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Sherrod Brown Pushes Trump Administration On Overtime Pay
By: Andy Chow | Statehouse News Bureau
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U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is proposing a bill that would require overtime pay for any salaried worker making less than $51,064, a more than $15,000 increase to the Trump Administration’s proposed threshold.
The current overtime salary threshold is set at $23,660, Brown says his plan would make overtime pay available for more than 4.6 million more workers.
President Donald Trump has his own proposal to increase to the threshold to $35,303 a year.
Brown says that plan is a “betrayal to American workers” and sees this as an important issue in the 2020 presidential race.
“I’m convinced that come 2021 there will be new leaders in the country that have talked about this and have campaigned on this and one of the first things they’ll do is implement the overtime rule,” says Brown.
The Obama Administration released its own proposal of $47,476 in 2016. Brown toured the country with former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez to roll out that plan which was delayed by a court ruling.
Opponents say raising the overtime salary threshold to the Obama level would kill jobs. Supporters say it would create fairness by either paying for overtime or raising wages to avoid paying it.