Aspen Highlights & Updates
New Service Offering! State New Hire Documents – Aspen is excited to announce that beginning in January 2025, Aspen will be adding additional required state new hire notices to the new hire onboarding process. More details will follow in the new year.
HR Platform Enhancements – Aspen HR is excited to announce several enhancements to the HR portal, including easier TurboTax access for employees, upgrades to the Virtual Assistant, and embedded ROI and KPI dashboards. Contact our team to learn more about our HR technology platform.
New Aspenites
Please join us in welcoming Lea Weaver, Senior Manager, Benefit Agency, and Kaylee Schor, Administrative Support Coordinator, to the Aspen HR team!
HR and Legal Alerts!
The new year is always an active time for compliance law updates. Below are summaries of many new nationwide laws and regulations that become effective on January 1, 2025, unless otherwise stated.
Contact us for a more detailed analysis of any particular update. Please note that we cannot summarize every new compliance change, and this update is not intended to be legal advice.
DOL Overtime Rule Reminder – On November 15, 2024, a federal judge struck down the DOL’s overtime rule nationwide. The judge halted the January 1, 2025 increase and retroactively struck down the July 1, 2024. Therefore, the federal exempt threshold returns to the pre-July 2024 standard, which is $35,568 for individuals exempt under the white-collar exemptions.
It is important to note that several states and localities have a higher threshold. On November 27, 2024, The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced it is appealing a U.S. district judge’s recent ruling striking down the agency’s final rule. As of now, please proceed with the threshold reverting to the pre-July 2024 standard. We will keep you updated on the status of the appeal.
January 1, 2025 Minimum Wage Updates
- Alaska – $11.73
- Arizona – $14.70
- California – $16.50* ($17.95 in San Mateo)
- Colorado – $14.81*
- Connecticut – $16.35
- Delaware – $15.00
- Illinois – $15.00
- Maine – $14.65
- Maryland – $14.65
- Michigan – $10.56 and then to $12.48 on February 21, 2025
- Minnesota – $11.13.* The only remaining exception will be a 90-day training wage ($9.08 per hour) for workers under age 20
- Missouri – $13.75
- Montana – $10.55
- Nebraska – $13.50
- New Jersey – $15.49. Seasonal and small employers (fewer than six employees): increase from $13.73 to $14.53 per hour
- New York – $15.50* ($16.50 in NYC, Long Island, and Westchester)
- Ohio – $10.70
- Rhode Island – $15.00
- South Dakota – $11.50
- Vermont – $14.01
- Virginia – $12.41
- Washington – $16.66*
* Reminder, several localities or specific industries may have higher minimum wage rates.
Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”), BOI Reporting – The US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a new regulation in 2022 requiring companies to file a report on information about their beneficial ownership. Beneficial Owner Information (BOI) reporting was due on January 1, 2025, for companies created prior to January 1, 2024. However, on December 3, 2024, a Texas court blocked enforcement of the CTA nationwide. As a result, Companies do not need to comply with the January deadline.
California:
- California Salary Threshold – California’s salary threshold for certain exempt employees under state law will increase to $68,640 per year, $5,720 per month, or $1,320 per week.
- California AB 1008 – Amends the definition of “personal information” under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to include various formats, including “artificial intelligence systems that are capable of outputting personal information.”
- California AB 1815 – Defines race to include traits associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles.
- California AB 1824 – Amends the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to require that a business that acquires the personal information, including HR data, of a consumer as part of a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other transaction comply with the opt-out directions that the consumer originally provided to the transferor company.
- California AB 2123 – Removes the provision allowing employers to require employees to use two weeks of vacation before using paid family leave insurance benefits. Also, employees’ wage replacement benefits will increase from between 60% and 70% to between 70% and 90%, with employee contribution rates to increase from 1.1% to 1.2%.
- California SB 1090 – Allows employees to file a claim for State Disability Insurance (SDI) and Paid Family Leave (PFL) benefits up to 30 days in advance of the first compensable day for benefits. The amendment, therefore, allows workers to apply before anticipated leave rather than completing the process after they have begun leave.
- California AB 2299 – Employers that post a model notice about whistleblower protections will be deemed in compliance with the state’s whistleblower posting requirements. The model notice was included in your California Labor Law poster. If you did not receive it, here’s the model notice.
Colorado – Colorado recently released the 2025 Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards (COMPS) Order, effective January 1, which can be found here.
Connecticut – Employers will need to provide paid sick leave to all employees and expands paid sick leave coverage to require all private-sector employers with 25 or more employees to give employees 40 hours of paid sick leave annually. Employers that already offer other paid leave, including vacation, personal days or PTO, under the same or better terms and conditions will be deemed to be in compliance with the new requirements.
Delaware:
- Delaware SB 223 – Effective December 29, 2024, creates the Service Worker Protection Act, which establishes employment protections for certain service employees during changes of ownership and sets requirements for notifying and retaining employees.
- Delaware SB 1 – The Healthy Delaware Families Act, enacted in 2022, created a statewide paid family and medical leave insurance program funded through employer and employee contributions. Beginning January 1, 2025, employers participating in the state plan must remit employer and employee contributions to the state. The actual program does not start offering leave and benefits until January 1, 2026.
Illinois:
- Illinois HB 2161 – Prohibits employment discrimination based on an individual’s family responsibilities, which means an employee’s actual or perceived care of a family member in the past, present, or future.
- Illinois HB 3129 – Requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale and benefits for a position in all job postings. The law applies to jobs performed at least partly in the state as well as jobs where the employee will report to a supervisor, office, or other work site in Illinois.
- Illinois Personnel Records Request – Specifies the categories of documents that every employee has a legal right to inspect and copy; provides that an employee can sue an employer if the state Department of Labor does not resolve their complaint under the law within 180 days. Please review our October Aspenite for more information.
- Illinois HB 4867 – Amends the Illinois Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on reproductive health decisions, meaning an employee’s decisions regarding the use of contraception; fertility or sterilization care; assisted reproductive technologies; miscarriage management care; healthcare related to the continuation or termination of pregnancy; or prenatal, intranatal, or postnatal care.
- Illinois Wage Statements – Employers must also provide current and former employees greater access to their paystubs. Amends the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act to require employers to maintain a copy of an employee’s pay stub for at least 3 years and provide employees with copies of their pay stubs upon request.
- Illinois SB 3310 – Changes the statute of limitations for filing a discrimination or harassment complaint under the Illinois Human Rights Act from 300 days to two years after the civil rights violation was allegedly committed.
Kentucky SB 47 – Kentucky’s medical cannabis program begins in January 2025. However, this law allows employers to establish policies and procedures to limit the use of cannabis in the workplace, including a drug testing policy, drug-free workplace policy, or zero-tolerance drug policy.
Maine:
- Maine PFML Premiums Begin – While Maine’s new paid family and medical leave benefits won’t roll out until May 1, 2026, employers with at least one employee in the state must contribute to the program starting January 1, 2025.
- Maine Salary Threshold – Maine’s salary threshold for certain exempt employees under state law will increase to $43,950 per year or $845.20 per week.
Minnesota Pay Transparency – Requires employers with 30 or more total employees in Minnesota to include in all job postings a starting salary range, or if no range, a fixed pay rate. The range must consist of a minimum and a maximum amount based on the employer’s good-faith estimate of the opportunity for each position.
New Hampshire HB 1038 – Prohibits registered sex offenders from employment at businesses providing direct services to minors or direct supervision or oversight of minors.
New Jersey Privacy and Data Security – Effective January 15, 2025, the New Jersey Data Privacy Act requires businesses to notify consumers about any information collected on them and allow consumers to view, correct, or request the deletion of personal data. Notably, the new law does not apply in the employment context.
New York:
- New York Prenatal Leave – New York employers must provide up to 20 hours of paid leave for pregnant employees to attend prenatal medical appointments and procedures. This is leave taken for healthcare services for an employee during their pregnancy, including physical exams, medical procedures, monitoring and testing, and meeting with healthcare providers to talk about the pregnancy. This requirement is in addition to any paid sick leave required under state law.
- New York Equal Protection Rights Expanded – New York voters approved a ballot measure that expands the state constitution to provide protections for ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy).
Rhode Island – Increase the number of weeks of available temporary caregiver paid leave from six weeks to seven weeks beginning January 1, 2025, and eight weeks starting January 1, 2026.
Washington Salary Threshold – Washington’s salary threshold for certain exempt employees under state law will increase to $69,305.60 per year for employers with 1-50 employees and to $77,968.80 per year for all other employers.
You can find additional legal updates in these articles by Fisher Phillips and Littler.
Have questions about these updates? Don’t hesitate to contact our team!
