Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy expressed dismay with the Bush Administration's new regulations on overtime pay taking effect on Aug. 23. The new rules will cut the pay and lengthen the hours of hourly workers, with the greatest effect of the regulations being felt by middle-income workers making between $23,660 and $100,000. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute shows the new rules will deny overtime rights to at least six million workers at a time when household incomes are down, prices are up, and while the economy is suffering a 1.8-million private-sector jobs deficit.

"These regulations will result in a pay cut for middle-income Americans. Overtime pay accounts for about a quarter of the income of employees who work overtime," said McCarthy "The regulations, which I voted against in the House Education and the Workforce Committee, will hurt working families in Nassau County that rely on overtime pay to maintain their standard of living."

Nationwide, the new regulations deny overtime pay to 30,000 nursery and pre-school teachers, 1.9 million low-level working supervisors in service industry jobs, and more than 900,000 employees without a college or graduate degree who would be reclassified as "professional employees" because employers will be able to substitute work experience for a degree. In addition, anyone designated a "team leader" on a "major project" by their employer would be denied overtime, even if they are not supervisors. This provision could strip nearly 2.3 million workers of their overtime protections. The regulations also deny overtime to 160,000 workers in the financial services industries, 130,000 chefs, and 87,000 computer programmers.

In March 2003, the Bush Administration came forward with their proposed regulations on overtime. These regulations were finalized in April 2004, after only one hearing in the House Education and the Workplace Committee. House Democrats offered amendments and motions to allow an increase in overtime protections for low-wage workers, and to prohibit the Administration from going ahead with overtime cuts for six million other workers. But all efforts to roll back the new rules were defeated.

A July report authored by former officials at the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, concluded every single substantive change made to the overtime pay rules - except for the salary test increase - actually weakens workers' eligibility for overtime pay. The authors also wrote that the changes "will likely result in greater confusion and a profusion of litigation - outcomes that the department explicitly sought to avoid."