New DOL overtime rules detrimental small businesses

New DOL overtime rules

How about a great, random article to start the mood before jumping into the topic? Any student of history can spot a pattern that goes back to ancient times; the powers that be knew that the key to controlling the masses was to control the news outlets. In the old days, that meant having control of the gossipers; as time passed on, the name gossiper was replaced with the term reporter. Today’s reporters are only concerned with the number of eyeballs they can attract to a given story; it does not help that the people who hire them also encourage this behaviour. The press is the most potent weapon available; it can destroy a person even if he is 100% innocent. Mass media’s sole function is to manipulate the masses; think about it: it is not for the observer or the critical thinker; it’s for cows begging to be led to the slaughterhouse, hence the term mass media. If you want a good idea of what is really going on, you will read several sources not widely referenced by the masses and then use that (collective) data to paint a picture. Fiat Currency: Instruments of Mass Destruction

Do you have employees who are on salary? Do those employees ever work more than 40 hours weekly, for whatever reason? If the answer is yes to these questions, your world is about to get more complicated and probably more expensive.

Please stay with me. I need to get into the weeds, but just for a minute.

The current Department of Labor (DOL) overtime exemption threshold for “white collar” employees is anyone with a salary of at least $23,666 annually, or $455 per week. Exempt means the employer is not required to pay overtime if and when this class of employee works over 40 hours per week. This threshold applies to all businesses, regardless of size or number of employees.

Here’s the news: The DOL has announced that as of December 1, 2016, the overtime exemption threshold will double to $47,476 annually, or $913 per week. So, anyone receiving a salary of less than this new amount will soon convert to non-exempt status and must be paid overtime when working more than 40 hours a week.

The reason I’m concerned about this change is because of the size of the increase. I feared this new threshold is going to catch and hurt a lot of unaware small businesses in its net. So I recently took this concern to my small business audience in our online poll and asked if they knew about the new overtime exemption changes. Full Story