Donald Trump’s major life goal at this point seems to be rolling back everything good President Barack Obama did for the country and its people—and now he’s coming for your overtime pay. Obama had sought to raise the overtime eligibility threshold to include millions more workers, a change that was supposed to go into effect in December but was blocked at the last minute by a judge. Now, of course—of course—Mr. Populist is rolling back Obama’s expansion. Trump’s Labor Department announced Tuesday that it would be doing something to the overtime eligibility threshold, but it’s not clear what, and they’re definitely not going to be raising the threshold to $47,000 like Obama proposed.
In the final days of the Obama administration, the Labor Department had appealed the judge’s decision blocking implementation of the raise, and Trump’s Labor Department agreed in court that it has the power to set the eligibility threshold. But Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta plans to use that power in a very different way than Tom Perez did under Obama:
On Tuesday, the department said in light of the pending appeal, it decided to issue a request for comments rather than skip immediately to rescinding or revising the rule.
The agency asked for input on whether the current threshold of $23,660 set in 2004 should be updated for inflation, and whether there should be multiple levels based on region, employer size, industry or other factors. […]
The department also asked employers to explain how they prepared for the rule to take effect and whether it has had an outsize impact on small businesses and particular industries.
The department said it was considering eliminating the salary threshold, leaving overtime eligibility to be based on workers’ job duties.
Mind you, the Obama administration already had a lengthy comment period and took 300,000 comments. But we know the Trump regime will be listening to comments from one set of people in particular: bosses who want to exploit their workers.
This blog was originally published at DailyKos by Laura Clawson on July 26, 2017. Reprinted with permission.
About the Author: Laura Clawson is labor editor at DailyKos.
