Whatever happened to overtime? (with Sharon Block and Chris Lu)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2019

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The overtime threshold used to be the minimum wage for the middle class—but where did it go? Labor experts Sharon Block and Chris Lu join Nick and Jasmin to explain why the overtime threshold, which used to cover 65 percent of workers, today covers only 7 percent. That’s craziness! And surprise, surprise—employers love to claim that forcing you to work for free is in your own best interest. But are they telling the truth? Sharon Block is the Executive Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. For twenty years, she held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, including head of the policy office at the Department of Labor. Twitter: @sharblock Chris Lu was the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor in the Obama Administration from 2014 to 2017. He also served as Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary under Obama from 2009 to 2013. He is a Practitioner Senior Fellow at the UVA Miller Center. Twitter: @ChrisLu44 Further reading: https://crooked.com/articles/beat-trump-overtime-pay/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey Pitchfork Economics listeners. We've been doing this podcast for a while now and it
0:05.1	must be true that some of the stuff we've been talking about made no sense or that you had
0:10.8	questions about. So we're doing an AMA episode.
0:14.4	We'll take any question you have on economics.
0:18.4	And what we want to do is rather than have you email them in, we want you to leave a voicemail in a special
0:28.2	inbox because that'll make the episode so much more fun and interesting.
0:32.0	So all you need to do is call 731 388
0:36.6	9334. Leave your questions. Super excited to hear what you're thinking, what your questions are, want to know what's landing and what makes no sense.
0:46.7	So again, if you're interested, give us a call 731 388-9334-33334, thanks again for participating.
0:57.4	One of the foundational labor protections
1:00.6	in our economy has been the eight hour day.
1:03.6	It's basically a central tenant in this country that if you work more than 40 hours a week,
1:07.6	you should get paid extra.
1:08.6	So one of the things that you hear from business is that earning a salary is a privilege.
1:13.3	Yeah, here's the thing.
1:14.3	You cannot eat status.
1:16.5	You know, I don't think anybody wants the privilege of working without getting paid.
1:25.0	From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle,
1:29.0	this is Pitch Fork Economics,
1:31.0	with Nick Hanauer.
1:32.0	In honest conversation about how... economics with Nick Hanauer.
1:33.0	An honest conversation about how to make capitalism work for everyone.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Civic Ventures, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Civic Ventures and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.