Department of Labor Announces Final Rule on Overtime
Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees under the FLSA
On May 18, 2016, President Obama and Secretary Perez announced the publication of the Department of Labor’s final rule updating the overtime regulations.
Key Provisions
The Final Rule focuses primarily on updating the salary and compensation levels needed for Executive, Administrative and Professional workers to be exempt. Specifically, the Final Rule:
- Sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South ($913 per week; $47,476 annually for a full-year worker);
- Sets the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (HCE) subject to a minimal duties test to the annual equivalent of the 90th percentile of full-time salaried workers nationally ($134,004); and
- Establishes a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels every three years to maintain the levels at the above percentiles and to ensure that they continue to provide useful and effective tests for exemption.
Additionally, the Final Rule amends the salary basis test to allow employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the new standard salary level.
The effective date of the final rule is December 1, 2016. The initial increases to the standard salary level (from $455 to $913 per week) and HCE total annual compensation requirement (from $100,000 to $134,004 per year) will be effective on that date. Future automatic updates to those thresholds will occur every three years, beginning on January 1, 2020.
Although the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reviewed and approved the Final Rule, the document has not yet been published in the Federal Register. The Final Rule that appears in the Federal Register may contain minor formatting differences in accordance with Office of the Federal Register publication requirements. The OMB-approved version is being provided as a convenience to the public and this website will be updated with the Federal Register’s published version when it becomes available.
*Information provided by Department of Labor.
How Does This Affect Members
- The original version of the new rule included a minimum salary level of $970 per week or $50,440 – so the minimum threshold was dropped slightly in the final version
- There is no exemption for nonprofits
- It is important to note that under the rule salaried employees can now be “overtime eligible” but nothing in the rule requires employers to change employees' pay to hourly from salaried, even if the employees' classification changes from exempt to overtime eligible.
Additional Resources
- Implementation Options
- Department of Labor Overview
- Department of Labor Fact Sheet for Nonprofits
- Deparment of Labor Guidance for Nonprofits
- Department of Labor Comparison Chart (Current, Proposed, & Final Regulations)
Questions
We encourage Council members looking to learn more about how this rule change will affect their organizations, to contact our Legal Affairs Team at legal@cof.org with any questions.
