The Department of Labor outlines the plan to revise the nation's overtime provisions first enacted in 1938. The provisions were adopted during the Depression Era to protect low-wage workers by guaranteeing their over time pay. Most white collar workers are exempted by the provisions. Secretary of Labor Chao's plan is to raise earnings below $8,000 a year to about 22,000 a year securing overtime for some 1.3 million low wage workers. The plan will include white collar workers but it make harder for white collar workers earning more than $65,000 a year to claim over time pay.
The Wall Street Journal in its ""Review & Outlook" (July 14, 2003) praises the plan. It considers that "the new rules will also be a boon to the economy. . . The new overtime regulations will give companies more freedom to create 21ast century work forces that increasingly depend more on white-collar jobs with varied time demands than on factory-floor jobs that go in eight-hour shifts."