Judge strikes down overtime pay hike for 4.2 million workers

U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant’s ruling affects an estimated 4.2 million workers who would have been eligible for time-and-a-half wages for each hour they put in beyond 40 a week.

[…]

The rule, released by the Obama administration in May 2016, would have nearly doubled the threshold at which executive, administrative and professional employees are exempt from overtime to $47,476 from $23,660.

[…]

“This significant increase would essentially make an employee’s duties, functions or tasks irrelevant if the employee’s salary falls below the new minimum salary level,” Mazant said.

In other words, too many workers would have been eligible for overtime under the new benchmark even if they performed executive, administrative or professional functions.

Continue reading:  Judge strikes down overtime pay hike for 4.2 million workers

Commentary by The Secular Jurist:  The reasoning behind this decision warrants much scrutiny.  The judge did not say that the new overtime rule for exempt and non-exempt employees was somehow illegal.  Instead, he struck it down because of the effect it would have.  That, to me, sounds like a political statement – not an impartial judicial assessment – because the intent of the new rule was to pay overtime for more workers.

Related story:  Trump to cut pay raises for government workers