President Obama's rule change would require companies to pay workers overtime if they make less than $50,000 a year -- currently that threshold is closer to $23,000 annually. That would make 80,000 Coloradans eligible for overtime pay.
Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill earlier this year that would have raised the state’s overtime-exempt threshold by a similar amount. The state’s major business groups all lobbied against that policy. They argued companies would be forced to shift salaried workers to part-time hourly positions to avoid unmanageable overtime costs.
Labor unions and progressive policy organizations are hailing the proposed rule change, which has to go through a sixty day comment period before taking effect.