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Overtime Proposed Rulemaking Released

The Department of Labor (DOL) released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking altering the overtime pay regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  The proposal increases the minimum salary threshold to $55,068, up from the current $35,568, a 55% increase. The proposal also implements automatic increases to the threshold. The threshold will be updated every 3 years and tied to the 35th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time non hourly workers in the lowest-wage Census Region.  The comment period is 60 days.

Additionally, DOL is announcing a proposal to Define and Delimit the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales, and Computer Employees that would restore and extend overtime protections to many salaried workers. The proposal is currently available to the public on our website and will be followed by the publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register.

Specifically, the Department of Labor’s proposed rule would:

  • Increase the FLSA regulations’ standard salary level from $684 per week ($35,568 per year) to $1,059 per week ($55,068 per year)
  • Increase the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees from $107,432 per year to $143,988 per year
  • Restore overtime protections for U.S. territories, ensuring workers in those territories where the FLSA minimum wage applies have the same overtime protections as other U.S. workers
  • Automatically update earnings thresholds every three years so they keep pace with changes in worker salaries, ensuring that employers could adapt more easily because they would know when salary updates would happen and how they would be calculated
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