State 'overtime threshold' rule would boost pay for thousands
A new "overtime threshold" rule, unveiled Wednesday by the state's Department of Labor & Industries, would gradually make more than a quarter million Washington workers eligible for overtime pay by 2026.
The proposed rule will update the threshold to 2.5 times the state minimum wage -- set to rise to $13.50 an hour in 2020 -- and will be the highest standard in America. The current threshold, unchanged since 1976, is just $23,600 a year.
"The overtime threshold is to the middle class what the minimum wage is to low wage workers," said Nick Hanauer, Seattle entrepreneur and founder of Civic Ventures, who has long advocated measures that would grow the middle class.
"At the peak of the vitality of the middle class in America, in the 1960's and 1970's, over 60% of salaried workers and all hourly workers were entitled to overtime pay. For salaries workers, the number is now about 7%."
The new rules would bring the figure back up to 44%.
"Today, if you earn more than $23,600 and someone pitches you a fake title like assistant manager, you can be required to work 70 hours a week with no additional pay," Hanauer added. The practice is, he argued, "rife across the economy."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/state-overtime-threshold-rule-would-boost-pay-for-thousands/ar-AACrYlT
