Proposal means workers earning up to $970 a week would receive time and a half for extra hours as president addresses loophole that left many ineligible

Barack Obama has launched a push for salaried workers earning nearly US$1,000 a week to receive overtime pay, with the president declaring that too many Americans are working long hours for less than they deserve.

The long-awaited overtime rule from the US labor department would more than double the threshold at which employers can avoid paying overtime, from $455 a week to $970 a week by 2016. That would mean salaried employees earning less than $50,440 a year would be assured overtime if they worked more than 40 hours per week, up from the current $23,660 a year.

“We’ve got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded,” Obama wrote in an article for the Huffington Post. “That’s how America should do business. In this country a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.”

To keep up with future inflation and wage growth the proposal would peg the salary threshold at the 40th percentile of income, individuals familiar with the plan said. They requested anonymity in return for discussing the proposal ahead of the official announcement. The president has been scheduled to promote the proposal during a visit on Thursday to La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Obama’s proposal aims to narrow a loophole that the president has long said some employers exploit to avoid paying overtime.

Employees who make above the salary threshold can be denied overtime if they are deemed managers. Some work gruelling schedules at fast food chains and retail stores, but with no overtime eligibility their pay may be lower per hour than many workers they supervise.

The existing salary cap, established in 2004 under George Bush, has been eroded by inflation and now relegates a family of four making just above the cap into poverty territory. Obama has long charged that the level is too low and undercuts the intent of the overtime law.

The proposed changes will be open for public comment and could take months to finalize. They can be enacted through regulation, without approval by the Republican-led Congress.

Although the labor department estimates the proposal would raise wages for five million people, other estimates are far higher. The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal thinktank, has said a threshold of $984 a week would cover 15 million people.

“This is by definition middle-class people. This reverses decades of neglect,” said the EPI’s president, Larry Mishel, adding that the proposal would also likely create jobs for hourly workers.

Under the current threshold only about 8% of salaried workers are eligible for 150% of their pay rate when they work overtime. The EPI estimates that doubling the salary level would make up to 40% of salaried workers eligible.

Many Republicans have opposed Obama’s plans to increase the threshold, arguing that doing so would discourage companies from creating jobs and dampen economic growth. Senator Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Senate’s labor panel, has derided the idea as designed “to make it as unappealing as possible” for companies to create jobs.

The US Chamber of Commerce said on Monday that Obama’s plan “will negatively impact small businesses and drastically limit employment opportunities. Additionally, many reclassified employees will lose benefits, flexibility, status and opportunities for advancement.”

Obama, in the article, argued the original exemption had been intended for highly paid, white-collar employees but now punished lower-income workers because the government has failed to update the regulations. He said the proposal would be good not only for workers but also for employers who already paid their employees what they deserved, because they would no longer be undercut by competitors who paid less.



“Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do exceptionally well? Or will we push for an economy where every American who works hard can contribute to and benefit from our success?” Obama said, setting up a populist argument that Democrats are likely to embrace in the run up to the 2016 presidential election.