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Although former President Donald Trump portrays himself as a supporter of working-class Americans, promising tax cuts on overtime pay, his history as a businessman and president tells a different story.

Trump has faced numerous allegations regarding unpaid overtime to his workers. Upon taking office, his Department of Labor implemented a rule which drastically reduced the number of workers eligible for overtime pay compared to an earlier Obama administration standard.

Project 2025, a comprehensive plan from the Heritage Foundation for a potential second Trump presidency, proposes even more significant changes. This lengthy 900-page document details extensive modifications to overtime protections, offering employers new methods to sidestep paying overtime to workers who typically qualify for time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours of work.

When approached for a response regarding this article, including inquiries about Trump’s overtime strategies and the lawsuits involving his companies, a representative from his campaign simply stated, “Project 2025 is unrelated to the campaign.”

A spokesperson from the Heritage Foundation, which developed Project 2025, previously chose not to comment on specific policies when questioned by Capital & Main. They added that, “Project 2025 does not represent President Trump or his campaign.” Nevertheless, around 140 individuals who previously worked with Trump contributed to the creation of Project 2025, and in 2022 Trump remarked that the Heritage Foundation would “set the stage and outline plans for what our movement will undertake.”

One individual who could face financial hardship if the suggestions from Project 2025 come into effect is Theresa Kinard. After spending 15 years working at a Waffle House in Marietta, Georgia, she still earns a base wage of $19 per hour. “It’s just not enough,” she expressed. Even with her adult daughter also employed at Waffle House, they find it necessary to live together “just to make ends meet,” she shared.

However, Kinard benefits somewhat from overtime pay. She is scheduled for 40 hours weekly, which would amount to an annual salary of $39,520 without overtime. Yet, due to chronic understaffing at her restaurant, she often works extra hours, earning time-and-a-half for these additional shifts. This brings her to about $28.50 per hour, translating to approximately an extra $400 each week.

“Overtime really makes a difference,” she stated. “Without it, many of my bills wouldn’t get paid.” She expressed concerns that without the overtime pay, she would struggle to meet monthly expenses like her car payment or insurance, and it could lead to “possibly being evicted” or losing her car.

The loss of overtime pay would “really hurt our situation,” she noted. This is a reality faced by her and millions of other Americans if Trump’s second term resembles the first, specifically if he implements the overtime recommendations found in Chapter 18 of Project 2025.

Details of Project 2025

Project 2025 seeks to reverse the overtime pay enhancements made by the Biden administration and suggests ways for businesses to bypass paying it to eligible workers, undermining this fundamental labor protection.

According to Heidi Shierholz, an economist at Economic Policy Institute Action, a neutral advocacy organization, the overtime policies in Project 2025 “only provide benefits to employers, not workers.” Employers would gain various loopholes to evade extra compensation for additional work while profiting from their employees’ efforts. “This is a strongly anti-overtime initiative,” she stated.

Donald J. Boudreaux, a professor of economics at George Mason University, sees the reduction of overtime eligibility and requirements as beneficial for workers. He maintains that the American job market is operating effectively and that employers must compete to attract skilled workers. In his view, businesses that fail to offer suitable overtime will eventually lose talent to those who do. Conversely, he argues, if the government mandates overtime pay for more workers, “it’s likely there will be a decrease in wages to compensate for that expense.”

However, Shierholz disagrees, contending that the balance of power between workers and employers is not equal, citing incidents of wage theft as proof.

Between 2017 and 2020, over $3 billion was repaid to workers who had their wages stolen, including many instances where employers failed to pay overtime to eligible employees. “If workers and employers did indeed have equal bargaining power, we wouldn’t see figures like that,” she stated.

Research on overtime regulations is limited, but studies examining minimum wage increases typically conclude they do not lead to decreased wages or job losses. These findings imply that “there are significant areas” within the job market that lack real competition, and that elevated government standards and enforcement are beneficial for workers to ensure fair compensation, Shierholz added.

Overtime pay is “absolutely a fundamental labor standard,” Shierholz emphasized. If an employer requires workers to “disrupt their lives” by putting in extra hours, she pointed out, overtime ensures “workers are compensated for that additional time.” It also limits excessive hours, as employers may prefer to keep work hours capped at 40 per week to avoid paying extra. When the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted in 1938, it established the right to overtime pay and minimum wage, helping to standardize the work week to eight hours a day, five days a week.

During his presidency, Trump opposed an Obama administration rule that aimed to expand overtime eligibility to an additional 4 million workers. Instead, he introduced a new rule that significantly lowered the number of individuals qualified for overtime, restricting protections.

an increase of just 1.3 million additional workers.

Following Donald Trump’s departure from the presidency, Joe Biden put his own overtime regulation into effect, which this summer revised Trump’s salary threshold of $35,568 for overtime pay eligibility to reflect inflation. Under Biden’s regulation, the salary threshold will rise again from $43,888 to $58,656 by January 2025. Moreover, it requires that this threshold be updated every three years to match inflation rates. When this measure is fully in place, an additional 4.3 million workers will qualify for overtime pay when they exceed 40 hours of work per week.

Project 2025 proposes a shift in policy once more, suggesting that the next Republican president should revoke Biden’s overtime regulation and revert to the version from the Trump administration, adjusting it for inflation every five years instead. This change would mean that Kinard and similar workers, who qualify for overtime under Biden’s rules, would lose their entitlement to extra pay.

The document takes it further, urging Congress to allow employers to calculate overtime over a period of two or four weeks instead of just one. While it claims to offer workers “greater flexibility,” in reality, this could result in lower earnings. For instance, if an employee works 45 hours in one week and 35 in the next, they’d earn overtime for those five extra hours in the first week under current laws. However, if averaged over two weeks, they would receive no extra pay at all. “Employers could exploit this system extensively,” noted Shierholz. They might require employees to work excessively long hours in one week and then equalize their hours over the following week or weeks, leaving them without overtime pay.

These two proposals—reversing Biden’s provision and permitting employers to calculate overtime pay over multiple weeks—could strip overtime protections from approximately 8 million workers, as suggested by a study from the Economic Policy Institute Action. Shierholz described this number as a “very conservative estimate.”

Exchanging overtime pay for time off

Project 2025 presents additional suggestions that would similarly diminish overtime pay and protections.

One suggestion includes allowing workers to trade their overtime compensation for paid time off. Although this proposal might appear to provide additional paid leave—a benefit that many Americans lack—it essentially allows employees to “exchange pay for time,” remarked Lynn Rhinehart, a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s misleading.”

Under current laws, employers can already offer workers the chance to accumulate paid leave for extra hours worked. However, this new provision “provides no extra benefits to workers,” according to Shierholz. “It merely gives employers more authority.” Employers would have the capacity to decide when workers could trade extra pay for time off, and employees would need to request permission from their employers to use any accumulated compensatory time, with no guarantee they would be allowed to do so when needed.

The conservative blueprint also proposes that Congress prohibit overtime pay for remote workers unless they log at least 10 hours a day—meaning someone who worked nine hours a day, five days a week, would not receive any overtime payment for the additional hours worked beyond the standard 40.

Moreover, Project 2025 recommends that unions should have the ability to negotiate existing labor laws, including minimum wage and overtime regulations, instead of treating these as the basic standards.

This would compel unions to negotiate over what have been recognized as essential workplace standards. This provision is particularly troubling, according to Shierholz, as it “deprives workers of power” while granting employers “an additional bargaining advantage.”

Lastly, the proposal suggests that states should be granted waivers from federal labor laws to “promote experimentation.” This could potentially include waiving parts of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which would allow states to exempt businesses from adhering to overtime pay and minimum wage laws, according to Shierholz.

Recently, during his campaign, Trump proposed tax exemptions for overtime pay. Studies by the Budget Lab at Yale University and the Tax Foundation have indicated that, should such a proposal be adopted by Congress, it could lead to significant costs in lost tax revenue, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade.

These cost estimates are quite conservative, as they don’t consider the potential for high earners to exploit the system by converting their salaries to a lower hourly wage to benefit from tax-free overtime earnings beyond that.

“I find this proposal to be incredibly unserious,” Shierholz commented. “It’s deeply cynical. He has undermined both overtime and workers in various ways.”

Trump has faced allegations related to not compensating workers fairly. His businesses were cited for 24 infractions regarding overtime or minimum wage protections from 2005 to 2016, according to data from the Department of Labor reviewed by YSL News.

A lawsuit in the early 1980s claimed his real estate company paid Polish immigrant workers as little as $4-$5 per hour without overtime, despite them working 12-hour days, seven days a week. Some workers reported that they were never compensated for their work. That lawsuit concluded in a sealed settlement.

In a separate case, Guy Dorcinvil, a dishwasher at Mar-a-Lago, alleged in 2007 that he had not received overtime wages he was owed over three years, resulting in a $7,500 settlement the following year. In 2016, Trump Miami Resort Management LLC reached a settlement with 48 servers for unpaid overtime, compensating them an average of $800 each. The lawsuit claimed some workers worked 20-hour shifts during a 10-day event.

In response to reports about these recent lawsuits, Trump asserted that all contractors and employees receive fair compensation and that the grievances represent only a minor portion of his business transactions.

Former President Trump’s business history, his term in office, and the Project 2025 initiative all suggest an intent to undermine protections for overtime pay. Janelle Jones, who serves as the vice president for policy and advocacy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, emphasizes that “having access to overtime pay provides security and stability.” She warns that Project 2025 poses threats to workers’ “earnings, economic safety, and overall security.”