In response to Gov. Tom Wolf’s call to “modernize” Pennsylvania’s overtime rules, on June 23, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (L&I) proposed rulemaking to update the decades-old regulations applicable to three classes of overtime-exempt employees under the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA): executive, administrative, and professional (EAP). The proposal includes, among other changes, an increase in the salary thresholds to qualify for the EAP exemptions. The proposed weekly salary thresholds rise over three years (from $610 to $766 to $921), and would substantially exceed those currently set by of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ($455).

To many employers this will sound eerily similar to the final regulations the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued in 2016 and that were enjoined by a federal court days before they were set to go into effect. Those regulations would have significantly increased the weekly salary requirements for EAP employees to remain exempt from overtime (from $455 to $913 per week). Pennsylvania’s proposed changes are but the latest example of states and localities seeking to adopt more protective wage-and-hour legislation and regulations.

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