The long-anticipated rewrite of the Obama-era overtime rule has been submitted to the White House and its Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review prior to the issuance of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), it has been reported.
This Trump-era rule is expected to set the salary threshold at which employees can be considered exempt from overtime pay at somewhere in the mid-$30,000s-a-year. The previous rule raised the bar all the way to $47,476 annually, but it was given the kibosh by a federal district judge.
Interestingly, that rule is still under review by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, and could become law. The issuance of a new NPRM would thwart that possibility.
Observers of the Department of Labor (DOL), where the proposed rule would originate, expect the NPRM to be released sometime in March, which would open a 90-day window for review by OMB. (There is no timetable for the draft proposal sent recently to the White House.) A March release would be in keeping with the DOL’s latest regulatory agenda.
The current exemption threshold is $23,660 annually, which was established in the first term of the George W. Bush presidency. The threshold, and other overtime rules regarding work responsibilities and overtime exemption, spring from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, also known as the Wagner Act.