May 20, 2016—The U.S. Department of Labor on Tuesday issued a final rule for the nation’s overtime regulation.
The rule will raise the minimum salary threshold from $23,660 to $47,476 per year to qualify as exempt from overtime requirements; raise Americans’ wages by an estimated $12 billion over the next 10 years; extend overtime protections to 4.2 million additional workers who are not currently eligible; update the salary threshold over three years; raise the “highly compensated employee” threshold from $100,000 to $134,004 for an employee to not be eligible for overtime; and allowing bonuses and incentive payment to count toward up to 10 percent of the new salary wage.
Under the new rule, employers will be required to raise the salaries of employees to above the salary level to maintain exempt status, pay overtime in addition to current salary, or evaluate and realign hours and staff workload.
The new rules will take effect Dec. 1, 2016. More information can be found here.
