Ahead of the final ruling, the Economic Policy Institute said, “The new salary threshold will provide millions of workers with higher wages or more time with their families. It will also give hourly and part-time workers the opportunity to pick up work that might have otherwise been done during overtime by their full-time, salaried colleagues.”
CNBC
May 20, 2016
A group of worker advocates in a separate May 18 press call countered by repeating one of the administration’s leading contentions: even if employers find ways to avoid paying time and a half to newly eligible workers, employees still win. “We think that a couple of million workers might just outright get a salary increase to put them over the threshold,” Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, said on the call. “A lot of people will have their hours reduced so that their employer doesn’t have to pay them overtime. And when they do that, it is going to create jobs.”
Bloomberg
May 20, 2016
This chart, from the liberal Economic Policy Institute, illustrates how the number of salaried workers eligible for overtime has declined over time.
Pacific Standard
May 20, 2016
This week, the Department of Labor announced an update to overtime regulations, changing the salary threshold from $23,660 to $47,476. It’s a pretty substantial change, and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released some numbers that break down who it will affect most.
Lifehacker
May 20, 2016
EPI’s Richard Rothstein joined WAMU public radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show” to discuss segregation in U.S. schools and the 62nd anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
Diane Rehm Show
May 19, 2016
Using a different methodology, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimates that at the new overtime salary threshold of $913 per week (2015 dollars), 12.5 million workers will directly benefit, including 4.9 million workers who will gain access to overtime protection for the first time, and 7.6 million workers who will see their overtime protection strengthened, many of whom may be misclassified as exempt from overtime protection.23
Office of the New York City Comptroller
May 19, 2016
For example, their roles typically need to be administrative, executive, professional or managerial. Currently, to be excluded from overtime, they also must earn at least $23,660 a year, or $455 a week, a figure that was last adjusted in 2004. Before that, the rate had been $250 a week since 1975. Had that amount been adjusted for inflation, it would be more than $52,000 in today’s dollars, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The Labor Department calculated that 4.2 million workers would be affected by the higher overtime level, but the Economic Policy Institute estimated that the higher pay threshold would give 12.5 million more employees, or 23 percent of salaried workers, a new or stronger right to overtime pay.
The New York Times
May 19, 2016
The liberal Economic Policy Institute estimates that 4.9 million people will become newly eligible for overtime, slightly more than the government’s figure, and that an additional 7.6 million will benefit because they have previously been denied overtime pay as white collar workers. Yet with salaries below the new threshold, they will now have a stronger claim to overtime pay.
The Associated Press
May 19, 2016
And when you look at who will benefit from the rule change, it’s not exactly a snapshot of a Donald Trump voter. Take a close look at the chart below. It depicts a May Economic Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The institute’s researchers estimated that as many as 12.5 million workers stand to gain some income or added free time thanks to the new rule.
Proponents of the measure—which include liberal economists such as those working for the Economic Policy Institute, labor unions and employee rights organizations—say forcing employers to pay these workers overtime will encourage some to take the cheaper option. These employers will raise some of their workers’ wages to the new $913 a week, no-overtime standard. Some will give additional hours to existing lower-paid workers already eligible for overtime pay or hire new workers to fill the gap. Either way, workers will get more money or free time.
The Washington Post
May 19, 2016
Many employees see the changes as a welcome pay boost for work they’re already doing. Some 146,000 workers in California will be impacted by the new federal rules, the White House said Tuesday. “It will have a positive effect, a substantial positive effect on worker and part of that will mean a transfer of dollars from corporate profits and executive salaries to workers,” said Ross Eisenbrey, the vice-president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which studied the effect of a higher overtime pay threshold.
Los Angeles Times
May 19, 2016