In 2024, the Biden administration issued a policy that will make over four million workers newly eligible to qualify for overtime pay. The U.S. Department of Labor did this by raising the “overtime threshold,” which is the salary ceiling under which salaried workers still qualify automatically for overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in a week, even though those workers are not paid hourly. Raising the overtime threshold increases the number of workers with guaranteed overtime protections. Currently, the threshold protects non-hourly workers who make up to $43,888 annually, and it’s set to rise again in 2025 to apply to people making up to $58,656.

Project 2025 doesn’t want to raise this threshold. Instead, Project 2025 proposes lowering the threshold and taking away overtime eligibility for millions of workers. This would leave at least four million working people in industries that pay annually but still at lower wages stuck working long hours without overtime pay — everything from hospitality to manufacturing, administrative roles, and more.

From page 492 of the Mandate of Leadership.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) was responsible for investing billions of ARP dollars into transformative infrastructure projects across the nation. According to their 2022 report, these investments resulted in 220,000 jobs and generated nearly $20 billion in private investment.

Project 2025 proposes that EDA grants “should be consolidated with other programs and/or eliminated,” which would undermine the ability of the federal government to invest in communities across the nation — with effects that could devastate working people, small businesses, and the overall health of our economy.

From page 664 of the Mandate for Leadership.

Data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is intentionally independent from partisan interests and is frequently relied on by the public, employers, researchers, and government organizations. According to BLS, they “measure employment, compensation, worker safety, productivity, and price movements. This information is used by jobseekers, workers, business leaders, and others to help them make sound decisions at work and at home.”

Project 2025, however, wants to consolidate the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau with BLS into one agency. While formal reorganization requires explicit delegation from Congress to go through, the Trump administration made an attempt in 2018 to bypass Congress and use other executive powers to do so. If an extremist were to occupy the executive branch again, Project 2025 would want them to go even further.

Politicizing BLS and reducing the data collection capacity of the agency by consolidating it into the Census Bureau would make it harder to know how our economy is doing, whether families’ paychecks are growing, and what steps we may need to take to make sure small businesses are thriving and people have enough in their bank accounts to make ends meet.

The authors of Project 2025 think that young people should be able to work in “inherently dangerous jobs,” in roles that are currently not permitted due to significant safety concerns that have long been established and enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

Project 2025 would change DOL policies and allow America’s youth to work these jobs, meaning young people entering the labor force out of economic necessity could be subjected to more dangerous work because they need the income more than others — and cannot access a safer job or get paid as well.

From page 595 of the Mandate for Leadership: