The president is calling for new rules governing who can receive overtime. It could make wages a central issue in the presidential campaign, but Florida business groups are skeptical of the proposal.
While the campaign rhetoric is still just a dull and distant roar, the topics that will shape the 2016 presidential contest are beginning to take shape. But the candidates themselves are only part of the conversation. The sitting president always sets the stage—willingly or not—where nominees make their pitch. And Monday evening President Barack Obama announced a plan that could frame the debate over wages.
Before this, “salaried workers had to earn less than $23,660 in order to be automatically eligible to earn over time,” Archibald Thomas explains. He’s an employment lawyer in Jacksonville.
Thomas says during the George W. Bush administration the overtime cut off for salaried workers was set right around $24,000 dollars a year. So, workers making a salary above the line wouldn’t automatically collect time-and-a-half for work beyond forty hours. But President Obama wants to double the threshold to about $50,000 a year.
“My understanding is that the effect of that would be to bring overtime pay to somewhere around 5 million more workers,” Thomas says.
But many business groups aren’t happy with the idea. James Miller from the Florida Retail Federation says his organization is still reviewing the proposal, but it’s wary of the plan.
“Our concerns are where retailers come up with this extra money needed to satisfy this new requirement—particularly the thousands of small businesses in this state,” Miller asks. “Retailers will have to come up with the increases that are going to come with the overtime rules. And does that mean higher prices? Are they going to have to pass that along?”
The Obama administration wants to have the rule in place by the time he leaves office, but challenges to the plan are likely to be heard in Congress and the courts. And with presidential candidates vying for election, the discussion may find its way to the court of public opinion as well.
