As President Donald Trump begins a second term, the salary level required to exempt an employee from overtime (sometimes called the “overtime rule”) has reverted back to the lower 2019 levels the Department of Labor instituted during Trump’s first term. Still, employers that would have been most affected by the Biden DOL’s now-halted overtime rule should be aware that the “duties tests” for exempt status still apply.
When a judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas blocked the DOL’s newly issued salary rules for exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act last November, it reversed a ruling that increased the minimum salary threshold required for an employee to qualify for overtime-exempt status. This would have increased the number of employees who were eligible for overtime compensation.
The Texas court’s action enjoined the DOL rule nationwide. This means the salary thresholds for exempt status under the FLSA return to the levels in effect as of June 30, 2024: $684 per week for exempt executive, administrative, and professional employees, or $107,432 per year for exempt highly compensated employees.
The Trump administration’s DOL likely won’t seek changes to the salary thresholds for exempt status—and if it does, the changes likely would be much more modest.
In highly competitive markets such as San Francisco or New York, the...
Housing Department clarifies online comments about interim housing units In response to netizens' comments on a social media platform about victims of the fire incident in Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po...