DOL proposes to overhaul its overtime rules

The Department of Labor issued the much anticipated proposed revisions to its overtime regulations.

Proposed Increase To Minimum Guaranteed Salary For Exempt Employees

The proposals will increase the minimum guaranteed salary that (most) exempt employees must receive from $455 per week ($23,600 per year) to $679 per week ($35,308 per year).

The DOL anticipates this increase will result in 1-million currently exempt employees losing their overtime exemptions, in other words, having to be paid overtime. This compares to the Obama Administration’s 2016 proposal to increase the minimum salary to $913 per week ($47,476 per year), which was anticipated then to result in 4.6-million exempt employees losing their exemptions, in other words, having to be paid overtime.

Proposed Increase to Highly-Compensated Employees

The proposals will increase the minimum guaranteed salary for employees in the Highly-Compensated Exemption from $100,000 per year to $147,414 per year. The DOL anticipates this will convert 201,100 workers into non-exempt employees who must be paid overtime.

Inflationary Adjustments

In contrast with many commentators’ expectation, the proposed rule does not provide for automatic adjustments to the minimum salary to, for example, keep with inflation. Instead, the DOL proposes to revisit these numbers every 4 years through further rulemaking. 

Other Changes

Other proposed changes to the federal overtime rules include a proposal to, now, permit up to 10% of the required minimum salary to be satisfied by the payment of nondiscretionary bonuses and commissions:

(T)he Department proposes to permit nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the standard salary level test for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions, provided that such bonuses or payments are paid annually or more frequently. Such payments may include, for example, nondiscretionary incentive bonuses tied to productivity and profitability.

The DOL also proposes that employers will be able to make a 1-time annual “catch-up” payment to ensure employees exceed the required minimum salary.

Finally, the Department proposes to permit employers to make a final “catch-up” payment within one pay period after the end of each 52-week period to bring an employee’s compensation up to the required level. Under the proposal, each pay period an employer must pay the exempt executive, administrative, or professional employee 90 percent of the standard salary level ($611.10 per week), and if at the end of the 52-week period the salary paid plus the nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) paid does not equal the standard salary level for 52 weeks ($35,308), the employer would have one pay period to make up or the shortfall (up to 10 percent of the standard salary level, $3,530.80). Any such catch-up payment would count only toward the prior year’s salary amount and not toward the salary amount in the year in which it was paid.

Anticipated Litigation

As with previous wage-hour regulatory proposals, these have already been greeted with numerous promises of litigation.

Comments

The DOL has invited comments from the public within a 60-day period.

Source: DOL’s proposed rule “Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees,” DOL RIN 1235-AA2 (3/7/19).