Biden Gave Millinons of Federal Workers a Raise, Will Trump Take It Away?

Let’s say you’re a general manager at a fast food restaurant. You work 55 hours a week — not at all uncommon in the field — and earn a salary that comes out to less than $13 an hour.

Last year, a federal rule would have made you eligible for a raise.

Under rules set by the Biden administration, your employer would either have to increase your salary or pay you overtime for those extra 15 hours a week you spent working instead of being with your family. But now, unless the Trump administration acts to protect that raise from one of Trump’s own judges, that raise will vanish.

President Trump’s erratic policies have created turmoil in our economy and put workers on uncertain footing. To help working families, Trump should defend this Biden administration rule, which restores and expands overtime pay to more than four million workers.

Overtime regulations are a cornerstone of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the 1938 law that guarantees a minimum wage and overtime for most workers. Strong overtime protections helped build America’s middle class and ensure that workers aren’t overworked and underpaid. They also create jobs and help families spend more time together.

While most workers get time and a half for working more than 40 hours a week, some workers aren’t legally entitled to overtime protections, including executive, administrative, and professional employees.

Back in 1938, this exemption was premised on the idea that these workers were paid much more than most hourly workers. But now these workers also include many retail store assistant managers, executive assistants, and human resource managers who are paid as little as $36,000 per year — about $13 per hour — and work 50-plus hours a week with no extra pay.

Figuring out overtime eligibility has been the Labor Department’s job for more than 80 years. The threshold needs to be raised regularly — otherwise it will end up like the $7.25/hour minimum wage, which is nowhere near as effective as when it was set over 15 years ago.

Last year, Biden’s Labor Department raised the salary threshold to $43,888 — and had planned to raise that again to $58,656 earlier this year.

But in November, a Trump-appointed judge in the Eastern District of Texas vacated the entire Biden overtime rule, including the 2024 increase. Because of this court decision, one million workers actually lost overtime protections — and three million more are in limbo. Biden’s Labor Department appealed that decision, but didn’t have time to defend its position before Trump took office.

The fate of this overtime appeal and other challenges to the rule now rests with the Trump administration. By May 6, the administration must tell the court if it will defend or abandon the rule. Millions of workers’ paychecks hang in the balance.

If anything, the first few months of the Trump administration has shown us that the White House won’t shy away from a legal battle if they care enough. Unfortunately, none of those legal battles are about fighting for working families. Here’s a chance for President Trump to show he cares about working families as much as he cares about slashing federal jobs and imposing tariffs.

This rule doesn’t need new legislation. It doesn’t require a budget fight. All it takes is defending a raise that millions of workers have already earned. President Trump says he wants to help working families. Here’s his chance to prove it.