A federal judge in Texas has blocked a Labor Department rule that would have extended overtime pay to millions of salaried workers, and the decision lands squarely in the middle of a kitchen-table fight over who actually gets a raise in 2025.
The rule, finalized last spring, would have raised the salary threshold for overtime eligibility to $58,656 a year starting January 1.
That means anyone earning below that line—roughly 4 million workers by the department's own estimate—would have qualified for time-and-a-half pay past 40 hours a week.
Restaurant managers, retail supervisors, and assistant store managers were the most likely to benefit.
District Judge Sean Jordan ruled that the Labor Department overstepped its authority by raising the threshold so high that it effectively became a salary test rather than a duties test.
His decision vacates the rule nationwide, not just for the plaintiffs—a coalition of business groups and Texas employers.
If you were counting on that overtime bump, it's likely gone for now.
Employers who had already reclassified workers to hourly or bumped salaries above the threshold aren't required to reverse those changes, but labor attorneys say many will quietly roll them back to cut costs.
If you're a salaried manager making $45,000 and working 55-hour weeks, you're back to the old math.
The timing is brutal for household budgets.
Grocery prices are still running roughly 20% above 2021 levels, and average rent in many metros has climbed faster than wages.
An extra $200 to $400 a month in overtime pay would have been real money for families stretching every dollar.
An earlier version of the rule was blocked in 2017 by a different federal judge, and the threshold stayed at $35,568 for years.
The pattern is now familiar: a Democratic administration raises the salary floor, a business-friendly court knocks it down, and workers wait for the next attempt.
The Labor Department could take the case to the Fifth Circuit, though that court is widely considered hostile to expansive agency rules.
A new rulemaking could also be attempted, but it would face the same legal questions and would take months, if not years.
For now, the practical advice for salaried workers is to check your exemption status.
Ask HR whether you're classified as exempt or non-exempt, and whether your salary clears $35,568.
If it doesn't and you're working long weeks, you may already be owed overtime under the older standard—and that's a claim worth documenting.
The bigger takeaway is that the overtime fight keeps landing in courtrooms instead of paychecks.
That's a feature of how employment law works right now, not a bug, and it leaves millions of workers guessing about rules that could shift again with a single ruling.
Final Thoughts
If you're budgeting for 2025, count your base salary and nothing beyond it.