What The Newly Overtime-Eligible Do
But estimating how many white-collar workers would become overtime-eligible under the proposed rule, and what sorts of jobs they hold, is no easy task, even for the Labor Department itself. For our analysis, we used the IPUMS-CPS dataset, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, a supplemental portion of which asks people about their incomes as well as their occupations, making estimation possible. (We didn’t attempt to model how employers might respond to the new rules.)
By our estimates, last year just under 4.9 million workers would have become newly eligible for overtime pay had the rule been in place. That’s somewhat more than the Labor Department’s estimate of 4.65 million, though they used pooled 2011-13 data and a more detailed methodology. (Other estimates of the number of affected workers range from 3 million, by the American Action Forum, to 5.9 million, by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.)
Although the 4.9 million employees in our estimate worked in more than 150 separately defined occupations, just 14 occupations accounted for more than half the estimated impact. Those range from the to-be-expected (retail, food service and office managers of various sorts) to the somewhat surprising (designers, accountants and auditors).
What the Newly Overtime-Eligible Do  | Estimated number ofaffected workers,  | by occupational group (2014)  | Professional  | and related  | 24%  | Management, business and  | Management, business and  | financial  | 49%  | Office and  | 4.9 million  | admin  | 10%  | support  | Other 1%  | 14%  | Service 2%  | Sales and  | related  | Source: Pew Research Center analysis of Current Population  | Survey data via IPUMS  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 