Coming Changes to Overtime Laws
On March 13, 2014 President Obama signed a memorandum for the Secretary of Labor relating to updating and modernizing overtime regulations. The main thrust of this is to address people who are classified as managers who are exempt from the overtime rules. Under current law in order to be considered exempt as a manager a person’s salary must be greater than $455 a week ($23,660 annual). To be exempt some of their work must be considered supervisory but there is a lot of leeway and some may spend most of their day
doing manual, clerical or technical work with few management duties and yet still be exempt. People who are not exempt are governed by legal requirements that employers pay time-and-a-half for time worked beyond a 40-hour work week.
How much this threshold increases and whether or not the requirement to be considered management are changed remains to be seen and will probably not take place for quite a while. When President Bush increased the limit to $455 a week in 2004 it was about a year and a half process.