Overtime Regulations Updated

The Department of Labor (DOL), under Secretary Elaine Chao, has revamped overtime regulation with the “Fair Pay” initiative. With an effective date of August 23, the updated laws are a welcome change. As long as such rules exist, they should be easy to follow and understand, and should be easily enforced, reducing litigation, which is costly to both employees and employers. DOL has set up a <a href="
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/main.htm”>website explaining the updates.

The new rules will strengthen overtime rights for 6.7 million American workers, including 1.3 million low-wage workers who were denied overtime under the old rules. This is done mainly by increasing the threshold at which a worker is no longer guaranteed overtime rights from an extremely low annual pay of $8,060, set back in 1975 to $23,660 per year, as Dr. Kirk Johnson points out in a recent study. Those who may lose over time rights are those who now fall into the “highly compensated” category—over $100,000 per year.

The As Heritage Foundation scholar Paul Kersey has said, “Empowered, informed workers are the first line of defense against dishonest employers who seek to evade the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The new regulations reflect this.”

Some may question whether we should have overtime laws at all, but as long as we do, it is difficult to argue against changes that make such laws simpler and easier to understand.