New overtime rule could raise wages for 4.7 million Millennial workers

  This summer, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed a new rule that will give 13.5 million workers, including 4.7 million Millennials, a raise if it becomes a regulation. The new rule, which determines who is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, more than doubles the annual salary threshold for guaranteed overtime pay from $23,660 to $50,440. This change would guarantee that workers with salaries below this level earn overtime pay—the equivalent of 1.5 times their hourly wage—whenever they work more than 40 hours per week. The fate of the rule will be decided by the Department of Labor after a comment period ends on September. 4, 2015.

Brendan Duke: How overtime reform will grow the economy from the middle out

  Our overtime system is broken. Just 18 percent of full-time workers have guaranteed overtime rights today. And unless the Department of Labor modernizes the overtime rules, 0 percent will have them by 2030 if current trends continue.

  Without guaranteed overtime rights, employers can easily misclassify workers who spend most of their time at the cash register or restocking shelves as overtime-exempt “executives” or “professionals” and avoid paying them overtime—1.5 times their hourly wage or the equivalent for salaried workers.