Slashdot Mirror
IT Workers Not Eligible for Overtime in New Rules
bjarvis354 writes "The San Diego Union Tribune is reporting that the Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao unveiled new rules that seem to specifically target IT workers and other white collar workers for exemption from overtime pay. The Oneonta Daily Star claims that 'According to new exemption tests, the employee isn't guaranteed overtime pay if primary duties involve office or non-manual work,' and 'Computer employees are not guaranteed overtime pay if they make $455 a week, or if their hourly rate is $27.63. Affected employees include computer systems analysts, programmers, software engineers or anyone with a similar title.'"
If this figure isn't the take home pay amount, it looks like it would be a good idea (perhaps even a necessity) to get a second job. Ouch. Good luck to all you IT people.
C:\>
I don't see how this changes anything? Most IT workers never got overtime, of course we have very flexible schedules so its a good tradeoff I suppose.
Don't do it.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You mean we were supposed to be getting overtime before? I don't ever remember getting paid overtime in the last ten years.
Workers may still get overtime pay if they earn between $23,660 and $100,000 and work more than 40 hours per week.
I don't want to hear any complaints if your making over 100k a year. If your making less thank 23,660 a year I'm confused too.
I could be wrong, but I was first in IT back in 1996, and this was the case back then (In NC). This is most definitely not news to me. I was in IT for almost 7 years, and I never got paid a dime of overtime (but the hourly rates I was getting paid were already obscene).
Boy, am I glad I don't make $27.63 an hour.
'When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.' -HST
For all the difficulty and struggle that comes with it, it's a good time to be a contractor or self-employed.
They (some dept. in the govmn't) also put out a press-release type thing months ago instructing employers how to avoid overtime pay under general circumstances. Maybe someone could help me out and dig it up...
Your government, always fighting for the little guy instead of big business. Gotta love it.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
"Affected employees include computer systems analysts, programmers, software engineers or anyone with a similar title."
Admittedly, I didn't RTFA, but that statements just SCREAMS for pointy-hairs to change the job titles of the people who they don't want to have to pay for overtime.
Can you tell that I lived in Oneonta for a while?
J
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
Where did they get the $455 weekly and $27.63 hourly figures from? If you are getting paid $27.63 an hour, chances are you are clearing that $455 easily and if you are making $455 (after tax) weekly you are getting paid about $13-14 bucks an hour.
~S
Oh yeah, thats that "time and a half" thing I use to get before I was salaried.
I've been salaried so long now, I stopped lamenting paid overtime ages ago. Unfortunately, this means my wife's already meager paycheck is gonna get leaner.
Great.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
new rules that seem to specifically target IT workers and other white collar workers for exemption from overtime pay.
That "new" rule is as old as IT : if you do your legal 40 hours per week in an IT company, you're out of here faster than you can say "antidisestablishmentarianism".
In the last company I worked for, a minimum of 60 hours per week was expected, sort of like an unwritten rule, often a lot more during death marches. I was well paid of course, and bonuses were huge, but in reality I had a really shitty hourly wage.
So what's new here? just that it's now a written rule that IT workers are slave workers. The only thing this does is diminish even further the impression of "privileged workers" non-IT folks have of us, and that's too bad because that's about the only glamour of the job.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The article says: "Chao said about 107,000 white-collar workers earning $100,000 or more a year could lose their eligibility."
People in that salary bracket are being paid hourly? I had always assumed that anywhere in the 50+ per year range is a salaried position, and overtime isn't an issue anyway, because you don't keep a time clock.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
Another astounding success in the Bush Administration's No Billionaire Left Behind program.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Which explicitly states that IT workers making less than $83,000 anually must be paid overtime?
This was signed into (California) law in 2000, I believe.
SB 88
From the bill:
This bill, except as specified, would exempt a professional employee in the computer software field from this overtime compensation requirement if the employee is primarily engaged in work that is intellectual or creative, the employee's hourly rate of pay is not less than $41.00, and the employee meets other requirements.
Once again, typically for Slashdot, the headline is very inaccurate. It's not that IT workers aren't eligible for overtime pay, it's just that it's no longer guaranteed. If your employer wants to pay you overtime, that's still their prerogative, not to mention a good idea for retention. Believe, there are folks out there earning overtime for IT work that this will not affect at all.
$455 a week is $23,660 yearly.
$27.63 an hour is $57,470 yearly, which is already close to Federal overtime exemption (if not hitting it exactly, I don't recall the current figure).
So, why the $34,000 discrepancy?
...well, perhaps not all of Canada, but I have been in IT now for 6 years and never once have received any overtime.
My current job has the best "overtime" policy that I've had thus far, in that lieu time off is calculated on overtime hours * 1.5. So we get time and a half OFF for the time we work. Not bad. Gives me at *least* one day off every 3 weeks.
So I have more time off, and no extra income to fork over to the gov't to misappropriate.
http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/overtimepay/
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
In other news, the Department of Labor is experiencing strange outages with their network, website, and all IT related systems.
PHB: Mr. Frennzy, we'd like to offer you employment. Your base wage will be $27.65 per hour.
Me: No WAY man! I won't take a penny over $27.62 per hour.
Thankfully, it's not an issue if you're self-employed.
I repeat, the overtime rules were reworked at the last minute!
The Bush administration on Tuesday pulled back from a planned overhaul of the nation's overtime rules, allowing more white-collar workers -- including those earning as much as $100,000 a year -- to continue collecting premium pay if they log more than 40 hours a week.
From The Oregonian
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
I've worked for 17 years in the IT field, and all but three of those years have been as a "salaried" employee.
If I am "salaried", why do I have to fill out a timesheet? Why, when I only have 38 hours on my timesheet, do I get paid for 38 hours? Conversely, when I have 68 hour, I only get paid for 40?
I've brought this up as "illegal" on a couple occasions, and even cited the state's labour laws, only to have it thrown back at me.
THIS is where we need to make some reforms too...
Salaried, AKA Exempt Employees, are exempt from overtime pay. If you have a contract for $60K per year and no other stipulations you should not expect additional pay for working over 40hours per week.
Employees that are on an Hourly wage get paid hourly. This new law is saying that if your wage is over this $20 mark, you do not have a right to earn time and a half, but you will still get paid on your hourly wage. If you work 60 hours you get paid for 60, not 70 (40 + 20 + (20/2))
Companies are required to have no more than 50% staff on Exempt status (ratio may change from state to state)
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
Not entirely,
Overtime is an incentive for employers to HIRE people rather than working the one's they have to death.
It is incentive which recognizes that the market if left to itself will gobble up all the dedicated people who don't have kids and can work weekends and evenings and leave the people who carry the real burden of society (yes parenthood) unemployed.
Where there is no negative pressure on expliotation - people will sign up for expliotation rather than get left behind and starve - that is a comment on world experience over time - your mileage may vary (but not by much)
AIK
Yeah, um... were going to need you here this Saturday... and oh yeah... Sunday too.
I can see this as a great opportunity for tech sweatshops to own their employees free time. My guess is the federal gov't wants to get out of paying contractors overtime fees?
Man, I've worked construction. You'd pry my ergonomic mouse from my cold, pastey hand before I went back. You're just laborer, paid to break your body for someone else. The mentallity of your supervisors and coworkers is worlds apart from IT. It's a mind-numbing and spirit-crushing existance. I've been used and abused in IT too, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't even compare.
Your talk of 6-figure incomes is BS. I've know only handful of people who have done that well; it's only because they work more overtime than should be humanly possible. Every single one is an alcholic who has to pause a moment to recall how old his own kids are.
Choose wisely.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Maybe there's an opportunity here to get our lives in order. As some have already posted, if you don't get overtime pay for overtime work, then don't do it. Well, let's ask ourselves why there was a need to work overtime in the first place. Maybe it's time to slow things down to a pace where all of this overtime in not needed in the first place.
;-) We may not get richer, but we will be happier. And if the boss man don't like it, screw him! He's gonna lay you off eventually anyway, so why sacrifice your life for him?
The bosses in the corporate offices cannot have it both ways. If they want insanely high productivity, they are going to have to pay for it. Even workers in India will eventually cost as much as here for the same work output. So let's stop this madness and live our lives like human beings instead of 24/7 machines. Let's spend more time with our friends and family. Or perhaps more time actually getting friends and family!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Capitalism is a positive sum game. While I certainly disagree with that statement, in this case it makes sense. When Unions fight for extra rights, then employers who are unecessarily hoarding all that cash are forced to give some of it away. This helps out everyone in the economy (except for a very small, very wealthy group). Unions are positive sum. When a Union struggles and wins extra rights, all workers benefit. The idea that somehow by forcing employers to take care of their employees and pay them a living wage will destory the market is ridiculous. We all benefit when society consists of people that are paid well, healthy, and happy. Perhaps you would like to go back to the early 20th century when children were worked 14+ hour days, and people were treated like machines (oh, wait, that second one hasn't changed much). If it weren't for Unions, chances are that you would be working a miserable, low wage job, and the country would be entirely in the pockets of the rich by now. You have quite a bit to be grateful for, it's too bad that you don't realize it.
this has been happening for years...last time i got paid overtime, i was working at a liquorstore doing inventory i havent seen a penny for any of my overtime hours since working in IT
"The exemption for employees in computer occupations does not include employees engaged in the operation of computers or in the manufacture, repair or maintenance of computer hardware and related equipment."
Systems Administrators are still non-exempt. Programmers with 'high skill level' are not.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
From Misleader.org
In a move designed to blur the issue, the Administration today said it was revising its previous effort to terminate overtime protections for 8 million workers. But even by the Bush Administration's own admission, the "new" regulations will mean that tens of thousands of lower-income workers will be cut off. Opponents of the Administration's plan say that the revisions would still cause problems for mean millions. The regulations are so bad for workers that some state legislatures have even rushed through legislation to block them.
I never understand how negatively so many people view unions. This is exactly why individuals have to join together to protect themselves. If one worker objects to unfair labour practices the boss can choose to ingnore him or fire him. If the IT workers of America refuse to work under unfair conditions then ...
1. Their jobs go offshore more quickly (maybe);
or,
2. The PHBs relocate to right-to-bugger-workers states (perhaps);
or,
3. The PHB negotiates, a compromise is reached and, while nobody gets to declare victory, a truce can be arranged (sadly less likely than ever before due to workers neglect of the need to protect their own).
Obviously the demonization of unions by owners that has somehow been sold to credulous workers makes #3 unlikely in most of the Unscupulous States of America.
Until electors figure out which side their shrinking bread is buttered on (repeat after me: my interests are not the same as those of the rich) and that they actually have the power to change things (though picking a Dem over a Rep doesn't change much) then you can all just bend over (unless you are rich, in which case -- fsck at will).
Well, we may get it, we may not. Once upon a time, there were highly trained, very skilled workers who were at the forefront of technology. They were also fiercely independent--the last group of people you'd ever think would get together in something like a union. But when the shit started hitting the fan, that's what the auto workers did--they formed the UAW. And, say what you will about their state right now, for decades they were a MAJOR force for building the middle class in large parts of the industrial U.S.--the same middle class that is rapidly disappearing now. Time will tell, but I remain optimistic if history is any guide. Union up, geeks; it's time to save our flat asses.
WashTech is the union for computer professionals.
One has to ask why IT workers don't form a union or if they don't like the idea of a union, at least a Professional Organisation like doctors and lawyers have to fight for their rights? Right now, the only IT lobby groups represent your employers ie. the big IT companies. Remember, government doesn't hear anyone who doesn't have a big enough lobby group. Government is a matter of give and take between different interest groups and since there's a finite money to go around (yes, even with the heavy government debt) if you're not one of the winners, you're one of the losers. It was fine to be free-wheelers during the dot-com boom, but now in the down-turn you need to really have an organised voice.
Gee, that's a nice theory. The good thing is that we don't need to theorize about what will (continue to) happen if we don't set a living wage, we have a long history where we can show what happens when people get subservient and don't fight for their rights. They get paid less and less, and their treatment is worse and worse. The history is very real. Your theory that if we lower wages enough that somehow employers will employ the maximum amount of people, is absolutely baseless, has no history to it, and no evidence. Your assertion that setting a minimum or living wage that employers will stop hiring people, is also baseless. Employers have ALWAYS sought to hire the least amount of people possible. The idea that allowing them to treat their employees like shit will change has no basis in reality.
The other obvious thing worth pointing out, is that prices are set by supply and demand. Since there has never been 100% employment, in other words, there has always been an oversupply of labor, one can conclude that the market value of labor is heading towards $0 an hour. Clearly the price set by the market is unworkable. If employers actually hired people when the price of labor was low to non-existant, then why haven't they hired all of the Americans willing to work for less than $5.15 an hour? Why haven't they employed all of the people of Mexico, who are willing to work for whatever the market will bear? Oh wait, that's right, it's because everything you've said about employers hiring as many people as possible if the price is low enough is false.
Just because the law no longer mandates 1.5 overtime pay for certain jobs does not mean that you cannot request it in your contract.
If you are about to accept a job offer and they do not pay 1.5 for overtime, ask for it. If they refuse, suck it up or find another job. You don't need the government to mandate that they pay 1.5.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
The parent should not me modded Interesting
My brother in law is a plumber and steam fitter. It's true that when you're an independent contractor, and own your own business, you can make lots of money. However, to get to that point you need to get trained, and certified, and pay lots of dues. And you literally do pay dues. To become a plumber, or other skilled blue collar worker you need to work as an apprentice, for $30k a year, if that, for somebody else who makes the $100k a year, until you pay off your training -- which can take years
Even then, when you finally do become a master, and can start out on your own business, that takes a lot of money and hard work. You need money to set up shop, and you need to be a certain type of person to make the business work. If you're not good at keeping books, and running the business, you will never make $100k+ a year, and will have to go back to breaking your back for somebody else, even though you might be making as much as $40k+ for them
I'm not exactly sure where all of the anti-union bias comes from. Screenwriters and actors have a union, and they are also well-paid (most of the time) and creative people.
I also think that the argument that we can negotiate our own contracts is equally naive. Sure, there are some that can, but I wouldn't say that social skills and negotiation are well-known geek skills outside of MMRPGs.
The only disadvantage of unions, as was eluded to earlier was the whole factor of diverse employment. However, that doesn't bar places like MS, Apple, Sun, Adobe, IBM, etc., etc., from joining unions. This doesn't mean people sit on their buts while unions continually strike, but it does mean you have someone negotiating your benefits and work week for you, collectively, as well as a network of peers.
Median (not mean) household income for the USA is around $41,500 or so...
Sorry, but you are not entirely correct, at least in California. I won't speak for other states. California, BTW, has its own state overtime laws that will probably remain uneffected by the new federal regulations. In California, you get overtime if you work more than 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week.
Just because you are a "salaried employee" does not mean you are exempt from overtime regulation. Salaried employees have an hourly rate - it's determined by dividing the "salary" by the number of hours worked each week.
Essentially, all employees are subject to overtime rules by default, unless they are categorically exempt. Exempt employees include "professionals" such as lawyers, doctors, etc., and employees whose principal duties are the management and supervision of other employees. There are a number of other exceptions (I seem to recall that truck drivers, for example, are exempt. In California, many employers try to screw employees out of overtime by giving them the title of "manager" or "assistant manager", even though they remain wage slaves.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Ten (unordered) Rules for Success:
1. Know your shit. If you're a sysadmin who can't make an Ethernet cable or a programmer who can't build a workstation, you deserve to be at the mercy of others.
2. Know others' shit. You just gonna sit there while the PFY brings down the intranet?
3. Be your word. Every discrepancy between what you say and what you do will be used against you. This does not mean that your word must be intelligible to anyone but you. Make credible threats and follow through.
4. Incompetents must fear you, whether they work above you, with you, or below you.
5. Everyone is your adversary until proven otherwise. This does not mean you should be on the offensive, but you can't let your guard down. Trust no one with your reputation.
6. Take no shit, give shit only when your case is strong. It's hard to implement (4) without giving shit, but your aim had better be true. Sometimes it's better to bide your time.
7. Make no friends in haste. Lunch is ok but never, never go drinking with an incompetent. It just makes it harder to fire them later (*sob* I thought we were friends!).
8. Be humble. The more bad-ass you say you are, the more the probability of us having a drink approaches zero.
9. Carry your own insurance and retirement, even if you are on salary. It's so easy to walk out the door when your benefits are secure, and they know it. Don't forget to negotiate for extra compensation!
10. Punctuality. Some deserve it, some don't. Learn the difference.
And like everything else in this govenment, no one know exactly what the fuck is going on at any given moment.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
For all the talk about "aged" brains and the like the professor didn't mention that _most_ consultants are older (30s - 50s) and presumably are hired for their skills...
- if i don't like an employer's terms (such as benefits, overtime pay, etc.), i won't work for that employer... - and if that employer does a 'change up' on original terms of employment, then i am free to seek employment elsewhere... - i'd only worry if a law were enacted stating that i must remain employed with a certain employer - but i think we've come a few years down the road from that mentality, haven't we?
How is this any different from the overtime laws that Bush managed to push through? Or is this the same law set just reworded? The actual new laws do a lot more than just hurt IT workers. Although some of this has apparently been ammended, the original proposal exempted anyone with a college degree, nurses, police, etc. This is a bad law.
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
I work with a number of people who are much older than I am. I'm 30, and I work with engineers in the range of 28 to 55. Management has people in their 40's, 50's, and 60's.
We have had people in management and engineering who weren't flexible. Hard times pretty much made those people go away due to layoffs.
Those people who are left are plenty flexible. We have one 54 year old who is a runner. He's healthy as a horse and quick. We have another 51 year old who recently made an easy transition from test engineering (a stepping-stone position) to driver development.
It seems to be an assumption that getting old makes you incompetent. But my opinion is that "old" people who are incompetent were always that way. Perhaps they are no longer so good at hiding it. But those people twice my age who were good at their jobs when they were younger are still good at their jobs AND are able to adapt to new positions.
Mind you, I don't adapt as quickly as I did when I was 20. When you get older, you slow down a bit. Sometimes, learning takes a little longer. But intelligence and discipline can make up for that, and a lot of experience makes one more efficient at identifying WHAT to learn.
Wow.
Some really appaling economics failures in this post.
Let's start with:
"Employers have ALWAYS sought to hire the least amount of people possible. The idea that allowing them to treat their employees like shit will change has no basis in reality."
They SHOULD always seek to hire the least amount possible. If it costs me $10 to make my product (car, ladder, gallon of milk, whatever) then I can sell it to you for $20 and make $10 of profit. If I have to hire three times as many people, it costs me more than $20 to make it now, so no way am I selling it to you for that. The only people who benefit from that are the extra workers, who are effectively being paid to do nothing, since they add no value above the original staff. Forcing someone to pay you when you aren't giving them value in return is theft.
Your problem is you have this mental image of these magical corporate vaults that just fill themselves with money, and the corporations horde it all. With that as your standard, it's no wonder theft seems appealing. But that vision just isn't true. They're filling that vault by charging YOU for their products. If you rob their vault, they're just going to charge you more. The way to make things better isn't to steal harder or faster, it's to work in good faith with the corporation to make the system as efficient as possible. In free trade, both parties profit. Parasites only profit until their host dies or fights back.
Another, more glaring flaw:
"Since there has never been 100% employment, in other words, there has always been an oversupply of labor, one can conclude that the market value of labor is heading towards $0 an hour."
First of all, if it was true that there was an oversupply of labor, and that it was causing the price to head towards zero, then it must be heading there really slowly, or else it would be there already. As you state, employment has never been 100%, so the market adjustment you predict seems to be taking longer than all recorded human history.
The reality is that "labor" isn't a single commodity like pork or lumber. Not all labor is the same. You can't fire the Chief of Neurosurgery and replace him with the $5.15/hour guy.
Lastly:
"If employers actually hired people when the price of labor was low to non-existant, then why haven't they hired all of the Americans willing to work for less than $5.15 an hour?"
1) Because there aren't actually that many Americans willing to work for less than $5.15 an hour, especially over the age of 17.
2) Because the unions and the minimum wage laws will try to prevent you from hiring people for $3/hour.
3) Because you have to create the jobs for them to be hired into. This isn't something that should be done by politicians (though they usually claim to do it). This has to be done by corporations, be they large or individual startups, and it requires that they have access to surplus money. Right now they're spending that surplus on the three guys doing one guy's job, two of whom are on break.
Like someone else did earlier, I'll call bullshit on this.
Kerry, among other Democrats, has taken great pains to point out that he favors a tax increase on only those household who take home more than $200K a year.
Just as a little personal example... I make a bit mroe than 28K a year, but less than 100K a year. I'll leave a little wiggle room in there for your imaginations. Last year, thanks to George W's tax cuts, I had to pay less income tax. Net savings was approx 300. Thanks!
But wait. Because W wasn't done yet, oh no sir. He lowered the amount of interest I pay on my student loans that I could deduct on my taxes. Net loss to me, approx 740. Apparently getting a (very slight) break on the interest of your student loans is too much to ask for. Thanks!
So thanks to George, I'm paying about 340 more than I did before, our deficit is through the roof, and it doesn't seem things will get better. If Kerry wants to raise taxes on people who make over 200K, and reset it so we middle class folks get our real advantages back while losing those superficial advantages, god bless him and good luck in November.
I worked as an EMT with a county ambulance service for 10 years in the 80s (1980 - 1990) and we went 'round and 'round with the government body we worked for about the overtime issue. They tried to use the FLSA 7(k) and 13(b)(20) sections to exempt us from overtime for time when we might have been asleep (we almost never actually were allowed to sleep during that time, I remember one time we were out polishing the ambulance wheels at 3:30 because there was no calls at the time and the crew chief didn't want anyone to think they let us sleep on the job...) - so they were going to require us to be in the station house for 24 hours, but pay us for 16, even if we were working non-stop all 24 hours.
Of course, we were not very happy at the prospect, and complained loudly!
We were then routinely dispatched to fire scenes for 'standby' so that the county government could try to argue that we were 'fire fighting personnel' and fell under that exemption. When that didn't fly with the workers either (and the law was pointed out to the county commissioners), a LARGE chunk of back pay was paid.
The current law requires overtime for anything over 212 hours in a 28 day period for fire fighting personnel - for anyone else covered by the FLSA it is any hours over 160 in 28 days.
For you or I, that means working slightly over 10.5 hours a day every work day (5 days per week) for 4 weeks - WITHOUT GETTING OVERTIME PAY. (by the way, I am salaried and don't get overtime, anyway - but I do get compensatory time off...)
So when the article mentions the overtime protection already afforded to Fire, Police, and EMS workers, it is deceptive, as they are NOT paid under the same rules as other people.
My take on this is this is another "business friendly - fsck everyone else" move by the Bush administration. I don't like it.
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Since there has never been 100% employment, in other words, there has always been an oversupply of labor, one can conclude that the market value of labor is heading towards $0 an hour.
This incorrectly presupposes that the lack of a 100% employment rate coincides with an oversupply of labor. It's generally understood in economics that a significant amount of unemployment is due to unavoidable due to frictional unemployment (day-to-day changes in a dynamic, changing economic system in which old industries die and new ones are born, in which people get tired of old jobs and old bosses, in which bosses find work of subordinates unsatisfactory, and in which new people enter and others reenter the labor force), and partially unavoidable due to structural unemployment.
Furthermore, you're implicitly assuming that the "employers" and "employees" come from 2 perfectly distinct pools and that no one goes from employee to employer (nice hidden communist ideology in your post). This is false. In a free capatlist society someone who is working as an employee or is unemployed can start up their own buisness, creating more jobs and oppertunities (increasing the demand in the labor market) while simultaneously removing himself from the market (decreasing supply). The effect of these forces leads to a dynamic balance where the employment number fluctuates accordingly with the state of the whole economy.
This is a great comment MOD this guy up! I have worked for the State of Alabama Department of Revenue Sales and Use Tax Division in the past. This will save money on collection and reward people for doing good. My Only objection to what is said here is that the Flat tax is actually worse than the current Income Tax. A National Sales Tax and you could kiss the IRS goodbye. Just don't associate the two.
Definitionally a Flat tax is the end of small business. It wipes out the deductions against Income for individuals and does not allow you to count them against your earnings as a whole. At the same time a "Flat Tax" would leave the same deductions in place for the Big Co's.
The Sales Tax taxes everybody the same. The most profound thing it does, is that it ends the tax advantages now extended to foreign (Not USA) businesses and individuals causing all players here to pay equally. It also frees US Exports from being mostly US INCOME Tax allowing us to compete in the world market. Want to watch the world scream for protection from the Americans... ? Pass the National Sales Tax and repeal any income taxes.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
The exemption which allows employers to exempt computer professionals earning over 27.63 per hour from overtime payment was added to the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1996. If memory serves, that puts it right square in the Clinton Administration. It's a good idea to check out the facts before you throw rocks. :-)