How Obama's Reforms To Overtime Law Will Change People's Lives

[SunSeeker]

3. Yes, it is basically wage theft by the rich from the poor.

The overtime exemption was justified back in the day on the ground that it only applied to executives, who had control over their schedule and had the bargaining power to demand a higher wage as the hours got longer--or could hire more people to do the extra work. Plus, the threshold was much higher in 1975--it was $52,000 a year in today's dollars. But like the minimum wage, it was not tied to inflation, thus it steadily decreased over the years in real dollars, until it captures 88% of all workers today, as opposed to only 35% of all workers in 1975.

Exempting 88% of workers from overtime pay is horrible for the economy (workers have less spending money, thus less demand for goods), keeps businesses from hiring more workers (why hire another person when you can just double up the duties on a $24K/yr employee) and terrible for our society (workers have less time to spend with their families). It should be a crime.