Compliance Stuff

  As 2026 approaches, employers may want to assess the following wage-and-hour compliance issues: rising salary thresholds for overtime exemptions, widening gaps between federal and state minimum wage amounts, and increasingly complex state-specific duties tests and exemption standards. Each can present operational risk if job classifications and pay practices are not carefully aligned with both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and stricter state laws. Employers can benefit from ensuring they have updated pay rates and job descriptions to align with the new and changing standards explained below. Quick Hits Employers may want to prepare for 2026 by mapping exempt roles in Alaska, California, Maine, New York, and Washington to new salary thresholds and implementing adjustments aligned with effective dates. To avoid salary compression, employers may want to reconcile pay bands in the thirty-one states with higher minimum wages than federal law and ensure that any threshold multipl...

  Over the last six months, federal and state courts have been unwrapping the landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision in  Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo  and navigating a new legal landscape that challenges decades of established administrative law regarding agency interpretations of federal laws. Quick Hits Some federal courts applying  Loper Bright  have struck down agency rules. Sixteen states, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., have acknowledged  Loper Bright , though few states have addressed head-on its relation to their existing jurisprudence concerning the interpretation of state agency matters. While it largely remains to be seen how  Loper Bright  may be utilized at a state level,  Loper Bright  is likely to continue being used to challenge certain federal employment law rules or regulations in the future. The Wake of  Loper Bright In  Loper Bright , the Supreme Court overturned four decad...