I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4505 
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to establish a minimum 
salary threshold for bona fide executive, administrative, and professional 
employees exempt from Federal overtime compensation requirements, 
and automatically update such threshold every 3 years. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 30, 2017 
Mr. TAKANO (for himself, Mr. BEYER, Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsyl-
vania, Mr. BRADY of Pennsylvania, Mr. COHEN, Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. 
CUMMINGS, Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. DELANEY, Ms. 
DELAURO, Mr. DESAULNIER, Mr. ELLISON, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. GRI-
JALVA, Mr. GUTIE´RREZ, Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. LEE, Ms. LOF-
GREN, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Ms. NORTON, Mr. PALLONE, Mr. PASCRELL, 
Mr. POCAN, Mr. POLIS, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. SERRANO, Mr. TONKO, 
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Ms. MAXINE WATERS of California, Mrs. 
WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. WILSON of Florida, Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas, 
Mr. CARBAJAL, Mr. SABLAN, Ms. BONAMICI, Mr. SCOTT of Virginia, Mr. 
NORCROSS, Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts, Ms. ESHOO, Ms. HANABUSA, 
Ms. JACKSON LEE, Mr. RYAN of Ohio, and Ms. ADAMS) introduced the 
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and the 
Workforce 
A BILL 
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to establish 
a minimum salary threshold for bona fide executive, ad-
ministrative, and professional employees exempt from 
Federal overtime compensation requirements, and auto-
matically update such threshold every 3 years. 
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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Restoring Overtime 
Pay Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 
U.S.C. 201 et seq.) established overtime compensa-
tion requirements for certain employees when they 
work more than 40 hours in a given workweek. 
(2) Under section 13(a)(1) of such Act, Con-
gress delegated to the Secretary of Labor the au-
thority to define and delimit the terms relating to 
the exemption for bona fide executive, administra-
tive, and professional employees (commonly known 
as the ‘‘white collar exemption’’). 
(3) For more than 75 years, the Secretary of 
Labor has exercised its delegated authority to issue 
regulations that define and delimit the terms relat-
ing to the white collar exemption by applying a du-
ties test and applying a minimum compensation level 
(or salary threshold). 
(4) The Secretary of Labor began utilizing a 
salary threshold in the initial regulations defining 
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and delimiting the terms relating to the white collar 
exemption, which were first issued in 1938. 
(5) Congress has long approved the use of a 
salary threshold by the Secretary of Labor, as dem-
onstrated by the fact that Congress has amended the 
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 at least 10 times 
since 1938 and has not precluded the Secretary 
from using a salary threshold. 
(6) The salary threshold became woefully out of 
date and ineffective as a result of not being suffi-
ciently updated to keep pace with a changing econ-
omy, as evidenced by the fact that more than 60 
percent of all full-time salaried workers earned less 
than the salary threshold in 1975 and less than 7 
percent of these workers earned less than the salary 
threshold in 2016. 
(7) The salary threshold of $455 per week, or 
$23,660 per year, that was in effect on May 22, 
2016, was below the poverty line for a family of 4. 
(8) The Secretary of Labor updated the salary 
threshold on May 23, 2016, through a final rule en-
titled ‘‘Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for 
Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside 
Sales and Computer Employees’’ (81 Fed. Reg. 
32391) by increasing the salary threshold to the 
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40th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried em-
ployees in the lowest-wage Census Region, resulting 
in a salary threshold of $913 per week or $47,476 
per year. 
(9) The final rule would benefit more than 
13,000,000 employees by providing overtime com-
pensation protections to 4,200,000 new employees 
and strengthening overtime compensation protec-
tions for 8,900,000 additional employees. 
(10) The Secretary of Labor went through a 
thorough process in crafting the final rule, seeking 
public input and conducting extensive economic anal-
ysis, including— 
(A) spending more than a year meeting 
with more than 200 interested parties to obtain 
input before issuing the proposed rule in 2015; 
(B) considering more than 270,000 com-
ments received during the 60-day public com-
ment period on the proposed rule; and 
(C) making significant changes in response 
to public input before issuing the final rule. 
(11) The public comments submitted to the 
Secretary of Labor regarding the proposed rule were 
overwhelmingly positive and supportive of the rule. 
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(12) The increase in the salary threshold, in-
cluded in the final rule, to the 40th percentile of 
earnings of full-time salaried employees in the low-
est-wage Census Region, resulting in a threshold of 
$913 per week or $47,476 per year, was a strong 
yet measured increase by almost any measure, in-
cluding as compared to— 
(A) the higher salary threshold of $970 per 
week or $50,440 per year, initially put forward 
by the Secretary of Labor in the proposed rule; 
(B) the salary threshold of $984 per week 
or $51,168 per year, which would have fully ac-
counted for the erosion to the value of the sal-
ary threshold since 1975 due to inflation; 
(C) the salary threshold of $1,122 per 
week or $58,344 per year, which would have 
covered the same share of all salaried workers 
as were covered in 1975 after adjusting for the 
different educational composition of the work-
force today; and 
(D) the salary threshold of $1,327 per 
week or $69,004 per year, which would have 
covered the same percentage of all salaried 
workers as were covered in 1975 without ad-
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justing for the different educational composition 
of the workforce today. 
(13) The United States District Court for the 
Eastern District of Texas erroneously called the au-
thority of the Secretary of Labor under the Fair 
Labor Standards Act of 1938 into question when it 
issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the De-
partment of Labor from enforcing the final overtime 
rule. 
(14) The United States District Court for the 
Eastern District of Texas issued a final decision in-
validating the rule, threatening overtime protections 
for millions of workers. 
SEC. 3. MINIMUM SALARY THRESHOLD FOR BONA FIDE EX-
ECUTIVE, ADMINISTRATIVE, AND PROFES-
SIONAL EMPLOYEES EXEMPT FROM FEDERAL 
OVERTIME COMPENSATION REQUIREMENTS. 
(a) MINIMUM SALARY THRESHOLD FOR BONA FIDE 
EXECUTIVE, ADMINISTRATIVE, AND PROFESSIONAL EM-
PLOYEES.—Section 13 of the Fair Labor Standards Act 
of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 213) is amended— 
(1) in subsection (a)(1)— 
(A) by inserting ‘‘subsection (k) and’’ after 
‘‘subject to’’; and 
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(B) by inserting ‘‘(except as provided 
under subsection (k)(3)(C))’’ after ‘‘Administra-
tive Procedure Act’’; and 
(2) by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘(k) MINIMUM SALARY THRESHOLD.— 
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Beginning on the effective 
date of the Restoring Overtime Pay Act of 2017, the 
Secretary shall require that an employee described in 
subsection (a)(1), as a requirement for exemption 
under such subsection, be compensated on a salary 
basis, or equivalent fee basis, within the meaning of 
such terms in subpart G of part 541 of title 29, 
Code of Federal Regulations (or any successor regu-
lation), at a rate per week that is not less than the 
salary threshold under paragraph (2). 
‘‘(2) SALARY THRESHOLD.— 
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The salary threshold 
shall be an amount that, subject to subpara-
graph (B), is equal to the 40th percentile of 
earnings of full-time salaried workers in the 
lowest-wage Census Region as determined by 
the Bureau of Labor Statistics in accordance 
with subparagraph (C) and as updated under 
paragraph (3). 
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‘‘(B) INCREASED THRESHOLD.—The Sec-
retary may establish, through notice and com-
ment rulemaking under section 553 of title 5, 
United States Code, a salary threshold that is 
an amount based on a rate that is greater than 
the rate described in subparagraph (A) as de-
termined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 
accordance with subparagraph (C) and as up-
dated under paragraph (3). 
‘‘(C) 
AMOUNT
DETERMINATIONS.—The 
amount of the salary threshold determined 
under subparagraph (A) or (B) shall be based 
on data from the second quarter of the year 
preceding the effective date of such amount. 
‘‘(3) AUTOMATIC UPDATES.— 
‘‘(A) IN
GENERAL.—The Secretary shall 
update the amount of the salary threshold 
under paragraph (2) every 3 years so that such 
amount is based on data from the second quar-
ter of the year preceding the effective date of 
the update. 
‘‘(B) PUBLICATION OF NOTICE.—Not later 
than 60 days before the effective date of any 
update under subparagraph (A), the Secretary 
shall publish, in the Federal Register and on 
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the internet website of the Department of 
Labor, a notice announcing the update. 
‘‘(C) NONAPPLICABILITY OF RULEMAKING 
REQUIREMENTS.—Any update described in this 
paragraph shall not be subject to the require-
ments for notice and comment rulemaking 
under section 553 of title 5, United States 
Code. 
‘‘(4) DUTIES
TEST.—The Secretary shall, in 
addition to the requirement under paragraph (1), 
continue to require employees to satisfy a duties 
test, as prescribed by the Secretary, in defining and 
delimiting the terms described in subsection (a)(1).’’. 
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—This Act, and the amend-
ments made by this Act, shall take effect on the date that 
is 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act. 
Æ 
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