President Obama’s bid to to expand the number of low-level supervisory workers in country eligible for overtime could reach those earning up to $50,000, according to a Senate ally.
Overtime proponent Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent eyeing a 2016 presidential bid, revealed that Obama could raise the salary cut-off for overtime from the current $23,600 to $50,000, a potentially historic jump.
Sanders on Wednesday night told members of the progressive group Democracy for America that Obama revealed to him that Labor Secretary Tom Perez is drawing up the change which could be announced “within a couple of months.
He called the $23,600 cut-off for overtime by supervisors “crazy.”
“We want that number to be raised very, very substantially. So if you are making $40,000, $45,000, $50,000 a year, and you are working 50-60 hours a week in a so-called supervisory position, you should be able to get time and a half,” said Sanders, who added:
“I can report to you, hearing from the president is that his people are working on this now and my guess is that within a couple of months you will hear a change in the Labor Standards Act which will enable a whole lot of folks to get time and a half who today are not.”
The Washington Examiner’s Sean Higgins has quoted officials setting the salary cutoff at $42,000.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
