Trump will decide if millions of workers are eligible for the payment of overtime

Democratic senators are asking the Trump administration to follow a plan to expand the payment of overtime to millions of workers now that the future of the reform is not clear.

The rule established by former President Joe Biden would make much more workers eligible for payment of time and a half when they work more than 40 hours in a week. But a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump during his first presidency blocked the validity last year, and the Trump administration has chosen not to defend the rule in the Court in appeal, at least for now.

On Wednesday, a dozen senators led by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). He wrote to Trump’s Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer, and urged him not to “go back” or “manned” the reforms, warning that it would be a betrayal of the promise of Trump’s campaign to boost the working class.

“If President Trump thinks genuinely that” people who work overtime are among the citizens who work the most in our country, “he must protect or even expand this rule,” the senators wrote in their letter, citing Trump’s own words of the path last year.

Many modestly paid workers, such as retail stores, work extremely long hours But do not obtain any additional payment beyond your base salary, even if you register 70 hours in a week. Biden administration sought to change that for raising significantly What is known as the “salary threshold” of extra time, the level below which the majority of salaried workers are guaranteed by the payment of overtime according to the law.

The threshold was in only $ 35,568 due to the policy established by the first Trump administration. The Biden rule would increase it to $ 58,656 and then indexed for inflation, thus extending extra time protections to a Estimated 4 million workers. As a result, employers would have to pay those workers more or limit their hours at 40 and give them more free time.

Tom Williams through Getty Images

With the rule linked to the Court, the Trump Department of Justice presented a motion in April to stop an appeal aimed at keeping it alive. The Administration wrote that “it intends to reconsider the rule”, which indicates that they can water or kill it completely, leaving the low and low salary threshold in its place.

“This refusal to defend the extra time rule in the judicial flies in the face of President Trump’s campaign promises to help workers,” Warren and his colleagues wrote. “It is particularly cruel as President Trump and the Republicans of Congress work to force his”Bill Big Beauty Bill“That it would be the greatest transfer of wealth in a single bill of American working class to billionaires that this country has seen.”

The situation is, in many ways, a repetition of Trump’s first term. His predecessor, Barack Obama, had tried aggressively expand the payment of overtime just to be hindered by a conservative judge. After winning the White House in 2016, Trump left Obama’s extra time rule and established a much softer reform that raised the threshold but benefited many less workers. That is the frame that remains in place today.

The main extra time proposal of Trump these days is to eliminate taxes on it. This campaign promise has become part of the reconciliation package of the Republicans of the Congress known as the “Big and Hermoso Law”, which is being negotiated between the Chamber and the Senate. The Senate version would establish a maximum tax deduction of $ 25,000 for the payment of overtime, with the benefit decreasing for high income from $ 150,000 of income.

If that proposal becomes law, employees who work long hours could have a higher salary to take home due to deduction. But it is the overtime salary threshold that helps determine who is eligible for the payment of time and a half in the first place. With a lower threshold, less workers would benefit from the tax reduction that Trump is promoting.

The Democrats said in their letter that abandoning the reform of Biden “would steal” to additional wages and time with their families.

“To repeal this rule would be a great blow to working families throughout the country and it is another way in which Republicans continue to function with working class values, but govern according to the desires of billionaires,” they wrote.