Fair Labor Standards Act: Labor Made Key Decisions in Studies of Updated Overtime Rule and Contractor Provided Support

In 2004, the Department of Labor (Labor) updated the rule that determines who is entitled to overtime pay of "time and a half" when they work more than 40 hours a week. As part of the rule-making process, Labor was required to estimate the impact of the updated overtime rule and publish the results in the Federal Register. Labor contracted with the CONSAD Research Corporation (CONSAD) to assist the agency in studying the impact of both the proposed and final overtime rule. Because of Congress' interest in these studies and how they were conducted, we agreed to identify: (1) CONSAD's contractual responsibilities in assisting Labor with estimating the impact of the updated overtime rule on workers and (2) CONSAD's actions in carrying out these contractual responsibilities. To determine CONSAD's responsibilities, we obtained and analyzed two contracts between Labor and CONSAD. The first contract covered CONSAD's responsibilities related to Labor's impact study for the proposed overtime rule, while the second contract covered CONSAD's responsibilities related to Labor's impact study for the final overtime rule.