Political Quotes

“I believe that real long-term economic growth is built from the middle out, not from the top down, and our government and our economy and our workplaces should work for all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. Across the country today, millions of workers are working harder than ever without basic overtime protection. That is why I am very proud to come to the floor today to express my strong support for the new overtime rule to help millions of workers and families in our country. Back in 1938, Congress recognized the need for overtime pay. Without overtime protection, corporations were able to exploit workers' time to increase their profits. So the Fair Labor Standards Act set up a standard 40-hour workweek. By law, when workers put in more than 40 hours, their employers had to compensate them fairly with time-and-a- half pay. But those protections have eroded over the past several decades. In today's economy, many Americans feel as if they are working more and more for less and less pay, and in many cases, they are. Right now, if a salaried worker earns just a little more than $23,000 a year, he or she is not guaranteed time-and-a-half pay. That salary threshold is much too low. In fact, it is less than the poverty level for a family of four. Workers should not have to earn poverty wages to get guaranteed overtime protection. It is clear that overtime rules in this country are severely out of date.…”