December 8, 2021

The Honorable Martin J. Walsh

Dear Secretary Walsh:

We write to urge the Department of Labor (DOL) to take strong action to restore overtime pay
protections for millions of workers by raising the overtime salary threshold substantially higher
than what was proposed during the Obama administration and by tightening the overtime
duties test to crack down on growing abuses by corporations.

Weak Overtime Protections Are Worsening Work-Family Balance and Slowing Rehiring. The
40-hour work week—and the right to time-and-half pay for hours beyond that—was a historic
labor protection, passed during the New Deal to reduce overwork and to spread employment
to more workers. But in recent decades the share of full-time salaried workers eligible for
overtime pay based on their earnings has plummeted from 63% in the 1970s to less than 15%
today under the Trump administration’s weak overtime rule that raised the overtime salary
threshold to a meager $35,568 a year.

The weak overtime rule is worsening two serious problems facing our labor market: overwork
and underemployment. It is worsening overwork and poor work-life balance by allowing
employers to force large numbers of low- and mid-level salaried workers, many of them
women, to work 50-, 60-, even 70-hour weeks for no extra pay. Moreover, by allowing
employers to pile extra, unpaid hours on current employees, rather than hiring additional staff,
it is undermining the job creation we need to help the millions of workers still jobless after the
pandemic return to work. Though there is a great deal of public discussion about labor
shortages right now, the fact remains that there is a gap in our labor market of over 5 million
jobs, and strong overtime protections will be crucial for filling that gap as COVID, and the labor
supply issues that have accompanied it, abate.

Corporate Giants Are Abusing Weak Overtime Protections. Corporate giants like dollar stores1
and Amazon2 are notorious for abusing the weak overtime rule by deliberately understaffing
and instead relying on low-paid, salaried managers working unpaid long hours to staff their
operations. As Paige Murdock, a Dollar General store manager from Eliot, Maine explained,
“Because our overtime hours are free for the company, they make us work 60 to 70 hours a
week. I was working so much I couldn’t make it to my church. My family was always asking,
‘Why aren’t you at home, Mom?’ And most of my hours weren’t even spent managing the
store, but instead stocking shelves or running the cash register since we never had enough
staff.”3
Weak overtime protections also hurt the many workers who are involuntarily forced into part-
time jobs for lack of better options. Today, there are 4.4 million workers who want full-time
work but have had to settle for part-time schedules. When employers can no longer overwork
those who are exempt because of lax standards, they will be forced to spread work and hours
across their workforce. Restoring overtime protections is especially important right now, as
many returning workers report employers demanding excessive hours.

The Obama Overtime Rule Didn’t Go Far Enough. The overtime salary threshold that was
proposed by DOL during the Obama administration—and later replaced by the weak Trump
rule—would have been a significant step forward, but it wasn’t enough. It would have
protected just 33% of the salaried, full-time workforce—only about half of the 63% that was
protected by the salary threshold in the 1970s.

A Demand for Bolder Action for Workers. There is now broad recognition among elected
leaders and economists about the need for bold action to rebuild protections for the working
and middle class. President Biden has replaced President Obama’s $9.004 and $10.105 minimum
wage proposals with strong support for the Fight for $15. We need the same for overtime.
In the states, Washington State is leading the way by phasing its overtime threshold up to
$83,356 by 2028,6 an estimated $70,600 in today’s dollars. California’s threshold will increase to
$62,400 in 2022,7 and is projected to reach $68,404 by 2028. Massachusetts has introduced
legislation that would raise its threshold to $83,000 by 2026,8 and advocates in New Jersey are
pushing for increases to $78,000 by 2024.9 We need similar bold federal action.
A Much Higher Salary Threshold. DOL should phase up the salary threshold to much nearer to
the 55th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers nationally10—the historic high-water
mark for overtime protections, which the Economic Policy Institute projects would translate to
$73,551 in 2021 and $82,745 by 2026.11 That would be roughly the level of the boldest state
action and would restore overtime protections for the two-thirds of the salaried workforce that
were protected in the past.
A Tighter Duties Test. A new overtime rule should also crack down on corporate abuses by
tightening up the rule’s toothless duties test. A tougher test, such as that used by California,
should ensure that, regardless of how much they earn, only workers who truly spend most of
their time on high-level duties or managing staff are exempt. Similarly, a tougher test should
reflect the reality that with employers’ growing use of algorithmic systems to micro-manage,
many salaried workers do not truly exercise discretion and independent judgment and should
not be exempt.
Now is the time to stand up for millions of low-income and middle-class workers and defend
the 40-hour workweek with much bolder overtime protections.

2
Sincerely,

A Better Balance
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO
Autistic People of Color Fund
Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action
Better Life Lab, New America
Blind Justice Legal Services
Border Workers United
Center for American Progress
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research (CLEAR)
Center for Popular Democracy
Center For Progressive Reform
Center for Worker Justice
Central Ohio Worker Center
Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center
Civic Ventures
Coalition of Labor Union Women, AFL-CIO
Coalition of Social Justice
Communication Workers of America (CWA)
Connecticut Voices for Children
Economic Policy Institute
Empowering Pacific Islander Communities
Equal Justice Center
Family Values@Work
Getman, Sweeney & Dunn, PLLC
Greater Boston Legal Services
Head Law Firm, LLC
Hispanic Federation
Institute for Women's Policy Research
Interfaith Worker Justice of East Tennessee
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Jobs With Justice
Justice at Work
Justice at Work (PA)
Justice for Migrant Women
Justice in Motion
Kakalec Law PLLC
The Kelman Buescher Firm
Kentucky Equal Justice Center

3
Keystone Research Center
La Colaborativa
The Lazzaro Law Firm, LLC
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Legal Aid at Work
Legal Aid Justice Center
Legal Aid of Marin
Long Beach Alliance for Clean Energy
Lynn United for Change
Maine Center for Economic Policy
Massachusetts Communities Action Network
Massachusetts Public Health Association
Meizlish & Grayson Inc
Michigan League for Public Policy
Michigan United
Missouri Jobs with Justice
Mobilization for Justice, Inc.
Moms Rising
National Black Worker Center
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Council for Occupational Safety and Health
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
National Council of Jewish Women
National Employment Law Project
National Employment Lawyers Association
National Immigration Law Center
National Legal Advocacy Network (NLAN)
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Women's Law Center
NELA/NY
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
New Jersey Citizen Action
New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty
Nichols Kaster, PLLP
North Carolina Justice Center
Northeast Ohio Worker Center
Northwest Workers' Justice Project
One Fair Wage
Outten & Golden
Oxfam America
Policy Matters Ohio
Pride at Work
Public Citizen

4
 Public Justice
Public Justice Center
ROC United
Sciencecorps
Service Employees International Union
Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Sojourners
Sommers Schwartz, PC
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers
of America (UAW)
Towards Justice
Transport Workers Union of America
Unemployment Law Project
United Food and Commerical Workers International Union (UFCW)
United Steelworkers
Werman Salas P.C.
Winebrake & Santillo, LLC
Women's Law Project
Working Washington
Workplace Fairness
Workplace Justice Project, Loyola College of Law

Cc: Deputy Secretary Julie Su

1
“‘Everything Going the Wrong Way’: Dollar Stores Hit a Pandemic Downturn,” N.Y. Times (Sept. 30, 2021),
available at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/business/dollar-stores-struggling-pandemic.html
2
“Former Amazon Warehouse Manager Sues for Overtime Wages,” N.Y. Times (June 11, 2017), available at
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/11/technology/amazon-lawsuit-overtime-pay.html
3
Rebecca Dixon & Heidi Shierholz, “Time to Expand Overtime Pay” (Nov. 1, 2021), available at
https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/time-to-expand-overtime-pay/
4
The White House of President Barack Obama, “Fact Sheet: The President’s Plan to Reward Work by Raising the
Minimum Wage” (Feb. 13, 2013), available at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-
office/2013/02/13/fact-sheet-president-s-plan-reward-work-raising-minimum-wage
5
The Guardian, “Obama urges Congress to increase minimum wage to $10.10 an hour” (Mar. 8, 2014), available at
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/obama-congress-increase-minimum-wage
6
Wash. State Dept. of Labor & Indus., “New state overtime rules will restore protections for thousands of workers”
(Dec. 11, 2019), available at https://www.lni.wa.gov/workers-rights/_docs/Overtime-rules-news-release.pdf
7
PR Council, Davis & Gilbert LLP, “New York and California Minimum Exempt Salary Obligations in Effect,” available
at https://prcouncil.net/resources/new-york-california-minimum-exempt-salary-obligations-effect/

5
8
2021 Mass. SD475, “An Act updating overtime protections to protect the Commonwealth's middle class workers,”
available at https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/SD475
9
New Jersey Policy Perspective, “Valuing Our Time: Strengthening New Jersey’s Overtime Law,” (Oct. 24, 2019),
available at https://www.njpp.org/reports/valuing-our-time-strengthening-new-jerseys-overtime-law
10
The 2015 Obama proposal stated that “the end points of the historical range are approximately the 35th and
55th percentiles of weekly earnings for all full-time salaried workers, respectively.” Obama Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking, 80 FR 38515 (July 6, 2015), at 38534.
11
These projections were based on 2019 data from the Current Population Survey. 2019 data was used to avoid
the unusual but temporary circumstances of the COVID recession and its aftermath.