[tadglines]

The last part of (a)(17) was changed from:

who, in the case of an employee who is compensated on an hourly basis, is compensated at a rate of not less than $27.63 an hour.

to:

who is compensated at an hourly rate of not less than $27.63 an hour or who is paid on a salary basis at a salary level as set forth by the Department of Labor in part 541 of title 29, Code of Federal Regulations. An employee described in this paragraph shall be considered an employee in a professional capacity pursuant to paragraph (1).

The law as currently stated implies that a non-hourly worker (i.e. salary) is also considered exempt regardless of their efective hourly pay rate.

The proposed change just makes this explicit and clarifies that to be considered as a salaried employee, the person must be paid a minimum of $455 a week (see TITLE 29 541.600(a)).

This change effectively reduces the effective hourly rate from $27.63 to $11.38 ($455 * 52 / 2080).