A proposed Labor Department rule suggests ways employers can avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible this year.Let's just drop the doublespeak and change the name to the Business Department, eh?The department's advice comes even as it touts the $895 million in increased wages that it says those workers would be guaranteed from the reforms.
Among the options for employers: cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible.
The department says it is merely listing well-known choices available to employers, even under current law.
"We're not saying anybody should do any of this," said Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank. (emphasis mine, insanity theirs)