Paul DeCamp, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Law360 Employment Authority, in “How Trump’s Return Could Shift the Wage-Hour Landscape,” by Max Kutner. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Former President Donald Trump's return to the White House could mean dropping appeals in rule challenges, implementing business-friendly enforcement strategies and ending taxes on tips and overtime, among other impacts on wage and hour issues, attorneys said.
Employment law experts said they expect Trump's second-term wage and hour policies will be friendlier to employers, including through more compliance assistance, than those under President Joe Biden.
"One of the things that we saw in the current administration is a very heavy emphasis on penalties, on liquidated damages, on embarrassing employers publicly when there's a violation in order to put pressure on the employers," said Paul DeCamp of management-side firm Epstein Becker Green.
"I don't think that the incoming administration will approach things that way," said DeCamp, who was U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division administrator under former President George W. Bush. "I think there will be much more of an understanding for how violations can happen and an appreciation for the fact that not every violation is willful and intentional and in bad faith." …
Path to Minimum Wage
With Trump in office and Republicans gaining control of the Senate, though the fate of the House of Representatives remained unclear Wednesday afternoon, Republican legislation could have an easier time becoming law.
That could potentially include increasing the federal minimum wage for the first time since 2009, albeit to a number lower than Democrats and their allies have wanted. Republicans including Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump's vice presidential running mate, introduced a bill to raise the hourly federal floor to $11, with immigration verification.
"We've seen a very aggressive assertion of populist themes from the campaign, and both the president-elect and the vice president-elect have been aggressive in courting blue-collar workers," Epstein Becker Green's DeCamp said. "I think that they would see it as consistent with their overall policy view, to increase the federal minimum wage, so long as they're doing it in a way that it doesn't destroy a lot of jobs."
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