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Almost a year ago, President Obama vowed to use his pen and phone wherever possible to make a difference for middle class Americans, effectively promising to aggressively employ executive action to lift struggling Americans economic prospects in the face of implacable Republican opposition.

But now some liberals are beginning to worry that Obama may fall short in this regard, on an issue where he could perhaps give more of an economic boost to the middle class through unilateral action than on any other front. And if that happens, it could form the basis for another argument among Democrats over the partys economic direction.

The issue in question is how Obama will treat the issue of overtime pay, which is set to flare up next month. Senator Sherrod Brown, a leading member of the partys increasingly emboldened populist wing, tells me: As the party of the middle class and those seeking to join it, Democrats should stop the erosion of overtime pay.

The background: Last spring, Obama directed the Department of Labor to revise the rules that govern which private sector employees get overtime pay as part of the New Deal-era Fair Labor Standards Act. Under current rules, those who make $455 or less a mere $23,660 per year or less qualify for time-and-a-half pay if they work more than 40 hours per week. Many workers over that threshold do not qualify for that protection. That threshold is functionally lower than it has historically been, thanks to inflation: According to the Economic Policy Institute, only 11 percent of salaried workers qualify, which compares with 65 percent back in 1975.

The question is: How high will the Obama administration set the new threshold? The answer will determine how many people will benefit and could amount to differences totaling in the millions of people. Some liberals are pushing Obama to set the threshold at around $51,000 per year, which could mean overtime pay for 47 percent of workers who get salaries. Billionaire Nick Hanauer, who has forthrightly admitted that wealthy capitalists such as himself have been enriched in part by the current low threshold, wants it set even higher, at $69,000 per year.

But now the Huffington Posts Dave Jamieson reports that some of these liberals think the Obama administration is eying a much lower threshold, of around $42,000.

This is where the argument among Democrats could kick in.

Progressive Senators who have already criticized the administration on other economic issues Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Tom Harkin wrote a letter last spring to Obama, applauding his decision to revisit overtime pay.

But in their letter, the liberal Senators also set forth their desired threshold: Around $54,000 per year.

The differences here matter a lot. According to the EPI, raising the threshold from its current level to a sum in the neighborhood of what the liberal Senators want could mean higher overtime pay for at least 2.6 million more people than raising it to $42,000, the amount the Obama administration is supposedly eying.

Original post:
Sargent: The next big fight among Democrats?