President Barack Obama will seek to help workers by updating regulations that exempt broad swaths of salaried workers from earning overtime wages, a White House official said on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Obama on Thursday will direct the United States Labor Department to look at overtime regulations and the salary threshold above which employers are not required to pay overtime for employees deemed to be managers and supervisors, said the official, the AP reported.
The threshold was last raised in 2004 to $455 per week, less than half of what it was almost 40 years ago on an inflation-adjusted basis, according to the AP.
Obama's move would bypass Congress through use of executive authority to review the country's overtime rules, the AP reported. It was part of a series of populist measures he was promoting ahead of the November midterm elections as Democrats try to appeal to voters and keep control of the Senate.
The anticipated proposal could have an immediate impact on the retail and fast-food industries, possibly making salaried restaurant managers and store supervisors eligible for overtime pay unless their salaries go up or their hours are reduced, according to the AP.
Low-level supervisors in healthcare facilities, such as hospital clerks and dietary directors, also could become eligible for overtime wages, experts said, the AP reported.
A salaried employee earning $455 for a workweek of 63 hours or more makes less than the federal minimum wage, according to the AP.
"The president believes that if you're making $25,000 a year and you're working 60 hours a week, you should be getting paid for the extra hours you work," Betsey Stevenson, a member of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said, the AP reported.
California had a higher threshold of $640 per week and was set to boost that to $800 per week in 2016, while New York's threshold was at $600 per week and will increase to $675 per week in 2016, the White House official noted, according to the AP.
