Following the directive issued in March 2014 by President Obama, the U.S. Department of Labor published a proposed new rule in the Federal Register and is accepting comments through September 4, 2015. The new rule would extend overtime protections to nearly five million workers by raising the minimum salary threshold to $50,440 per year for employees to qualify for “white collar” exemptions in 2016, with automatic future adjustments. According to a 2013 report published by the Economic Policy Institute, in 2013 only 11 percent of salaried employees in the United States qualied for overtime pay. 

If enacted, the Department of Labor’s proposed changes would raise the overtime salary ceiling for qualied employees to sweep millions of Americans into the overtime system.

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