The typical American is working more hours per week — especially during the COVID pandemic — and yet only a fraction of employees qualify for overtime pay.
More than half of full-time American employees work at least 41 hours a week, according to a Gallup survey. About 18 million of them toil more than 50 hours each week, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Economic Development.
Many young workers can be forgiven for not knowing, but a workload of more than 40 hours in a week has long been considered “overtime,” worth 150% of the normal wage starting at hour 41. These days, though, just 15% — or three out of every 20 workers — qualify for overtime pay.
That’s a marked change from the era leading into the mid-1970s, when overtime pay was the norm. More than 60% of salaried employees qualified for the extra income in 1975, making their access to extra pay four times more likely than it is today.
In the 47 years since, mortgages and rents in much of the country have soared, college tuition has followed suit, and retirement savings have shriveled for many Americans. So it is worth asking a simple question on behalf of the nation’s workers: What happened to our overtime pay?
The easy answer is that the income threshold for people to qualify for overtime pay hasn’t come close to keeping up with inflation or the cost of living since Richard Nixon was in the White House.
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