Quad City workers could see more money in their wallets when new federal overtime requirements take effect on December 1, 2016. The new rule, though, is also putting a pinch on employers.
Under a new rule, most employees making a salary of less than $47,476 ($913 a week) will automatically qualify for overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week.
That’s roughly double the $23,660 threshold (or $455 a week) that’s currently in place.
"Generally speaking, businesses are anxious over it," said Henry Marquard, director of government affairs for the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce. "We were really hoping that we'd see this done over a longer period of time to give businesses a chance to step up and meet it."
Marquard says non-profits and educational institutions will likely be hardest hit by the changes.
At St. Ambrose University, the new overtime rule will affect about 30 of the university's 500 employees.
In order to accommodate the changes, SAU has raised a few people's salaries above the new threshold. Other employees are switching to hourly wages, so they'll get time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week.
"We've budgeted around $200,000 to account for this difference, and so, we'll see how things go this first year. We hope that we've been a little conservative in how we've done that," said Mike Poster, Vice President of Finance for St. Ambrose. "We've had to make cuts in other budget lines to come up with that."
The new overtime rule goes into effect December 1st.
There is a chance, however, that the requirements could change again in the upcoming year, after the Trump administration takes office.