The prospect of new Department of Labor regulations has small businesses across the country scrambling to reclassify their employees. This summer, the DOL is expected to issue new rules that include raising the eligibility ceiling for overtime pay from its current $23,660 annually to as high as $50,440. This pay threshold the DOL is planning to set doesn’t account for regional disparity or geographical differences across the country, instead lumping high-cost-of-living areas like New York City and San Francisco in with lower ones like Birmingham, Ala., or Buffalo, N.Y. Some legal experts are predicting that rule changes expanding the definition of who’s entitled to overtime pay, as well as widespread minimum wage hikes and increased regulation of independent contractors, will create a tsunami of employee lawsuits. This is causing companies to look very closely at whether employees are classified correctly as hourly or salaried. Read more here.
