With a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) expected this month on new overtime regulations from the Department of Labor (DOL), Bloomberg Law is reporting that the threshold for exemption from overtime pay will rise from the current $23,660 to $35,000 a year.

dol-schedules-overtime-rule-public-sessionsThe threshold originates in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which created overtime pay back in 1938 for any hours worked beyond 40 in a week. Some states, including California, now mandate that overtime be paid for any time worked beyond 8 hours in a single day.

The DOL has not yet commented on the report by Bloomberg Law, but any increase in the threshold will obviously make many more employees eligible for overtime pay.

In 2016, an overtime rule from the Obama administration would have raised the threshold to $47,476 a year, but a federal district judge in Texas blocked the rule’s implementation just days before it was to take effect. It still languishes awaiting review by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans after the Trump administration asked that the court put a halt to the process while it designs a new rule.

Some have speculated that, should the Trump-era rule be blocked by lawsuits and a Democrat elected president in 2020, the $47,476 rule could easily be revived.