Overtime Pay Rules

US non-exempt workers must receive 1.5 times pay over 40 hours weekly; exemption hinges on salary threshold and duties tests that courts keep rewriting.

Overview

The salary threshold separating exempt from non-exempt moved to about 35,700 dollars in 2020, and a 2024 attempt to raise it toward 58,600 was enjoined in court. The duties test, whether one genuinely manages or exercises independent professional judgment, misclassification under it, is where most litigation lives. California adds daily overtime after eight hours, stricter than federal law. For workers correctly classified, overtime is where schedules become money. Figures are approximate regulatory values in flux.