41% Say Expanding Overtime Pay Will Hurt Businesses
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
President Obama ordered the Labor Department last week to revise federal rules to allow more workers to qualify for overtime pay. Voters have mixed feelings about how this change will impact the economy, but they are more pessimistic about its impact on businesses.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% of Likely U.S. Voters believe increasing the number of people eligible for overtime pay will help the economy. Nearly as many (34%) think this change will hurt the economy instead. Fourteen percent (14%) believe expanding overtime will have no economic impact, while just as many (15%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 16-17, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.