The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has released an opinion letter addressing whether per diem expense payments for tools and equipment may be excluded from the hourly rate when calculating overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). (FLSA 2024-01, Nov. 8, 2024).

While the opinion letter doesn’t break new ground, it’s

In a strongly worded opinion, a federal judge in Texas held the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) likely exceeded its authority in implementing its Final Rule raising the minimum salary level requirements for executive, administrative, and professional (EAP) exemptions to the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). State of

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Final Rule raising the minimum salary level requirements for application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “white collar” exemptions is scheduled to take effect July 1, 2024. Lawsuits, however, have been filed seeking to invalidate and set aside the Final Rule and to block the increased salary thresholds from

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) unveiled its semi-annual regulatory agenda on December 6, 2023, which sets an April 2024 date for release of the agency’s anticipated final rule amending the regulations defining the “white collar” exemptions from the overtime and minimum wage requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The DOL released its

“When an employer, as here, decides to allow employees to retain some portion of an unused health insurance credit, it can permissibly structure the program to prop up the employee health plans without treating the full amount of the health credit as part of the FLSA regular rate of pay.”
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit: Health Insurance Opt-Out Fees Not Part of Regular Rate for Overtime Purposes

Reviving a security guard’s claim for overtime pay, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently reiterated that employers may not pay employees an artificially low regular rate of pay to avoid paying the proper amount of overtime. Thompson v. Regions Sec. Servs., Inc., 67 F.4th 1301 (11th Cir. 2023). The Eleventh Circuit oversees the

Affirming the dismissal of wage and hour claims against “big box” retailer Lowe’s, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that company bonuses, provided to employees following 2018 revisions to federal tax law, were rightly excluded from the “regular rate” used to calculate overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The Fourth Circuit

On the last day of 2020, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) ushered out the year with two new Opinion Letters. These may be the final two Opinion Letters of the Trump Administration and perhaps the last two for a while, depending on whether the Biden Administration continues the

Continuing the practice it reinstituted about two years ago, on March 26, 2020 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage Hour Division (WHD) issued three new opinion letters, each revolving around the “regular rate” that is used when calculating any overtime pay due to non-exempt employees for work performed in excess of 40 hours in a

When an employer permits its employees to participate in a bonus program offered by the employer’s client, based on the work performed for that client, those bonuses do not always qualify as “remuneration for employment” that must be included in the employee’s “regular rate” for purposes of calculating overtime pay due under the Fair Labor