Comment Period Open for DOL’s Proposed Salary Increase

By Sharon Gold

The Office of the Federal Register officially published the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) raising the salary minimum for exempt workers that we discussed last week.  The NPRM proposes to raise the minimum salary for exempt workers to $35,308 per year ($679 per week), from the current minimum of $23,660 per year ($455 per week).  The NPRM also raises the highly compensated minimum to $147,414 per year, up from the current minimum of $100,000.  Once a proposed rule is officially published, the 60 day comment period is open.  Employers have until May 21, 2019 to comment.  The link to comment is available here.

If the Rule is finalized, it is estimated that 1.1 million workers will have their salaries raised to the minimum or will be eligible for overtime.

DOL Releases Much Awaited Proposed Rule Raising Salary Minimum to $35,308 – Employers Have 60 Days to Comment

By Sharon Gold

On Thursday, March 7, 2019, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) released the much anticipated Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) that significantly raises the minimum salary for exempt workers from $23,660 to $35,308.  It is estimated that if this rule is finalized, more than a million workers will either become eligible for overtime pay or have their salaries raised to meet the minimum.

Employers will recall that in late 2016, a mere few days before the salary minimum was supposed to be raised to $47,476, a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule.  Since that time, the DOL issued a Request for Information about the salary rule in 2017.  More than 200,000 employers and individuals commented.  In addition, the DOL had six in-person listening sessions in connection with the Request for Information.  The DOL indicated

Proposed Revisions Pertaining to Federal Overtime Regulations

By Chelsea K. Painter

On Tuesday, June 30, 2015, in an attempt to “modernize and streamline” the regulations on exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (“FLSA”) minimum wage and overtime pay requirements, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM)” which focuses primarily on increasing federal overtime pay regulatory coverage to nearly 5 million people by raising the minimum salary threshold required to qualify for the FLSA’s “white collar” exemption. Specifically, the Department proposes to:

1. Set the standard salary level at the 40^th percentile of weekly earnings for full-time salaried workers ($970 a week; or $50,440 a year) in 2016;
2. Increase the total annual compensation requirement needed to exempt highly compensated employees (HCEs) to the annualized value of the 90^th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers ($122,148 annually); and
3. Establish a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels going forward so as to ensure a useful and effective test for exemption.

 

The Department’s regulations have generally required each of the following three tests to be met for the white collar exemptions to apply: 1) the employee must be paid a predetermined, fixed salary that is not subject to