Mark Takano: “Mr. Speaker, this bill is yet another effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed at the Federal level and take…”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill is yet another effort to chip away at the protections guaranteed at the Federal level and take money out of the American worker's pocket. The concept of overtime is very simple. If you work more than your traditional 40 hours a week, then you make more money, and you get to take home what you earn. Now, instead of protecting that very basic principle, my Republican colleagues are trying to make it easier for employers to pay their workers less for working more. They want to pay workers less for working more. This bill would exclude child and dependent care from the rate of pay used to calculate a worker's overtime pay. In other words, this bill makes it permissible to pay workers less than their regular rate if they picked up an extra shift. Taking on extra work doesn't mean you don't need someone to watch your kids, and it shouldn't cost you a benefit that you are entitled to. Despite the misleading title, this bill cheapens the value of an employee's overtime labor. The overtime salary threshold is already far too low. When the first Trump administration set the current threshold, 8.2 million Americans saw their overtime protections just vanish, and even those eligible employees earning $36,000 a year were making too much money to qualify for overtime pay. Mr. Speaker, imagine making $36,000 a year and that would disqualify you from being able to get overtime pay. You have no right to it.”