Democratic senators are calling on the Trump administration to follow through on a plan to expand overtime pay to millions of workers now that the reform’s future is unclear.
The rule put in place by former President Joe Biden would make vastly more workers eligible for time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. But a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump during his first presidency blocked it from going into effect last year, and the Trump administration has chosen not to defend the rule in court on appeal, at least for now.
On Wednesday, a dozen senators led by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Trump’s labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and urged her not to “roll back” or “gut” the reforms, warning it would be a betrayal of Trump’s campaign promise to boost the working class.
“If President Trump genuinely believes that ‘the people who work overtime are among the hardest-working citizens in our country,’ he should protect or even expand on this rule,” the senators wrote in their letter, quoting Trump’s own words from the trail last year.
Many modestly paid workers, such as retail store managers, work extremely long hours but don’t get any additional pay beyond their base salary, even if they log 70 hours in a week. The Biden administration sought to change that by significantly raising what’s known as the overtime “salary threshold” — the level below which most salaried workers are guaranteed overtime pay under the law.
