Sudden Death for Obama OT Rules

The Washington Free Beacon covers the Trump administration’s decision not to defend President Obama’s proposed overtime regulations.

The Trump administration will not defend President Obama’s proposed regulations that would have doubled the threshold at which companies must pay white collar workers overtime.

On Friday the Department of Labor announced that it would not appeal a temporary injunction that blocked it from enforcing regulations that would have forced companies to grant overtime to any employee earning less than $913 a week, double the existing baseline of $455. A federal judge appointed by President Obama blocked the regulation in November, saying that the department misinterpreted Congress’s intention for overtime rules set forth in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“If implemented, the overtime rule would have forced employers to face tough decisions on how to cut labor costs in order to afford the rule’s huge costs and paperwork burden. Instead of getting a pay increase, most workers would have seen their hours cut, flexible work arrangements eliminated, benefits reduced, and diminished prospects for promotion,” Kovacs said in a release. “The way to help workers increase financial security and improve job opportunities is to lift heavy-handed government mandates off of America’s job creators.”

Read the full article at The Washington Free Beacon.