NEW YORK (AP) — A federal choose in Texas has blocked a brand new rule from the Biden administration that may have expanded entry to additional time pay to tens of millions extra salaried staff throughout the U.S.
In a Friday ruling, U.S. District Choose Sean Jordan sided with the state of Texas and a gaggle of enterprise organizations that argued the Labor Division exceeded its authority when it finalized a rule earlier this 12 months to considerably increase federal additional time eligibility for salaried staff.
Below the federal regulation, practically all hourly staff within the U.S. are entitled to additional time pay after 40 hours every week. However many salaried staff are exempt from that requirement — until they earn beneath a sure degree.
The Labor Division’s now-scuttled rule would have marked the most important improve to that cap in a long time. Employers have been required pay additional time to salaried staff who make lower than $43,888 a 12 months in sure govt, administrative {and professional} roles as of July 1 — and that was set to rise to $58,656 subsequent 12 months.
The Labor Division estimated that an extra 4 million lower-paid wage staff would develop into eligible for additional time protections within the first 12 months beneath the brand new rule. An extra 292,900 higher-compensated staff have been additionally anticipated to get additional time entitlements via separate threshold will increase.
Now, the earlier threshold of $35,568 — which was set in 2019 beneath the Trump administration — is poised to return into impact.
A spokesperson for the Labor Division didn’t instantly remark when reached by The Related Press Friday.
On the time of the rule’s finalization in April, appearing Secretary of Labor Julie Su acknowledged that the administration was “following through on our promise to raise the bar” — noting that it was “unacceptable” for lower-paid salaried staff to do the identical job as their hourly counterparts with no further pay.
This isn’t the primary time an additional time pay growth has been struck down in court docket. In 2016, an Obama-era effort to equally increase additional time pay eligibility was in the end shot down in court docket after going through pushback from some enterprise leaders and Republican politicians.