Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water: PA Takes Charge—Raising White Collar Exemption Salary Threshold
Proclaiming it an effort to strengthen the middle class in Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf announced this week a proposal to modernize the Commonwealth’s outdated overtime rules to increase pay for nearly a half million workers—he’s instructed the Department of Labor & Industry (“DOLI”) to update the white collar exemption overtime regulations and more than double the salary threshold necessary to be exempt from overtime. Sound familiar?
As you remember, in 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a final regulation that would have increased the minimum salary amount required to be exempt from $23,660 per year to $47,476 (from $455/week to $913), and installed an automatic escalator to adjust that amount every 3 years. Though it threw the employer world for a loop when issued, a federal court enjoined and then struck the regulation down. Although many employers took measures to implement the new federal rule, many more did not—and ultimately breathed a long sigh of relief when the rule died. It may be safe to now take Pennsylvania employers off of that “relief” list.
To read the full blog post, please click here.