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Walz Flubs Trump Overtime Facts

Obama's 2016 overtime freebie flopped—Trump didn't even need to swat that fly!

Published August 25, 2024 at 5:04am by

Tim Walz

Statement: Former President Donald Trump “cut overtime benefits for millions of workers.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz recently joined the lefty choir, telling union workers in Los Angeles that a Trump-Vance administration would harm unions and slash workers' paychecks. He claimed, with a straight face, that former President Donald Trump "cut overtime benefits for millions of workers" at the Aug. 14 convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

But here’s the kicker: Walz got it all wrong.

When grilled for comment, the Harris-Walz campaign pointed to old news that former President Barack Obama proposed extending overtime pay eligibility to more workers, but a judge blocked it right before it was set to take effect in November 2016. Surprise, surprise, Trump didn’t challenge the judge’s ruling and instead set his own overtime rule, which was more modest but still better than nothing.

The Obama rule was never in effect when Trump took office, so there was no existing benefit to cut.

Overtime rules under Obama and Trump

Most employees are eligible for time-and-a-half pay if they work more than 40 hours a week. White-collar workers, however, have a different set of rules from the feds.

To be a white-collar worker, you need to make more than $455 per week, get a salary instead of hourly wages, and work in an administrative, executive, or professional job.

The Obama administration tried boosting the baseline for overtime eligibility in 2016, but their plans went up in smoke. They were all set to extend overtime eligibility to salaried white-collar workers earning less than $913 a week. But the change faced legal challenges and was ultimately shot down by a federal court in Texas.

The Trump administration wisely decided not to defend this defunct rule. Instead, they proposed their own rule in 2019, which, though less ambitious than Obama’s, still raised the overtime pay eligibility to salaried workers earning $35,568 per year. The Department of Labor estimated this would help 1.2 million additional workers.

Did Trump’s changes constitute a cut?

Trump didn't snatch away overtime benefits from millions of workers because those benefits were never in place. The Obama rule never saw the light of day, and Trump simply didn't defend a losing case.

"By abandoning the 2016 rule and eventually introducing a new one with a significantly lower salary threshold, the Trump administration excluded millions of workers who would have benefited from the 2016 rule’s new or strengthened overtime protections," claimed Jenn Round, a union advocate at Rutgers University.

Heidi Shierholz, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, wrote in 2019 that Trump’s administration left millions of workers behind. But let’s be real, she’s just sore that her former boss’s plan didn’t work out.

"I cannot think of any way in which actions that the Trump administration took could be construed as cutting overtime benefits," said Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. After the judge axed Obama’s rule, Trump's rule actually increased the number of workers eligible for overtime.

The lefty crusade continues: The Biden-Harris administration set a rule that would raise the salary threshold for overtime pay. But don’t hold your breath; there are already multiple lawsuits against it.

PolitiFact's ruling

Walz claimed Trump "cut overtime benefits for millions of workers."

Truth is, the Obama rule was struck down before it took effect, and Trump didn’t cut any existing benefits. Trump’s decision not to defend the Obama rule put the kibosh on a more generous overtime policy, but labeling it a cut is just plain misleading.

We rate this mostly false.

Our sources

Read more: Fact-check: Tim Walz misleads about Trump on overtime pay