On this day last year, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction on the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed overtime rule increasing the threshold below which employees must be paid overtime. It was a stunning setback to a rule that only a couple of months before looked ready to become the law of the land.
Currently, employees must be paid a salary of at least $23,660 ($455 per week) to be exempt from overtime rules. Otherwise, federal law requires they be paid 1½ times their hourly rate for each hour over 40 they work in a week. A rule set to go into effect Dec. 1, 2016 would have essentially doubled it to $47,476 ($913 per week), making many employers concerned about the impact it would have had on their cost of doing business and their ability to manage workers.
Court rulings and the presidential election have drastically changed those plans. Kathryn Moody at the news website HR Dive looks at how we got here.
