In a much-anticipated move, on June 30, 2015, the Department of Labor issued a proposed rule requiring a weekly salary of at least $970.00, or $50,440.00 annually, for employees to be exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA's) overtime provisions under the common "white collar exemptions." Designed to adjust the original 1975 salary requirements for inflation, the proposed rule more than doubles the current salary requirement of $455.00 per week or $23,660.00 per year. The FLSA requires employers to pay employees who do not meet an exemption 1.5 times their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. The proposed rule sets the new salary requirements for the executive, administrative, professional, and computer professional exemptions, 1 which cover most salaried employees exempt from the FLSA's overtime provisions.

Under the proposed rule, to be exempt under one of the covered exemptions, employees must receive a salary of at least $970.00 for each week they work and meet the exemption's "duties test." Although much speculation existed that the proposed regulations would also ad dress the "duties" requirements for the exemption, the rule does not revise the "duties" requirements. Instead, the DOL seeks comments regarding changes, particularly whether the duties test should require an exempt employee spend a certain percentage of his/her time worked performing exempt tasks (such as the California rule requiring 50% of time on exempt tasks). Thus, the final rule may contain revisions to the duties tests as well as the salary revisions.