(Washington, D.C.) – In its latest attack on working families, the Bush administration has unveiled a proposal to roll back federal rules that have afforded Americans overtime protections for decades.  A major triumph of the New Deal has now been corrupted by Bush’s creeping Raw Deal for working Americans.

Thanks to Bush’s new overtime rule, millions of hardworking men and women will now take a significant cut in their take home pay. When workers are stripped of their overtime rights, employers can and will force them to work overtime for no additional pay.

For families living paycheck to paycheck, Bush’s proposal could prove devastating.  Overtime pay makes up one-fourth of the weekly earnings of workers who earn overtime, an average of $161 per week—real money for working families.

In addition to its consequences for working families, this move sheds new light on the Bush administration’s widening credibility gap.  Administration officials have spent the past year being evasive, dissembling, and repeatedly misrepresenting their proposal and its effects on workers.  The Bush administration has consistently understated the number of workers who would lose overtime protection, often times in direct conflict with the economic analysis produced by its own Department of Labor.

Administration officials continue to insist that this rule will not harm workers.  If the President truly believes this claim, then he should call on Congress to pass legislation—known as the Harkin amendment—that would simply prevent overtime cuts as a result of this new rule.