It’s been in the works for months, but on Wednesday it becomes official: The Obama administration is making millions of workers eligible for overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week. Currently, only workers making salaries of less than $23,660 a year—$455 a week—automatically get overtime pay when they work extra hours. Effective December 1, that number will double to $47,476, which is less than the “about $50,400” the president announced last summer, but still enough to directly cover an additional 4.2 million workers.
On a call with reporters Tuesday, Labor Secretary Tom Perez said the reform was meant to address “both underpay and overwork.”
“The overtime rule is about making sure middle-class jobs pay middle-class wages,” Perez said. “Some will see more money in their pockets … Some will get more time with their family … and everybody will receive clarity on where they stand, so that they can stand up for their rights.”
In addition to the 4.2 million workers who will automatically become eligible for overtime pay, more than eight million more are expected to get overtime because their employers will no longer be able to dodge the rules by calling them managers even though little of their work is managerial.
That includes workers like one cited in Obama’s email announcing the change:
As an assistant manager at a sandwich shop, Elizabeth sometimes worked as many as 70 hours a week, without a dime of overtime pay. So Elizabeth wrote to me to say how hard it is to build a bright future for her son.
It’s a shame the Obama administration didn’t stick with a new threshold of more than $50,000, but doubling the existing, pitifully low threshold and updating it every three years, as is included in the new rule, is a major advance for millions of workers. And as always, it’s a reminder that a Democratic president who’s prepared to use every aspect of government can do a lot, even with a Republican Congress blocking so much.
This blog originally appeared at DailyKOS.com on May 18, 2016. Reprinted with permission.
Laura Clawson has been a Daily Kos contributing editor since December 2006. Labor editor since 2011.
