With the clock ticking, the business community is hoping
to scuttle the Obama administration’s plan to substantially boost the number of
workers who would receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours in a
week.

In June, Labor Department proposed an update to overtime
rules that would increase the salary threshold from $23,660 to $50,440 for guaranteed
overtime pay. In 1975, the overtime threshold covered more than 60 percent of
salaried workers. Today, only 8 percent are covered.

But business interests, particularly the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the National Retail Federation, call the rule “another example of
the administration being completely divorced from reality and adding more
burdens to employers and expecting them to just absorb the impact.”

Because the rule exempts white collar workers in a rather
vague manner, the number of workers who would benefit from the rule ranges from
5 million to 13.5 million.

The public comment period for the proposed rule ends on
Friday, Sept. 4, and labor unions are busy trying to reach the 160,000 mark for
submitted petitions supporting the change before the deadline. On the other side,
business is trying to generate as many negative comments as possible as they
engage in a strategy to run out the clock.

Beyond the standard review process, the rule is expected
to face a court challenge as corporate lobbyists hope to delay implementation
past President Obama’s last day in office. In response, the White House is hustling
to complete the process and develop a final rule before the end of 2016.

As this showdown plays out, it’s clear that the rule
would have a substantial long-term impact.

According to Politico, the new threshold wouldn’t be
indexed to overall price or wage increases, as many liberals had hoped.
Instead, it would be linked permanently to the 40th percentile of income. That
would set it at the level when the overtime rule was first created under
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“Without Congress, I’m very hard-pressed to think of a
policy change that would potentially reach more middle class earners than this
one,” said Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe
Biden who’s now a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.