Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule to update federal overtime protections for American workers. In response, Lily Roberts, managing director for the Inclusive Growth department at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
Millions of American workers have been unfairly excluded from overtime pay because of an egregiously low standard set by the Trump administration in 2019. Without an appropriate overtime standard, employers have been able to make low- and middle-wage employees work more than 40 hours a week for no additional pay.
Today’s rule is the latest action in the Biden administration’s continued efforts to ensure that people are paid fairly for hard work. By quickly starting with a July 2024 update to the current threshold to account for inflation since 2019 and then raising the overtime eligibility salary threshold and setting that salary threshold to automatically update every three years, DOL is creating a fairer, more predictable system, in which workers know that their wages will keep up with routine increases in cost of living and employers can plan for future staffing needs.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sarah Nadeau at [email protected].