South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson today applauded a federal judge’s ruling to strike down an Obama-era overtime rule that he believes would have hurt small businesses. South Carolina and 20 other states had sued the federal government in 2016 to overturn the new rule.
“This overtime rule is bad for South Carolina businesses,” Wilson said. “It would take away employment opportunities for South Carolinians.”
U.S. District Court Judge Amos Mazzant ruled Thursday that the Department of Labor exceeded its authority by issuing the rule.
The Fair Labor Standards Act sets the federal minimum wage and requires overtime pay for employees working more than 40 hours a week, but there’s an overtime-pay exemption for “any bona fide executive, administrative or professional” employees. Under the new rule, employers would have to pay overtime to most workers on salary who make less than $47,476.
The old rule applied to most salaried employees who make less than $23,660. The new rule would have meant an additional 4 million workers nationwide would be eligible to get paid overtime.
Wilson says the new rule would have forced state governments to cut labor costs by either cutting services or laying off employees and would have hurt private businesses as well.
The same judge put the rule on hold last November. His ruling Thursday permanently invalidates the new rule.
