Authored by Alex Passantino

Last Friday, the Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division (WHD) submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) its Final Rule to implement a $10.10 minimum wage for federal contractor employees pursuant to Executive Order 13658.  The Final Rule will address comments made by the regulated community in response to WHD’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

The Executive Order requires that the Labor Department issue regulations by October 1, 2014.  Review by OIRA is the final step in the process prior to publication of the Final Rule in the Federal Register.  It is unclear whether OIRA will have sufficient time to review the Final Rule in time to meet the October 1 deadline or whether it will need to let that deadline slide.

As we have written previously, once the Final Rule is published, the minimum wage for federal contractor employees and the implementing rules are expected to apply to covered contracts where the solicitation has been issued on or after January 1, 2015.  We will, of course, keep you updated on the status and effective date of the minimum wage obligations.