SENATE News:WASHINGTON D.C. ― Today, U.S. Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) urged the U.S. Department of Labor to promptly extend overtime pay to millions of Americans who work long hours without fair pay.
Last year, the agency proposed an expansion of overtime pay protections that could benefit 5 million Americans, including 20,000 New Mexicans. The proposal would ensure overtime pay for salaried workers earning up to approximately $50,440 per year. Currently, only workers earning $23,660 or less are required to receive overtime pay, and that threshold has not been meaningfully updated since the 1970s.
In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, the senators called on the agency to move quickly to finalize the overtime pay proposal, adding that while the costs of education, childcare and retirement have risen steadily in recent decades, wages have remained virtually unchanged.
“As our economy continues to recover from the Great Recession, we, as a country, need to work on ways to help our economy grow from the middle out, not the top down,” the senators wrote. “But today, despite longer working hours and higher productivity, workers’ wages have remained virtually unchanged. Millions of people are working harder than ever without basic overtime protections. We applaud the Department of Labor’s move to update the overtime pay threshold, and we are writing to request that you quickly finalize the rule to ensure millions of workers are paid fairly for the hours they work.”
A copy of the letter is available here and below.
In addition to Udall and Heinrich, the letter was signed by U.S. Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)
