As Yoga Berra said
it’s like deja vu all over again
Back in mid-2016, the US Dept of Labor under President Obama proposed that workers making less than about $50k/yr should get overtime. Those proposed rules were then put on hold by a federal judge in Texas back in January 2017.
President Trump’s DOL has now proposed that workers earning less than about $35k/yr be paid overtime.
Yes, it’s still possible that this latest effort will also face a court challenge. But the writing is on the wall: the days of the $23k/yr threshold are waning.
Prudent employers should be deciding whether to bump the pay of their lowest paid salaried workers to more than $36k/yr. That is, if you want to avoid paying overtime. If you don’t mind paying overtime, then you simply need to be prepared to explain to those workers why they have to now punch a clock. Either way, you should also be prepared to explain to the $36k/yr worker why her nearly identical $34k/yr co-worker gets paid overtime while she gets none.