Business and trade organizations are seeking an extension to the 60-day comment period for the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposal to raise the minimum salary threshold at which workers are exempt from overtime. Currently, employees earning more than $35,568 are exempt from overtime rules, but the DOL’s plan would increase that to $55,068 with further automatic increases every three years.
As of now, the public comment period on the proposed rule is set to end on Nov. 7. A letter authored by the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity and signed by organizations, including FEDA, is asking for an additional 60 days to give the employer community enough time to pull together data and adequately respond to the proposal.
“The proposed rulemaking includes a nearly 55 percent increase in the minimum salary threshold and automatically updates the threshold every three years,” the letter states. “These are significant changes that will have a massive impact on the economy and millions of current and future workers. Additional time is needed in the comment period to allow the regulated community to analyze the rulemaking, fully assess the potential impact the changes will have on the economy, business operations and workers, and develop comprehensive comments.”
The full letter is available here.