Beckley Register-Herald – Upwards of 60,000 West Virginians could benefit when new overtime rules go into effect Dec. 1, but businesses predicted employment casualties if a lawsuit halting the implementation isn’t successful. Read
The changes would extend overtime pay to full-time, salaried employees netting less than $913 a week, or $47,476 yearly. Additionally, the rules make it mandatory the threshold be updated every three years.
The Fair Labor Standards Acts defines overtime as any hours worked beyond a 40 per week and calls for employees to be paid time and a half of their regular pay rate.
The current threshold has not kept pace with inflation. “In 1975, the overtime salary threshold covered about 62 percent of all salaried workers, compared to just 8 percent today,” wrote Sean O’Leary, senior policy analysts at West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.
He explained had the threshold kept pace with inflation over the last four decades, it would be about $52,000 annually today. “The proposed threshold largely restores its lost value,” he said.
