The United States labour secretary has decided to amend the rules governing the payment of overtime hours, enlarging the pool of workers eligible for such remuneration to more than 1 million people. Until now, only people earning less than $23,660 per year were entitled to overtime pay, whereby they should be paid 1.5 times their normal hourly wage when they work more than 40 hours within a week. The change proposed by Alexander Acosta increases the threshold for overtime pay to $35,000 per year. Intended to update the Fair Labor Standards Act, the new threshold will be subject to public discussions for 60 days and is due to come into effect at the start of 2020.
The latest proposal seeks to offer a compromise between, on the one hand, the more stringent employers who would like to preserve the status quo, and proposals by the Obama administration on the other. In 2016, just before leaving the White House, Barack Obama’s team proposed introducing a much more ambitious threshold for overtime eligibility, of $47,500 dollars per year (see article n°9665).
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