Millions more workers would be eligible for overtime pay under new federal rule

[Southern Dad]

Correct, but EXECUTIVE is the very first of those descriptors used, and it is used throughout, and so, in the business, we simply refer to it as the executive exemption.

You might but we don't. In business around here it is known as the Administrative Employee Exemption, which ironically is how the Dept of Labor classifies it.

 

[Southern Dad]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

That poor, poor, record profit margin every single year employer.


It's one or the other. Either pay salaried managers enough to live off of, or pay them for time worked past 40 hours.

and dock them for time under forty hours... Glad we see eye to eye. Can't pay them for time not worked.

 

[cpwill]

In the 70s, this was considered the wage that people who are classified as executive exempt deserved. In the 70s. Did doom and gloom strike then? Economic ruin as a result?

Hm.

1. The 70s generally, yes, are remembered as a period of economic trouble and turmoil.
2. That's a pretty unfungible standard. Shouldn't the standard for a policy be "does this protect and expand individual liberty", or, at least, "is this beneficial or not" instead of "as long as it doesn't cause the Great Depression"? I mean, think about what that standard would mean elsewhere: "Hey, let's just slash Social Security in half - it's not like the entire retired populace will starve to death." "Let's create a $25 minimum wage for Retail Employees - they won't all lose their jobs." Policy proposals that do damage to the people they purportedly seek to help are not justified by the fact that it is possible to think of proposals that could hurt them much more.

Further, what is the caliber of person, today, that you would expect to be pulling 6 figures?

:shrug: depends on what they are doing. You would have to be pretty much the awesomest shoe-shiner in the world, for example; but you would only be a mediocre petroleum engineer.

 

[KevinKohler]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

and dock them for time under forty hours... Glad we see eye to eye. Can't pay them for time not worked.

Well, obviously. If they are no longer salaried, they are only going to get paid for "time in".

 

[Southern Dad]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

Well, obviously. If they are no longer salaried, they are only going to get paid for "time in".

See, I'm good with that. However, each salaried worker that I've asked about it today, tells me they would rather remain salary exempt than become hourly non-exempt. It could just be because we've got a bunch of hard chargers who work very hard to get their areas in order so that they can work smarter, not harder.

 

[cpwill]

Ask the people that instituted it in the 30s.

Glad to do so. Let's hop in the way-back machine and see what those early proponents of the Minimum Wage were trying to do:

...Leading supporters of legal minimum wages, certainly the most influential economists among them—Ely, Commons, Henry Rogers Seager, Sidney Webb, John B. Andrews, and others—were Progressive reformers, and many were AALL leaders. Progressive-Era marginalists—Alfred Marshall, John Bates Clark, Frank Taussig, Philip Wicksteed, and A. C. Pigou—generally opposed minimum wages (Leonard 2003b).

More surprising than Progressive support for legal minimum wages was the fact that Progressive economists, like their marginalist interlocutors, believed that binding minimum wages would result in job losses. What distinguished supporters of minimum wages from their marginalist opponents was how they regarded minimum-wage-induced job loss. Whereas the marginalists saw disemployment as the principal cost of binding minima, indeed as the reason to oppose minimum-wage legislation, minimum-wage advocates regarded minimum-wage-induced disemployment as a social benefit—a eugenic virtue of legal minimum wages. Sidney and Beatrice Webb ([1897] 1920, 785) state it plainly: “With regard to certain sections of the population [“unemployables”], this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but actually of social health.”...

The problem, you see, was that those daggum ole Free Market Business People were doing the wrong thing. Specifically, they were hiring blacks. The original controversy over the minimum wage centered on what to do about what Sidney Webb called the "unemployable class." By which he meant "negroes" and (and, this has always been one of my favorite Progressive phrasings) "the Mongrelized Asian Hordes". It was Webb's belief, shared by many of the progressive economists affiliated with the American Economic Association, that establishing a minimum wage above the value of the "unemployables" worth would lock them out of the market, accelerating their elimination as a class. "Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites," Webb observed, "the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners."

Sociologist E. A. Ross put it succinctly: "The Coolie cannot outdo the American, but he can underlive him." Since the inferior races were content to live closer to a filthy state of nature than the Nordic man, the savages did not require a civilized wage. Hence if you raised minimum wages to a civilized level, employers wouldn't hire such miscreants in preference to "fitter" specimens, making them less likely to reproduce and, if necessary, easier targets for forced sterilization. Royal Meeker, a Princeton economist and adviser to Woodrow Wilson, explained: "Better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind."

We got the Davis-Bacon Act for the same reason. Darn ole blacks and immigrants were getting jobs when Decent White People' weren't. So, you raise the barrier for entry into the market, knowing that you'll price out many of the "undesirables".

 

[jaeger19]

It depends upon the manager. I've got one manager who probably works 35 hours a week most weeks but she'll peg 50+ hours a week when she has problems. I have other managers who are always over 40 hours. When I was a district manager, I worked very hard getting my district in order then I didn't have to work so hard. Since, I was always getting my full MBO and was constantly raking #1 in service and new starts no one cared how many hours that I worked.

Yeah.. again.. the company definitely care how many hours you worked. otherwise they were being altruistic.. which is pretty hard to find.

You might not think they cared.. but they did.

 

[cpwill]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

That poor, poor, record profit margin every single year employer.


It's one or the other. Either pay salaried managers enough to live off of, or pay them for time worked past 40 hours.

That's a worthless standard that sounds nice, but means nothing. I could live off of MW quite easily when I was a single dude living with three other single dudes in an apartment. Now I'm a bread-winner with three kids: not so much. Should we pay men (who eat more) more than married women (who are more likely to be the second income earner in a household)? Parents more than non-parents? After all, if you have to pay them what they need to live off of, that's a standard that changes radically from person to person. What about people who come in with a disability - they get paid more?



Your employer isn't a charity. If we want to establish a minimum standard of existence, then that's on us to fund, not to try (and fail) to foist off onto a third party because "haha- you tried to open a business, sucker!".

 

[KevinKohler]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

See, I'm good with that. However, each salaried worker that I've asked about it today, tells me they would rather remain salary exempt than become hourly non-exempt. It could just be because we've got a bunch of hard chargers who work very hard to get their areas in order so that they can work smarter, not harder.

Could also be the industry you're in. Remember, I am coming at this from ONE perspective...that of retail. And what I can tell you is, there are not very many retail managers out their that would turn this down. Either pay them what the position should be worth, or stop claiming that the position is an executive/administrative position.

 

[d0gbreath]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

That the Fed issued this proclamation in the merry, merry, month of May is not a coincidence.

Right haymarket? I mean people died fighting for the 40 hr. work week, just to have it stolen back from us because of the never ending recession of capitalist Amerika.

Wecome to time and a half for overtime Ye salaried working stiffs! This ruling will not affect my salary level. I do the best that I can and work overtime every once in a while. I was also paid while hospitalized a few times. I'm behind, but I do seek a balance. I'm also 54 weeks away from retirement.

 

[KevinKohler]

Glad to do so. Let's hop in the way-back machine and see what those early proponents of the Minimum Wage were trying to do:



The problem, you see, was that those daggum ole Free Market Business People were doing the wrong thing. Specifically, they were hiring blacks. The original controversy over the minimum wage centered on what to do about what Sidney Webb called the "unemployable class." By which he meant "negroes" and (and, this has always been one of my favorite Progressive phrasings) "the Mongrelized Asian Hordes". It was Webb's belief, shared by many of the progressive economists affiliated with the American Economic Association, that establishing a minimum wage above the value of the "unemployables" worth would lock them out of the market, accelerating their elimination as a class. "Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites," Webb observed, "the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners."

Sociologist E. A. Ross put it succinctly: "The Coolie cannot outdo the American, but he can underlive him." Since the inferior races were content to live closer to a filthy state of nature than the Nordic man, the savages did not require a civilized wage. Hence if you raised minimum wages to a civilized level, employers wouldn't hire such miscreants in preference to "fitter" specimens, making them less likely to reproduce and, if necessary, easier targets for forced sterilization. Royal Meeker, a Princeton economist and adviser to Woodrow Wilson, explained: "Better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind."

We got the Davis-Bacon Act for the same reason. Darn ole blacks and immigrants were getting jobs when Decent White People' weren't. So, you raise the barrier for entry into the market, knowing that you'll price out many of the "undesirables".

That is perhaps the most slanted, twisted recounting of history that I have ever seen.


The origin of the minimum wage - Business Insider

 

[KevinKohler]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

That's a worthless standard that sounds nice, but means nothing. I could live off of MW quite easily when I was a single dude living with three other single dudes in an apartment. Now I'm a bread-winner with three kids: not so much. Should we pay men (who eat more) more than married women (who are more likely to be the second income earner in a household)? Parents more than non-parents? After all, if you have to pay them what they need to live off of, that's a standard that changes radically from person to person. What about people who come in with a disability - they get paid more?



Your employer isn't a charity. If we want to establish a minimum standard of existence, then that's on us to fund, not to try (and fail) to foist off onto a third party because "haha- you tried to open a business, sucker!".

Fine, let me rephrase....pay a salaried worker what people in the 1970s thought a decent minimum for executive pay was, or pay them by the hour for all hours worked, and OT for hours past 40.


In short, obey the ****ing law.

 

[cpwill]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

Fine, let me rephrase....pay a salaried worker what people in the 1970s thought a decent minimum for executive pay was, or pay them by the hour for all hours worked, and OT for hours past 40.

Okedoke - again I'll ask, what's the relevance of that metric? Why should someone else's mistake become the benchmark statistic that we should adhere to? Inflation in 1975 was 11.8% - should we tell the fed to make that their new inflation goal? After all, that's what happened in 1975.

In short, obey the ****ing law.

Sure, you should obey the law. That doesn't mean that law is wise or beneficial.

 

[cpwill]

That is perhaps the most slanted, twisted recounting of history that I have ever seen.

The origin of the minimum wage - Business Insider

Hey, do you know what your link doesn't do? Demonstrate the inaccuracy of anything that I said. That's where and why Progressives came up with the idea - in their own words.

 

[KevinKohler]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

Okedoke - again I'll ask, what's the relevance of that metric? Why should someone else's mistake become the benchmark statistic that we should adhere to? Inflation in 1975 was 11.8% - should we tell the fed to make that their new inflation goal? After all, that's what happened in 1975.



Sure, you should obey the law. That doesn't mean that law is wise or beneficial.

Oil crisis and issues with gold standard are why we had runaway inflation in the 70s.


I don't think it was a mistake, so, you and I simply aren't going to agree on much here. You think the market is self correcting, and to a great extent, I agree...but not where labor is concerned. Bottom line is, unless you want us all to start enjoying the lavish lifestyles of India and China, I suggest you get on board.

 

[KevinKohler]

Hey, do you know what your link doesn't do? Demonstrate the inaccuracy of anything that I said. That's where and why Progressives came up with the idea - in their own words.

No where in that link is mentioned the desire to repress the ability of blacks and chinese to get and keep jobs. Which is your contention.

 

[cpwill]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

See, I'm good with that. However, each salaried worker that I've asked about it today, tells me they would rather remain salary exempt than become hourly non-exempt. It could just be because we've got a bunch of hard chargers who work very hard to get their areas in order so that they can work smarter, not harder.

Could also be the industry you're in. Remember, I am coming at this from ONE perspective...that of retail. And what I can tell you is, there are not very many retail managers out their that would turn this down. Either pay them what the position should be worth, or stop claiming that the position is an executive/administrative position.

Gosh. If only there was some way where each individual worker could negotiate with each individual employer to come to mutually beneficial terms, so that both sides could seek out satisfaction in terms of flexibility and pay.

 

[cpwill]

No where in that link is mentioned the desire to repress the ability of blacks and chinese to get and keep jobs.

That's right - it broadly ignores the early history of the idea of the Minimum Wage in order to talk about the NRA and the SCOTUS.

Which is your contention.

My contention is that history is accurate - early Progressives supported the Minimum Wage because they figured it would cause the undesirable populaces that they wanted out of the job market to lose their jobs. It was part and parcel of the Eugenics program.

 

[David_N]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

Oil crisis and issues with gold standard are why we had runaway inflation in the 70s.


I don't think it was a mistake, so, you and I simply aren't going to agree on much here. You think the market is self correcting, and to a great extent, I agree...but not where labor is concerned. Bottom line is, unless you want us all to start enjoying the lavish lifestyles of India and China, I suggest you get on board.

Markets aren't self regulating. That's nonsense. In order for that to be true, market participants must be able to see the future and always recognize inflated assets/etc..

 

[David_N]

That's right - it broadly ignores the early history of the idea of the Minimum Wage in order to talk about the NRA and the SCOTUS.



My contention is that history is accurate - early Progressives supported the Minimum Wage because they figured it would cause the undesirable populaces that they wanted out of the job market to lose their jobs. It was part and parcel of the Eugenics program.

Where do you come up with this crap? :lamo

 

[Napoleon]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

It was a deal agreed to by everyone before the time was worked.

Not exactly. The experience of a lot exempt employees is that the transition to exempt involves a negligible raise of anywhere between 1-5%, working 20 more hours per week that are unpaid, and the possibility of a small annual bonus that is taxed at 35%. When you calculate what all of that translates into in terms of an hourly wage you end up staring at a figure that is less per work hour than you were making as a non-exempt employee. That is never presented upfront by the employer.

 

[cpwill]

Re: Will this end salaried entry level management positions?

Oil crisis and issues with gold standard are why we had runaway inflation in the 70s.

Yes. But it's what we went through in 1975, so we should have more of that. Because 1975.

I don't think it was a mistake, so, you and I simply aren't going to agree on much here. You think the market is self correcting, and to a great extent, I agree...but not where labor is concerned.

I would strongly non-concur with that statement :shrug: You are confusing "gives me results that I like" with "self correcting".

Nor have I argued that the market is self-correcting. I have pointed out that the laws of supply and demand do not get suspended simply because some of us would find it more convenient if they were, and that when you reduce the ability of employers and employees to come to mutually beneficial terms, you reduce the incidence of that occurring. It doesn't matter how we wish reality functioned - it matters how reality actually functions. Ignoring that in the pursuit of policy objectives only means that we either won't get there, or will produce larger unintended negative consequences along the path.

I work hours. I would love to have the kind of flexibility to push work back and forth across my schedule in order to meet peak-demand without hassle, and spend more time with my family in non-peak times. It would make me more productive, happier, and give me greater ability to balance life and work.

Bottom line is, unless you want us all to start enjoying the lavish lifestyles of India and China, I suggest you get on board.

Who has a more lavish lifestyle - someone making 30,000 a year as a lower level manager, someone who is kept part-time on the clock, or someone who is unemployed? Does our lifestyle as a nation get better or worse when the cost of living increases? Does our happiness and productivity get better or worse when the government restricts our options for fulfilling competing preferences?

 

[JasperL]

Oh hey, look!

A Strawman!

When you reduce the ability of employers and employees to come to mutually beneficial terms, you reduce the incidence of it occurring. Why this is beyond the ken of so many, I really don't understand. It's like we want to deny math as soon as it applies to us.

In that other era, you'd be insisting child labor, sweatshops, pay discrimination to minorities as "mutually beneficial" arrangements. No difference here, just different words to describe the same dynamic of exploitation by employers of workers with no good options.

 

[cpwill]

In that other era, you'd be insisting child labor, sweatshops, pay discrimination to minorities as "mutually beneficial" arrangements.

No, Child Labor is not inherently mutually beneficial because it cannot be controlled by mutual consent. "sweatshops" seems to be a general perjorative for "early working conditions were harsher than they often are now", and so is sort of a meaningless phrase, and pay discrimination harms the employers who try it unless the system is backed by government support/enforcement.


And, of course, all of these are continued strawmen, since none of them are the policy of taking away options from employees who wish to have flexibility.

 

[Southern Dad]

Yeah.. again.. the company definitely care how many hours you worked. otherwise they were being altruistic.. which is pretty hard to find.

You might not think they cared.. but they did.

I know you think you are an expert in this but you are wrong. Yes, that is right. You really don't know much about the business and the expectations of management in this type of situation. How do I know? Oh, simple I've been on both sides of it. I was a district manager. I know what was expected of me. That was to run my district. Now, I'm SVP of the company. Do you know what I want of my district managers, circulation managers, directors, etc.? I want them to run their areas. I don't really care how many hours they work. What I care about is the numbers. At one property, we have one advertising rep that works as little as 25 hours a week or as many as 50. She's also the top salesperson every single month. She even has her desk phone forwarded to her cell.