail" the new rules, according to NBC and the Journal. The last time the OT rules were updated was in 2004.
