Last summer the Department of Labor released a new proposal for a change in overtime laws. Significantly, regardless of job duties, employees will have to earn$50,440 per year before they can be considered exempt from overtime. The change hasn’t been implemented yet (the proposed date is September 2016), but business owners are already in a panic.
Why? The previous threshold was only $23,660, so this throws a lot of jobs–an estimated five million, in fact–into the pot. This is a huge deal and will cause lots of problems for business owners and employees alike.
Guess who just figured it out? Congress. And boy, are they not happy. Walter Olson, at Overlawyered, pointed me toward statements by some congressmen that they are panicked about the new rule.
For example, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla) says, “We don’t have a set-hour kind of situation here; some kids work 12, 14, 16 hours a day, weekends, and I feel terrible that I cannot afford to give raises to the staff.”
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Gee, Congress, if only someone could introduce legislation to stop this horrible new rule. Until that happens, I’m laughing at Congress. And, in fact, I’d like to see a new rule introduced–one saying that before any additional employment regulation can be applied to the private sector, it has to be applied to Congressional staffs for at least a year. I think we’d see more business-friendly policies in that case.
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And, in fact, I’d like to see a new rule introduced–one saying that before any additional employment regulation can be applied to the private sector, it has to be applied to Congressional staffs for at least a year.
Interesting idea, but I guess they’d just exempt themselves…
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