DOL Proposes To Increase Exempt Salaries to $55K/year from $35K/year

 At the end August, the federal Department of Labor announced that it was proposing on September 8 to amend 29 C.F.R. 541.600 of the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations to increase the minimum salary for exempt employees from approximately $35K/year to $55K/year.  Under the proposed regulation, employees could not be classified as exempt from the FLSA (under the white collar exemptions for executive, administrative and professional employees) unless they were paid a guaranteed salary of at least $1,059 per week.  In other words, employees would be entitled to be paid overtime compensation whenever they work more than 40 hours in a week if they are paid less than $1,059 per week.   The minimum threshold for highly compensated employees will similarly be increased to $143,988/year from the current $107K in the proposed amendment of 29 C.F.R. §541.601.    The proposed regulation would also automatically adjust the minimum salary threshold every three years.  The DOL will accept comments about the rule for 60 days (or until November 7).  A similar regulation was proposed near the end of the Obama Administration, but was enjoined by a federal court and was later withdrawn.