Business groups expect the Labor Department’s forthcoming overtime proposal to be more palatable than rules sought by the prior administration, but worker advocates say it doesn’t go far enough to protect Americans when they work more than 40 hours a week, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Labor Department is expected to release its proposed rule as soon as this month. It would set a new salary threshold, below which, in most cases, workers must be paid time-and-a-half regardless of their role in the firm. Interest groups and labor attorneys expect the level to be near $35,000 a year. That would be an increase from the $23,660 threshold set in 2004, the last time it was raised, but be below the $47,476-a-year level President Obama’s administration sought in 2016. A federal judge halted that rule from being implemented in December 2016.
