‘Highly Disruptive’: Proposed Overtime Rules Raise Concerns
Katherine Knott
September 6, 2023
Salaried employees who make $55,000 or less would be eligible for overtime under the Biden administration’s new proposal. Thousands of jobs at colleges and universities could be affected.
Thousands of employees at colleges and universities, including admissions officers, student affairs professionals and athletics staffers, could become eligible for overtime pay under a new proposal from the Biden administration.
Currently, salaried employees who make more than $35,568 a year and work in an “executive, administrative, or professional capacity” are exempted from receiving overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. The Biden administration wants to raise the salary cutoff for these “white-collar exemptions” to $55,068—a 55 percent jump that could expand overtime eligibility to 3.6 million salaried workers across all sectors of the economy.
The shift could mean big changes to lower-paid salaried jobs at higher education institutions, though faculty members and nonfaculty workers focused primarily on research wouldn’t be affected because of a teaching exemption in federal labor law. If the proposal becomes final, colleges and universities would have to increase the affected employees’ pay to exempt them from overtime or figure out how to track their hours. Making the employees hourly or raising their salaries could lead to tuition increases or service reductions, institutions have said.
