4 Million More Workers Could Be Eligible For Overtime Pay Under New Biden Rule

A new federal rule to expand overtime protections to millions of workers now excluded under current law has been finalized, the Biden administration said Tuesday.

The Labor Department’s regulation would ensure that salaried workers who earn less than $58,656 per year would automatically be entitled to overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week, starting in 2025. What’s known as the “overtime salary threshold” would then be updated every three years, starting in 2027, to account for inflation.

The agency estimated that the change would extend the overtime law’s coverage to an additional four million workers, meaning they couldn’t be forced to work extra hours without their employers paying a premium.

Julie Su, the Labor Department’s acting secretary, said updating the regulation was about basic fairness.

“This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time,” Su said in a statement. “Too often, lower-paid salaried workers are doing the same job as their hourly counterparts but are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay. That is unacceptable.”

Most hourly workers are entitled to time-and-a-half pay when they log over 40 hours, which discourages employers from working them too much. But whether salaried workers can get overtime pay depends on how much they earn and what their job duties are. Employers have an incentive to pile work onto those without overtime protections, since the extra work is done essentially for free.

The current overtime salary threshold is just $35,568, set by the administration of former President Donald Trump. Salaried workers, such as retail store managers, must earn less than