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This morning, the Trump administration filed a "Request for Information" in an effort to weaken or kill the badly-needed update to the overtime pay rule.
This morning, the Trump administration filed a "Request for Information" in an effort to weaken or kill the badly-needed update to the overtime pay rule.
Back in 1975, President Gerald Ford's Labor Department set the level at which workers could be exempt from overtime to the equivalent of about $58,000 in today's dollars, high enough to cover more than 50 percent of full-time salaried workers. However, by 2016, far too many salaried workers were not covered by overtime protections because the salary threshold had not kept up with wage growth or inflation. The Obama-era rule set it at $47,476--high enough to cover about 34 percent of full-time salaried employees, but lower than the level that it was in the 1970s.
The Trump administration has refused to fully implement and enforce the updated rule--first by not challenging a lawsuit and now by opening up a wasteful request for information. By opening up this request for information, the Trump administration is trying to take away the ability of millions of hard working Americans to get overtime pay or more time with their families. The Labor Department does not need more information about overtime pay--they need to support middle-class workers who badly need a raise.
Notably, the RFI asks for input on whether multiple standards would be acceptable. The whole point of having national standards is to ensure decent basic standards for all workers. The updated overtime standard is already linked to the lowest-wage Census region. Workers' should not be undercut even further by weakening the salary threshold.
President Trump likes to put workers in photo ops, but instead of sticking up for the middle class, he sides with the CEOs and top executives who want to keep pay low and force workers to work unpaid overtime. The updated overtime rule is exactly what we need for workers to get a fair return on their hard work. It's time to fully implement and enforce the updated overtime rule.
EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI's research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.
(202) 775-8810"Donald Trump is threatening to withhold money from NYC if they elect Zohran Mamdani, who [is] standing up to his billionaire donor buddies, instead of his friend Andrew Cuomo who will roll over for them," said one organizer.
"Threatening voters and cities over their elections is what authoritarians do," said one progressive organizer Monday after US President Donald Trump did just that—suggesting he would rip federal funding away from New York City, and possibly the state, if democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the November election.
The president's threat came after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, announced her endorsement of Mamdani in an op-ed in The New York Times, after months of pressure from progressives.
Trump said Hochul had "Endorsed the 'Liddle Communist'" and called the governor's support "a rather shocking development."
"How can such a thing happen?" Trump asked of Hochul's endorsement of her own party's popular and charismatic nominee. "Washington will be watching this situation very closely. No reason to be sending good money after bad!"
The comments appeared to be a threat to state or city funding, said critics including Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health.
"Donald Trump is threatening to withhold money from NYC if they elect Zohran Mamdani, who [is] standing up to his billionaire donor buddies, instead of his friend [former Gov.] Andrew Cuomo who will roll over for them," said D'Arrigo, referring to reports that Trump has considered helping Cuomo, who lost the primary to Mamdani in June but is running as an independent in the general election, and to Cuomo's own comments about the positive relationship he would have with the president if elected mayor.
Another observer accused Trump of "using taxpayer money as a gun to voters' heads."
Mamdani, a Democratic member of the state Assembly, won the primary in June, decisively beating Cuomo—who had rapidly plummeted in the polls leading up to the primary vote as Mamdani promoted a policy agenda laser-focused on making the city more affordable and engaged directly with New Yorkers across the five boroughs.
Despite Mamdani's victory, Hochul has been among a number of powerful Democratic politicians who refused to endorse the party's nominee to lead the nation's largest city following the primary, leading to condemnation from progressive organizers and lawmakers including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
New York Democrats House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have all declined to endorse Mamdani thus far, with Jeffries falsely claiming Mamdani has not won over voters in the House leader's district and Gillibrand suggesting as recently as last week that Mamdani has fueled antisemitism by not condemning phrases associated with Palestinian resistance.
Hochul relented on Sunday, writing that she has had "disagreements" with Mamdani in conversations they've had in recent weeks, but that in their talks she has "heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family."
"I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable—a goal I enthusiastically support," she added.
Trump also ran his reelection campaign last year on promises of lowering the cost of living for Americans—but while Mamdani has backed up his pledge of improving affordability with policy proposals like fare-free buses, a network of city-owned grocery stores, and no-cost universal childcare, the president has pushed a spending bill that's expected to increase the number of uninsured people by 14.2 million and has restarted student debt collection, ending a Biden-era program to make payments more affordable and threatening to garnish the wages of struggling borrowers.
The president previously threatened New York City's funding in June and said in July that his administration could take over the city's government if Mamdani wins the November election and enacts policies Trump doesn't support.
"If he does get in, I’m gonna be president and he’s gonna have to do the right thing or they’re not getting any money. He’s gotta do the right thing,” Trump said on Fox News. “If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same... We have tremendous power at the White House to run places when we have to."
At The New Republic last week, Alex Shephard wrote that by refusing to throw their considerable influence behind Mamdani, Schumer, Jeffries, and Gillibrand are "suggesting that they will throw him—and the city he represents—to the wolves come 2026."
"Trump has made it clear that he hopes to target New York City just as he's done to Los Angeles and Washington, DC—with deployed National Guard troops and ICE agents running rampant," wrote Shephard.
Democrats including Schumer and Jeffries, he added, "are shooting their party in the foot... Predominantly renters, Mamdani’s voters were also disproportionately young, Asian, and Hispanic—all groups that moved toward Trump in last year’s election, and that Democrats will need if they want to take back Congress and the White House."
"Democrats say they are determined to be a big-tent party," Shephard continued. "But somehow there’s no room in it for the politicians who can actually help fill it?"
"I hope I'm wrong. But we need to be prepared if I'm right," warned Sen. Chris Murphy.
A Democratic US senator over the weekend issued an ominous warning about Republicans using the murder of Charlie Kirk as a pretense to clamp down on political speech.
In a lengthy social media post on Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) outlined how President Donald Trump and his allies look set to wage a campaign of retribution against political adversaries by framing them as accomplices in Kirk's murder.
"Pay attention," he began. "Something dark might be coming. The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent."
Murphy then contrasted the recent statements by Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who accurately stated that political violence is not confined to a single political ideology, with those of Trump and his allies, who have said such violence is only a problem on the left.
Murphy highlighted a statement from Trump ally and informal adviser Laura Loomer, who said that she wanted "Trump to be the 'dictator' the left thinks he is" and that she wanted "the right to be as devoted to locking up and silencing our violent political enemies as they pretend we are."
He then pointed to Trump saying that progressive billionaire financier George Soros should face racketeering charges even though there is no evidence linking Soros to Kirk's murder or any other kind of political violence.
"The Trump/Loomer/Miller narrative that Dems are cheering Kirk's murder or that left groups are fomenting violence is also made up," he added. "There are always going to be online trolls, but Dem leaders are united (as opposed to Trump who continues to cheer the January 6 violence)."
Murphy claimed that the president and his allies have long been seeking a "pretext to destroy their opposition" and that Kirk's murder gave them an opening.
"That's why it was so important for Trump sycophants to take over the DoJ and FBI, so that if a pretext arose, Trump could orchestrate a dizzying campaign to shut down political opposition groups and lock up or harass its leaders," he said. "This is what could be coming—now."
Early in his second term, the president fired FBI prosecutors who were involved in an earlier political violence case—the prosecution of people involved in the violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 by Trump supporters who aimed to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
A top ethics official and a lawyer who spoke out against the president’s anti-immigration policy are among those who have been fired from the DOJ.
Murphy ended his post with a call for action from supporters.
"I hope I'm wrong. But we need to be prepared if I'm right," he said. "That means everyone who cares about democracy has to join the fight—right now. Join a mobilization or protest group. Start showing up to actions more. Write a check to a progressive media operation."
One day after Murphy's warning, columnist Karen Attiah announced that she had been fired from the Washington Post over social media posts in the wake of Kirk's death that were critical of his legacy but in no way endorsed or celebrated any form of political violence.
"The Post accused my measured Bluesky posts of being 'unacceptable,' 'gross misconduct,' and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues—charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false," she explained. "They rushed to fire me without even a conversation. This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold."
Attiah only directly referenced Kirk once in her posts and said she had condemned the deadly attack on him “without engaging in excessive, false mourning for a man who routinely attacked Black women as a group, put academics in danger by putting them on watch lists, claimed falsely that Black people were better off in the era of Jim Crow, said that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, and favorably reviewed a book that called liberals 'Unhumans.'"
"I think the debate that’s begun after what happened here in Madrid yesterday should widen and spread to all corners of the world," said Pedro Sanchez after Vuelta a España shut down by anti-genocide protests.
A day after a large-scale cycling race was halted in Madrid due to anti-genocide protests targeting the participation of an Israeli team, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday backed the demonstrators and called for Israel's total ban from international sporting competitions until the unlawful and brutal attack on the people of Gaza comes to an end.
"I think the debate that’s begun after what happened here in Madrid yesterday should widen and spread to all corners of the world,” Sanchez said, regarding the events of Monday when thousands of protesters forced the Vuelta a España, an annual race that attracts world-class cycling teams from around the globe, to screech to a halt.
As police clashed with demonstrators—100,000 or more—along the route, the chaos that ensued forced organizers to halt the final leg of the race and the award ceremony. Targeted by the demonstrators was an Israeli team, called Israel-Premier Tech.
Sanchez, in his remarks on Monday, compared the need for a ban on Israel for its "barbarism" in Gaza with the ban on Russian Federation sports teams and athletes due to their government's invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s already happening in some parts of the world and we’ve seen how European governments are saying that as long as the barbarism continues, Israel can’t use any international platform to whitewash its presence," said Sanchez. "And I think that sports organizations need to ask themselves whether it’s ethical for Israel to keep taking part in international competitions.”
"Our position is clear and categorical: As long as barbarity continues, neither Russia nor Israel should participate in any international competition,” Sanchez added.