Boosting overtime: Obama calls for broader coverage

WASHINGTON (AP) — They're called managers, and they sometimes work grueling schedules at fast food chains and retail stores. But with no overtime eligibility, their pay may be lower per hour than many workers they supervise.

With those employees in mind, the Obama administration is proposing making up to 5 million more people eligible for overtime – its latest effort to boost pay for lower-income workers.

These workers would benefit from rules requiring businesses to pay eligible employees 1½ times their regular pay for any work beyond 40 hours a week.

"We've got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded," President Barack Obama wrote in an op-ed published Monday in The Huffington Post. "That's how America should do business. In this country, a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay."

Employers can now often get around the rules: Any salaried employee who's paid more than $455 a week — or $23,660 a year — can be called a "manager," given limited supervisory duties and made ineligible for overtime.

Yet that would put a family of four in poverty. Obama says that the level is too low and undercuts the intent of the overtime law. The threshold was last updated in 2004 and has been eroded by inflation.