As labor day approaches, the Department of Labor is readying to give several million Americans a much-needed boost to low-paying, salaried positions. Employers could end up paying 6.1 million more workers overtime if the Department of Labor moves ahead with a proposal to change salary regulations to adjust for inflation, according to the National Law Journal.

The change, adjusted for inflation, would make employees who make $984 or less a week on a salaried basis eligible for for overtime pay.

Businesses are currently required to pay salaried workers overtime if they make $455 or less per week.

The findings were discussed “Increasing the Overtime Salary Threshold Is Family-Friendly Policy,” a report from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

President Barack Obama has requested that the DOL make a plan to  bring overtime pay to more salaried employees. The DOL hasn’t yet decided on an exact figure for the threshold. Economists to the White House have suggested the $984 threshold,  which the Economic Policy Institute also backs.

The proposed threshold increase mostly would benefit blacks, Hispanics and women in the workforce, who tend to make up a large portion of the middle and lower-middle class population,  as well as workers who are younger than 35 years old or have limited education.

 

By Hypatia Livingston

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."Writer, thinker, researcher, philosopher.

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