White House to make more workers eligible for overtime: Bloomberg
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions more U.S. workers will be eligible for overtime pay under a draft rule to be announced by the federal government as early as Tuesday, Bloomberg News said on Monday, citing an Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Department of Labor would raise the minimum salary for exempting employees who work more than 40 hours a week from the requirement to be paid overtime to $970 a week, or about $50,440 a year, in 2016, Bloomberg said.
Many employees now earning as little as $455 a week, or $23,660 a year, are ineligible for overtime because they are classified as managers.
The increase in the salary limit would make overtime available to 15 million more workers, Bloomberg said, citing an estimate by Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research body partly funded by unions.
"It would provide a better work-family balance for millions of workers, giving some higher pay for working overtime and others reduced hours without any reduction in pay," Eisenbrey told Reuters earlier this month.
A number of Republican members of Congress have said expanding overtime protections could hinder job growth.
(Writing by Eric Walsh; Editing by Eric Beech)
