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| Job approval is on the rise. |
Looks like President Barack Obama bitch slapped the unproductive Congress again.
And it seems like the Republicans and conservatives are having another temper tantrum over this.
The president signed an executive order today signaling that effective December 1, 2016, any worker who is making less than $47,000 a year in wage earnings will be eligible for overtime pay. only 7% of the working force gets overtime pay. Most Americans agree with this idea. Salaried workers will be eligible for overtime.
Cue the conservative outrage.
The unproductive Congress didn't pass any legislation that would help the middle class. The minimum wage hasn't been risen in ten years. If the Congress would have passed legislation that would adjust the cost of living to match the wages earned, things would be better for the working class.
The Republicans sit on their high horses complaining about the economy being in the tank. They complain that the working class isn't working under Obama. And in the same breathe, they don't want to pass any laws to make life better for the middle class.
The Department of Labor is finalizing a rule to update overtime protections so they can help millions more Americans. The final rule, which takes effect on December 1, 2016, doubles the salary threshold—from $23,660 to $47,476 per year—under which most salaried workers are guaranteed overtime (hourly workers are generally guaranteed overtime pay regardless of their earnings level). Additionally, this new level will be automatically updated every three years to ensure that workers continue to earn the pay they deserve.
Increasing overtime protections is another step in the President’s effort to grow and strengthen the middle class by raising Americans’ wages. This extra income will not only mean a better life for American families impacted by overtime protections, but will boost our economy across the board as these families spend their hard-earned wages.
This new rule takes into account input from 270,000 public comments and extensive outreach meetings with employers, business associations, small businesses, workers, worker advocates, non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and state and local government representatives. It will:
Raise the salary threshold from $23,660 to $47,476 a year, or from $455 to $913 a week. This doubles the current salary threshold while being responsive to public comments regarding regional variations in income by setting the salary threshold at the 40th percentile of full-time salaried workers in the lowest income Census region (currently the South). Tying the salary threshold to the lowest-wage region of the country has strong historical precedent in previous rulemakings.
Raise Americans’ wages by an estimated $12 billion over the next 10 years, with an average increase of $1.2 billion annually. At the same time, employers retain considerable flexibility in how they comply with the new rule, such as increasing salaries to at least the new threshold to keep positions that are primarily executive, administrative, or professional exempt from overtime pay; paying overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 in a week; or reducing overtime hours.
Extend overtime protections to 4.2 million additional workers who are not currently eligible for overtime under federal law. Others who may already be eligible for overtime will also benefit as the higher salary threshold will serve as a useful bright line test for workers—and their employers—to understand whether they are eligible for overtime. The number of workers in each state who will benefit from the rule can be found HERE.
Update the salary threshold every three years. The updates will ensure the threshold is maintained at the 40th percentile of full-time salaried workers in the lowest income region of the country. Based on projections of wage growth, the threshold is expected to rise to more than $51,000 with the first update on January 1, 2020.
Raise the “highly compensated employee” threshold – from $100,000 to $134,004 – above which only a minimal showing is needed to demonstrate an employee is not eligible for overtime. This upper threshold was designed to ease the burden on employers in identifying overtime eligible employees since it is more likely that workers earning above this high salary level perform the types of job duties that would exempt them from overtime requirements.
Respond to employers’ concerns by making no changes to the “duties test” and allowing bonuses and incentive payments to count toward up to 10 percent of the new salary level. Workers earning more than the salary threshold are still subject to the duties test to determine eligibility for overtime. In their comments to the proposed rule, employers argued that changing the duties test would be difficult and costly to implement, and the final rule leaves the existing duties test in place. Additionally, for the first time, employers will be able to count bonuses and commissions toward as much as 10 percent of the salary threshold.
It seems like Republicans rather see you work your ass off for little or no overtime pay. It seems like Donald Trump will probably speak out against it. It's likely Bernie Sanders will not mention this huge news to his trolls. It seems like Hillary Clinton will credit her husband for allowing Obama to come up with this idea.
Again, the Congress is unproductive. The three candidates running for president are too polarizing.
The opinions of most lawmakers is extremely low.
Conservatives are getting outraged over the most trivial things.
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