OPINION: Project 2025’s overtime plan is a bad deal for American workers

Overtime pay. It is often a necessity for workers, especially if they have a family.

In states such as Idaho, where the minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour, overtime often makes the difference between being able to pay the bills or not.

But under Project 2025, or Agenda 47 as it is sometimes called, overtime would be curtailed or eliminated for many workers, threatening their employment protections. The document argues employees can take additional leave rather than more money in the pay packet.

While Republican campaigns have said they have “nothing to do” with Project 2025, which was developed by the Heritage Foundation, it is noteworthy the document itself describes its contents as a blueprint for the next Trump Administration. Although the document cannot legally endorse a political candidate (as it would endanger the Heritage Foundation’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status), many of the contributors are well-known Trump supporters/former staff members.

Under the plan, workers would see reduced opportunities for overtime pay as it favors corporate profits over employee welfare. Under it, employers can demand employees work 60-or 70-hour weeks without extra pay, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

Employers would also be allowed to calculate overtime differently over longer periods of time rather than weekly, which would change the workers’ control over their own schedules and make it harder to track earnings. The AFGE said this could lead to fraud and abuse by leaving workers open to wage theft.

As for employes taking more time off rather than additional pay, a recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust disputes the plan would be an equal trade-off.

Pew said more and more workers — especially younger and lower-wage workers — are currently hesitant to take any time off for fear of losing their job, so few are taking their accrued leave time now. Project 2025’s plan would force workers to accumulate paid time off which they would likely never use, in effect robbing them of being paid for their work.

To complicate matters even further, Project 2025 is proposing different overtime thresholds for different regions of the country. Project authors say this would prevent punishing business owners in areas where it costs less to do business. But the AFGE said this would systemize wage inequality, keeping wages low in those bottom wage areas.

Added to the mix, Project 2025 would outlaw unions, taking away collective bargaining and gut employee protections such as the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 along with other laws.

AFGE leaders are sounding a clear warning about workers’ rights under the document.

“If all their recommendations were implemented, it wouldn’t just eviscerate our statutory collective bargaining rights and pay system but undo the basics of the Pendleton Act of 1883 which replaced a corrupt spoils system with the apolitical, merit-based system we have today,” said Jacque Simpon, AFGE public policy director.

It isn’t just employee groups who are concerned, groups like Family Compassion, a non-profit focused on strengthening families, say these moves would undermine families and the American dream.

“Parents often have to work overtime to adequately support their families,” Family Compassion said. “But if Project 2025’s policy is implemented, parents won’t be compensated for the fact they are working extra hours for their families.”

In a poll conducted last spring, the Center for American Progress reported 92% of the people surveyed opposed any policy that would end overtime pay.

Overtime is essential for many families, especially in areas where the base pay is low. Removing it can lead to wage theft — the failure of a business to pay employees for the work they have performed to gain higher profits. It is literally increasing corporate profitability at the cost of the employees.

Project 2025, or Agenda 47, is a bad policy on many levels, but the idea of removing overtime pay strikes at the very heart of nearly every home in America. It removes a person’s right to be paid a fair wage for the work they perform.

Implementing Project 2025 will do far more than severely damage the U.S. economy because people will not have the money to spend. It will effectively kill the American dream for millions of hard-working people.

Tallent was a journalism faculty member at the University of Idaho for 13 years before her retirement in 2019. She is of Cherokee descent and is a member of both the Indigenous Journalists Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. She also writes for Faith and Values News (spokanefavs.com).