DOL aims to raise OT salary threshold to $35k.

White-collar employees earning up to $35,308 per year would be eligible for overtime pay under a proposed rule issued last month by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Release of the eagerly anticipated proposed rule caps two years of false starts and hand-wringing. The new overtime rule is meant to replace Obama-era rules that were blocked by the courts in 2016 before they ever took effect. The new threshold faces a 60-day comment period. It is tentatively set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2020.

What it means: If the new rule is enacted, exempt administrative, executive and professional employees earning $35,308 per year ($679 per week) or less will be eligible for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a workweek. That marks a roughly 50% increase over the current salary threshold of $23,660 per year, a level that has been in place since 2004.

If finalized, the change would mean that at least one million additional white-collar employees will suddenly be reclassified and qualify for overtime pay. The rule does not require congressional approval.

Employers were generally pleased that the DOL decided to not make any changes to the so-called duties test, which analyze whether the employee's duties fall within the classifications for one of the exemptions (administrative, executive and professional). Changing the duties test would have required employers to walk...