WASHINGTON - Later today, U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Thomas Perez is slated to deliver a speech in Ohio where he’s expected to release the new federal overtime rules employers have been preparing for over the past year and a half. It is believed that the new rules will double the current salary threshold under which all employees must be paid overtime for any hours worked over 40 per week.

"NACS encourages the administration and Congress to withdraw the regulations, re-examine the basis on which they were devised and re-issue them with a new threshold that takes into account the economic realities facing the convenience store industry," said NACS Senior Vice President of Government Relations Lyle Beckwith.

The current standard set in 2004 is $455 per week; the new rule is going to set that number at $913 per week. For annual salary context, that is an increase from $23,660 per year to $47,476 per year. Furthermore, the rule takes the unprecedented step of setting this threshold to adjust  every three years based on the same national salary methodology they used for this update.

Though slightly lower than the DOL’s draft threshold of over $50,000 per year, NACS continues to believe the department erred in the methodology it used to establish this new salary threshold. The DOL failed to recognize the regional disparity in salaries and the unique marketplace that retail establishments occupy. These have been key considerations in previous DOL rulemaking procedures on the overtime rules. To be clear, NACS supports the effort to update the threshold so that it reflects today’s economic situation, but the DOL went too far with this rule.

According to reports, employers will have just over seven months to determine how they will comply with the rule and how to possibly reclassify 4.2 million workers who are expected to be made automatically eligible for overtime pay. The implementation date of the new rule is December 1, 2016.