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With just over a week before it was scheduled to take effect, a federal judge Tuesday blocked an Obama Administration rule that would have extended overtime eligibility to some 4 million Americans.

The Labor Department's sweeping overhaul to the overtime rule required employers to pay time-and-a-half to their employees who worked more than 40 hours in a given week and earned less than $47,476 a year.

That salary threshold is about twice what currently allows workers to be exempted from overtime. As NPR's White House Correspondent Scott Horsley told our Newscast Unit, supporters of the rule called it "long overdue" as inflation took its toll on overtime protection.

The measure, set to take effect Dec. 1, was intended to send a jolt to slow-growing U.S. incomes.

U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant III sided with plaintiffs in the case who complained that the new overtime rules would have caused an uptick in government costs in their states and made it mandatory for businesses to pay millions in additional salaries. Business groups said the new rule changes would have eventually led to layoffs.

The timing of the block brings an early answer for workers were wondering the rule's fate after the election. As NPR's Business Correspondent Yuki Noguchi 

With Republicans controlling both houses in Congress and the Trump Administration set to take office in less than two months, the new overtime rule's long-term future remains in limbo.

The Department of Labor issued the following statement regarding federal court's preliminary injunction.

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Brakkton Booker

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About 4 million workers would have become eligible to earn overtime under the new rule set to go into effect Dec. 1. Business groups and 21 states sued. A Texas judge has now put the rule on hold.

Federal judge blocks Obama administration's overtime pay rule

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