Fact Sheet
The Biden Administration’s overtime expansion rule was set to increase the salary under which a worker is automatically entitled to overtime. The increase—from $35,568 to $58,656—grants a raise to over four million salaried workers in 2025 alone.
This important rule protects workers from being wrongfully labeled as executives who are exempt from overtime pay.
The overtime expansion rule was vacated by a Texas district court, effectively allowing corporations to cheat workers out of their hard-earned wages by calling them “executives.” Without this rule, corporations exploit and misuse an overtime exemption applied to workers classified as “executives” whose primary duty is management, or “administrators” whose primary duty involves using “independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.”
Workers lose roughly $4 billion per year to these misclassification, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Attorneys General in Massachusetts, Delaware, New Jersey, Maine, Colorado, and Connecticut affirmed in public comments on the rule that many of the dominant industries in their states include high numbers of potentially affected employees, and that “large categories of employees” are misclassified as ineligible for overtime. And large numbers of workers will be affected in vital occupations like hospitality, retail, and construction.
Here is a common example: a convenience store worker referred to as a “manager” earning in the mid-$30,000s annually spends most working hours, often 55 hours in a week, waiting on customers and stocking shelves–and alone in the store so not “managing” anyone–and yet is denied overtime.
Studies show that corporations most frequently use inflated “executive”-sounding job titles right at the salary level where they would have to pay overtime—in other words, the evidence shows they intentionally use inflated job titles to try to avoid paying workers the overtime pay they deserve from their hard work.
Workers Say: We Are Not Managers, and This Raise Would Help Make Up for Lost Family Time
“I should not have to make those sacrifices to pay my bills. If I do need to miss something that’s important to my kids, I should at least be compensated for it,” commented a worker from Arkansas on the proposed rule, identified as a single father making $50,000 annually as a service manager at a farm equipment dealership who described missing family events because of unpredictable 50 to 60 hour workweeks.1
“Because our overtime hours are free for the company, they make us work 60 to 70 hours a week. I was working so much I couldn’t make it to my church. My family was always asking, ‘Why aren’t you at home, Mom?’ And most of my hours weren’t even spent managing the store, but instead stocking shelves or running the cash register since we never had enough staff.” Paige Murdock, a Dollar General “store manager” from Eliot, Maine.2
“Psychologically, they get you to believe that you are actually a manager…But we’re stock people. They want you to continuously work. There’s no stop.” John Nicoletti, a Dollar General “manager” whose pay, over 60 to 70 hour weeks, averaged out to a little more than $8 an hour.3
Stories of Wage Theft
Below are stories of workers who have been unfairly denied overtime pay by corporations falsely claiming they are “executives” or other senior managers. These are examples of workers who would get a raise if the overtime rule is defended and kept in place. Though most of the individuals below have already had their eligibility for overtime decided, many more workers in every state are not yet getting the overtime pay they deserve.
Christian Perreault Hamel, Massachusetts
Restaurant Worker in Luxury Hotel Spends Most of His Time Waiting Tables, Cleaning; Denied Overtime as a “Restaurant Manager.”
Christian Perreault Hamel worked as a “Restaurant Manager” for the Wheatleigh Corporation, the Wheatleigh being a 19-room luxury hotel and restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts. He acted as sommelier and waiter, including being scheduled as a waiter by his immediate supervisor; he cleaned the restaurant and its wine cellar; set tables; bartended; performed room service; and answered phone lines. He received a weekly salary of $951.53 (or $49,479.56 a year), regardless of how many hours he worked. Mr. Hamel’s employers argued in court that he was an exempt “executive” employee, and not entitled to overtime.4
Dayna Long, Wisconsin
Technical Writer in Spends 45-50 Hour Workweeks Implementing Top-Down Directives from Management; Denied Overtime.
Danya Long was employed as a technical writer by Epic Systems. Her starting salary was between $40,000 and $44,000 a year; she may have received a $2,000 raise at some point during her tenure with Epic Systems. Epic Systems made it clear to technical writers like Ms. Long that they were expected to work 45 to 50 hours a week, but did not pay overtime. Ms. Long describes her primary job duty as producing or revising standardized documents that described how Epic Systems’s software worked, based on top-down templates, instructions, and information coming from Epic Systems’s software developers, implementers, and trainers.5
Anthony Smith, Virginia
Autozone Worker, Working 55 Hours Per Week for an
Annual Salary of $45,000, Denied Overtime.
Anthony Smith worked as a store manager for Autozone at five different locations in the Richmond, Virginia area from 2005, when his annual salary was $40,000, to 2015, when his salary was $45,000.Mr. Smith claims he frequently worked 50 hours per week, consistently worked more than 55 hours per week, and worked at times for periods of more than 70 hours per week, receiving no overtime. Autozone claimed that he was subject to the executive exemption to the FLSA’s overtime requirement. Mr. Smith claims that he spent only 15% of his time performing personnel management, and the remainder on “retail-related issues” like cleaning the store, checking out customers, and other such tasks. The court held in Autozone’s favor that Smith was an exempt executive employee as a matter of law.6
Wayne Allen, Maryland
IT Customer Support Worker Receives No Overtime Despite 60-Hour Workweeks.
Wayne Allen worked from 2012 to 2014 as a “Messaging Engineer” for Enabling Technologies, an IT services company with its principal place of business in Glen Arm, Maryland. His base annual salary was $52,500, and it was increased in October of 2013 to $55,125; he was terminated in November 2014. Mr. Allen’s primary job duties consisted of customer support and updating client IT systems. He describes his primary job duties as “low-level customer support, similar to the work of a help desk employee…[It was] help and how to.7
Tommy Zahtila, New York
Marshalls Employee Spends 50-70 Hour Workweeks Unloading Trucks, Processing Merchandise, Staffing Cash Registers: Denied Overtime.
Tommy Zahtila worked as an “Operations Assistant Store Manager” at a Marshalls in Freeport, New York from April 2010 until he was terminated in May 2012, at an annual salary of $56,000. In a deposition, Zahtila stated that he worked 50 to 60 hours per week, and 60 to 70 during the Christmas season. Zahtila estimates that he spent 5-10% of his time performing managerial tasks, and the remainder performing such nonexempt tasks as unloading trucks, breaking open boxes, processing merchandise, staffing the cash registers, and stocking toilet paper. His employer argued that he was an overtime-exempt employee.8
Stanton Meats, Utah and Wyoming
Grocery Worker in Mountain West Spends 90% of Time on Job Duties Like Stocking Shelves, Running Cash Register But Denied Overtime.
Stanton Meats held positions as an “Assistant Store Manager” (“ASM”) at Ridley’s Family Markets locations in Midway, Utah and Pinedale, Wyoming from 2015 to 2019. His salary ranged from $46,800 a year to $56,550 a year. Mr. Meats contends that his primary duties were working on the floor, stocking shelves, running the cash register, cleaning the store, packaging meat, organizing the back room, and unloading freight, and that such tasks occupied approximately ninety percent of his time. His employer argued that he was an overtime-exempt employee.9
Mary Harris, Massachusetts
Maid Spends Most of Her Hours Cleaning; Referred to as an “Executive Housekeeping Manager” and Denied Overtime.
Mary Harris worked as an “Executive Housekeeping Manager” for the same hotel in Massachusetts. Her extensive nonexempt job duties included cleaning and turning over guest rooms; cleaning public bathrooms and public spaces; cleaning and pressing hotel linens; laundering guests’ items; covering front desk phones; and assisting with bell, valet, and concierge work. She was hired in March 2016 at an annual salary of $45,000; by the time of her quitting in October 2018 she was making $51,350 a year. Her employers argued she was an exempt “executive” employee and not entitled to overtime.10
Wayne Simpson, Delaware
Cable-Box Installer Denied Overtime Because Considered “Manager.”
Wayne Simpson worked as a “Project Manager” for Prince Telecom, LLC, a national telecommunications customer-service fulfillment company. Prince provides services to companies such as Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner. Mr. Simpson worked for Prince in the New Castle County area, at an annual salary of $56,000. Mr. Simpson testified that as a “Project Manager” he worked every Monday through Saturday from 6:00AM until midnight, and half-days on Sundays. Despite the title, Mr. Simpson spent 90% of his time in the field performing work that he had performed as a technician before his promotion, such as installing cable boxes and doing maintenance visits. The court ruled that he was exempt from overtime as both an “executive” and “administrative” worker.11
Zemma Rossi, Maryland
Employer Claims Maryland Clerical Worker
in Substance Abuse Clinic is Too High-Level To Get Overtime.
Zemma Rossi worked as an “Office Administrator” for the Circle Treatment Center, a substance abuse treatment clinic in Gaithersburg, Maryland, at a salary of $42,000 a year. In December of 2014, Ms. Rossi sued the Center, alleging overtime violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Ms. Rossi alleged that she performed mostly secretarial tasks, and therefore would not have been exempt from overtime requirements. The Center claimed Ms. Rossi was an overtime-exempt employee; she ultimately had to settle the claim, for less than a third of her maximum potential recovery.12
Maxine Diakos, New Jersey
Restaurant Worker Spends Over 90% of Her Hours Bussing, Cleaning, Waiting Tables: Classified as a “Manager” with No Overtime.
Maxine Diakos was employed as the “manager” of the Pilgrim Diner in Cedar Grove, New Jersey between December 2011 and September 2013. She filed a Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit against the diners’ owners, in which she asserted that she worked more than 90 hours per week and spent approximately 93% of those hours bussing, cleaning, and waiting tables. She made an annual salary of $52,000 with no overtime. The court in her case ruled that because she happened to set schedules for, and hire, other waitresses, she was a “manager” exempt from overtime requirements and dismissed her claim.13
Albert Itterly, Pennsylvania
Family Dollar Store Worker Works 63.5 Hours per Week, Spends Most Time Unloading Freight or at Cash Register: “Manager” with no Overtime.
Albert Itterly worked as a “Store Manager” at the Family Dollar Store in Allentown, Pennsylvania between July and November of 2007. He was paid a weekly salary of $930.00 (which would be $48,360 per year), and claimed in his Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit against his employer to have worked an average of 63.5 hours per week with no overtime. Itterly spent “virtually all of his time” unloading freight, stocking shelves, and working a cash register. The district court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that Mr. Itterly was an “executive” employee exempt from overtime requirements, and the
Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.14
- Andrea Hsu, Biden’s overtime rule was struck down. Now some workers are losing pay raises, NPR (Dec. 16, 2024),
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/16/nx-s1-5225448/overtime-rule-pay-raises-ohio-state?utm_source=chatgpt.com. ↩︎ - Rebecca Dixon and Heidi Shierholz, Time to Expand Overtime Pay, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (Nov. 1, 2021),
https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/time-to-expand-overtime-pay/. ↩︎ - Dave Jamieson, Join the Booming Dollar Store Economy! Low Pay, Long Hours, May Work While Injured, HuffPost
(Aug. 29, 2013), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dollar-stores-work_n_3786781. ↩︎ - Hamel v. Wheatleigh Corp., No. 3:18-CV-30113-KAR, 2021 WL 3516449 (D. Mass. Aug. 10, 2021). ↩︎
- Long v. Epic Sys. Corp., No. 15-CV-81-BBC, 2016 WL 4625497 (W.D. Wis. Sept. 6, 2016). ↩︎
- Smith v. Autozone, Inc., No. 7:15-CV-00183, 2016 WL 4718184 (W.D. Va. May 13, 2016). ↩︎
- Allen v. Enabling Techs. Corp., No. CV WMN-14-4033, 2016 WL 4240074 (D. Md. Aug. 11, 2016). ↩︎
- Roberts v. TJX Companies, Inc., No. 13-CV-13142-ADB, 2017 WL 1217116 (D. Mass. Mar. 31, 2017). ↩︎
- Meats v. Ridley’s Fam. Markets, Inc., No. 22-CV-01070-PAB-KAS, 2024 WL 1141525, at *2 (D. Colo. Mar. 15, 2024). ↩︎
- Harris v. Wheatleigh Corp., No. 3:18-CV-30114-KAR, 2021 WL 3848147 (D. Mass. Aug. 27, 2021). ↩︎
- Simpson v. Prince Telecom, LLC, No. CV 14-1211-SLR-SRF, 2017 WL 1206403 (D. Del. Apr. 21, 2017). ↩︎
- Rossi v. Circle Treatment Ctr., P.C., No. 14-3803-GJH, 2015 WL 1815501 (D. Md. Apr. 17, 2015). ↩︎
- Diakos v. Rudnick, No. A-2468-15T2, 2017 WL 6398928 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Dec. 15, 2017). ↩︎
- Itterly v. Fam. Dollar Stores, Inc., 606 F. App’x 643, 644 (3d Cir. 2015). ↩︎
