New Federal Overtime Regulations Proposed

The Department of Labor regulations that dictate which workers may be classified as exempt from overtime pay are likely to be updated in the near future due to a directive from President Obama. The President is especially interested in seeing the minimum salary threshold for exempt “white collar” workers increase from its current level. The federal salary threshold is currently $455 per week and has not been raised since 2004, although some states have already instituted higher minimum salary requirements. While we expect to see some modification in this rule, it is not clear exactly how high the salary threshold might be raised or when such a revision would become effective.

We encourage you to review the classifications of your exempt employees to ensure that you are in compliance with the current guidelines and so that you will have a sense of what you may need to update when we do see the modification of the regulations.