(UNDATED) – Millions of American workers will now be eligible for overtime pay under a new federal rule finalized Wednesday.
The Labor Department now allows full-time salaried workers to earn overtime if they earn up to 47-thousand-476 dollars a year.
Jayme Sellen, Director of Government Affairs with the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, says the increasing the overtime exemption will have a dramatic impact on employers as well as their workers.
“That means that anybody who doesn’t make that salary is, most likely, going to have to go from a salary position to an hourly position and then be paid overtime if they go over that 40 hours.”
Sellen says that could mean a loss of productivity or result in a compression between supervisors, managers and other workers.
“Some salaried individuals are going to have to go back to being hourly, and that’s kind of demoralizing for some individuals.
The current over time threshold is $23,660.
The Labor Department plans to update the threshold every three years to ensure that it keeps pace with inflation.
