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How to improve on the current overtime pay
Overtime compensation refers to the financial returns that an employee who has worked overtime gets from the organization or employer as part of the employment preposition. One of the current issues that is being highly debated by various parties and agents is based on the executive orders by the Obama administration to raise the salary threshold which would enable workers get overtime pay. This feature article examines the problem with the current overtime compensation for employees at government or federal level and the how those problems can be solved.
A worker in the US must be paid not less than the set $7.25 per hour nationwide minimum wage.  The declining value of the federal minimum wage over time has resulted to most workers opting to work in overtime. The pay rate for overtime compensatory time is obtained by dividing an employee’s annual salary by 52 weeks x 40weeks which translates to 2080 hours. According to the current FLSA overtime compensation standards, salaried workers who automatically qualify for overtime are those who earn $455 per week and below. According to fact sheet #17A salaried workers who automatically qualify for overtime $455 per week and above are in some cases exempted from receiving overtime if they fall into one of following three categories: administrators, and executives and professionals.
One of the major problem with the current overtime compensation is that the overtime salary threshold per week is way too low. Employers may classify white-collar workers with low salaries slightly above the overtime threshold as either professionals, administrators, or executives and thus exempt them from overtime compensation.
For example, a fast-food restaurant assistant earning an annual salary of $24,000 who spends 95% of their time, running a cash register cooking fries or sweeping floors may be required by their manager to work 60 or 70 hours a week and get not overtime pay for it. In case they work for more than 64 hours they may be eligible for overtime pay but with an hourly rate that is below the federal minimum wage of $7.25. This is because the FLSA rules also exempts workers who are exempted from the overtime regulations to the minimum-wage regulations as well.
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