In a letter to leaders of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship yesterday, ABA urged lawmakers to support the Protecting Workplace Advancement and Opportunity Act, a bill that would nullify a proposed rule by the Department of Labor to dramatically increase the salary threshold for employees to be exempt from overtime. The letter came in advance of a committee hearing on the rule today.
As proposed, the rule would raise the overtime threshold from $23,660 to $50,440 — a 113 percent increase –for all employees nationwide, regardless of regional differences in cost of living. It also calls for the threshold to be re-evaluated and adjusted annually.
ABA has aggressively opposed the rule, submitting comments to the DOL, meeting with representatives from the Office of Management and Budget and collecting feedback from bankers across the country on the rule’s consequences, particularly for community banks and their employees. Despite advocacy efforts by ABA and others, however, the association pointed out that “DOL is not taking seriously the public’s concerns with its proposal… it is clear that [the DOL] is not willing to reconsider the rule in a meaningful way without Congressional action.”
