Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:
This December, the U.S. Department of Labor plans to implement a new overtime rule that will affect millions of American workers.
The rule will extend the overtime and minimum wage protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act to a broader range of employees, and the Labor Department hopes this will increase average income in the United States. Under the new provision, Americans who earn up to $47,476 per year will be eligible for overtime pay, even if they’re salaried – a jump from the current threshold of $23,660. This may cause many salaried workers to become hourly, and it will require employers to report these changes to the Labor Department.
While the Obama administration is attempting to combat stagnant wages in the United States and ensure that workers are being fairly compensated, the overtime rule presents a few liabilities that shouldn’t be overlooked.
For example, if the rule succeeds in raising wages substantially over the next decade – the Obama administration anticipates a $12 billion increase – employers might not be able to sustain certain positions. If labor costs become inordinately high, employers may be forced to curtail benefits, reduce hours or even cut jobs – problems that will be exacerbated by the cost of complying with the rule in the first place.
The overtime rule might also have a negative impact on employee flexibility. In many cases, salaried employees are given more autonomy than their hourly peers because they hold positions that allow them to work irregular hours.
The Obama administration deserves credit for taking measures to strengthen the middle class and protect workers, but it needs to be wary of unintended consequences.
The bromance between the charlatan masquerading as the GOP nominee for president and Russia’s despot masquerading as a democratically elected president has gone far enough. It’s time for serious members of the Republican Party to grit their teeth and disavow Donald Trump as a candidate. Forget this election and move on to 2020.
Before now, could anyone have imagined that the members of a major presidential ticket would put despotism over democracy, would shower praise on a gangster who runs his country with an iron fist, who has bullied and censored the media and who has invaded a neighbor? Vladimir Putin is no model for any leader.
Unlike the government Putin heads, ours rests on a system of checks and balances and a partnership between the Congress, the courts, the states and the president. Ours is a nation of laws, not of “strong” leaders. It’s time for the serious members of the Republican Party to repudiate the man who wants to be the nation’s strongman.
More than one-third of West Virginians are obese – the second highest rate in the country. Only Louisiana is worse. Our state also has the second-highest rate of diabetes, at 14.5 percent, and the highest rate of adult hypertension, at an astounding 42.7 percent. Even young people are less healthy – 17.9 percent of high school students are obese.
We live in one of the most beautiful states in the country. Opportunities for free outdoor activities are everywhere, year-round. We live in a region where our grandparents ate fresh vegetables out of their gardens, used push-mowers to mow their lawns, got up to change the channels on the television they watched for only a program or two in the evenings, often got up the next morning to go work in jobs that required manual labor and ate much smaller portions than we do. With the exception of the marginally higher rates of tobacco use, those generations were healthier than we are.
In the name of convenience and technology we have allowed ourselves to become one of the most unhealthy states in the country. For many of us, better food choices are possible; a quick walk around the block every day is possible. We could be doing so much better, for ourselves and our kids.