Recently, the Department of Labor proposed a rule to bring overtime up-to-date. If the proposal goes into effect, an additional 5 million white-collar workers are expected to benefit from overtime. The Department of Labor wants to hear your voice on this proposal and until this Friday, September 4, 2015, they are taking comments on the proposed rule.

Whether a worker receives overtime or not is determined by a three-part test. Under this test, the employee does not receive overtime when:

1. they are paid a fixed salary;
2. their salary is at least $455 a week (which equates to $23,660 a year); and
3. their job primarily involves executive, administrative, or professional duties.

Furthermore, there are exemptions for highly compensated employees who regularly perform executive, administrative, or professional duties and make at least $100,000 a year, including at least $455 a week via salary or fees.

The Department of Labor’s proposal would focus on the salary aspect of the three-part test. Instead of a stagnant number, the salary standard would be set at the 40^th percentile of weekly earnings for full-time salaried workers, which is expected to be about $970 a week, $50,440 a year, in 2016. For highly compensated employees, the standard would be set at the 90^th percentile, expected to be $122,148 annually.

This proposal would be a drastic change, but a necessary one. The salary threshold has only been updated twice in the last 40 years. As a result, only 8% of full-time salaried workers fall under the threshold. This is a stark contrast from 1975 when 62% of full-time salaried workers fell below the threshold. Under the Department of Labor’s proposal, of the five million new workers expected to qualify for overtime, 53% of them would have college degrees and 56% would be women.

These days, the few that do fall under the salary threshold for overtime likely fall under another threshold, the poverty line. The poverty line for a family of four is $24,008 a year, or $348 more than the overtime threshold. This means that, a worker making $460 a week could work 50 hours every week, receive no overtime pay, and be below the poverty line.

The Department of Labor’s proposal can still change and they want to hear from you on a wide variety of issues. The agency wants your opinion on the proposal to use the 40^th and 90^th percentiles, or switch to using changes in inflation to determine the salary threshold. They want to know whether the three-part test is working. First and foremost, they want to know what overtime pay would mean to you and your family.

Make your voice heard and make it clear that this is an important issue that has been ignored for far too long. Share your ideas on the proposal here and your story here. You only have until Friday, but please, don’t make the comments too long they would have to work overtime to read them all, and chances are they don’t get paid for that.

About the Author: The author’s name is Erik Idoni. Erik Idoni is a student at the George Mason University School of Law and an intern at Workplace Fairness.