An employee paid on a salary basis must be paid at least $455 per week to be exempt from overtime pay requirements. For a 40 hour work week this comes to $11.38 per hour. Of course, being paid a salary does not automatically mean that an employee is exempt from overtime pay requirements: the employee must still meet one of the occupational classifications.
President Obama has been considering raising the minimum salary threshold for an employee to qualify as exempt from overtime pay. A recent poll showed an astounding 73% of those polled supported raising the salary threshold; 65% supported raising the threshold to $75,000 per year. You can read about the poll here, and a discussion of it at the Daily Kos.
Overtime pay requirements should be expanded and for at least the following reasons: (1) Americans are working more and more yet find themselves struggling increasingly to get ahead; (2) increasing overtime pay requirements would strengthen American families, because it would give the bread-winners opportunity to make more money; and, (3) it is fair. There's not much concern for fairness for people who work for a living in a job that would be concerned about overtime pay, but that, along with other things, needs to change.
Lexington, Kentucky overtime lawyer Robert Abell helps individuals and employees recover the overtime and wages they've earned but not been paid; contact him at 859-254-7076.
