State Salary Level Changes for 2025

On January 1, new salary levels for “white collar” or “EAP” exemptions became effective in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, New York and Washington.

• Alaska - $49,545.60 annually
• California - $68,640 annually
• Colorado - $56,485 annually
• Maine - $43,951 annually
• New York - $60,405.80 annually
• Washington - $69,305.60 annually (small employers), $77,968.80 annually (large employers)

Some cities and counties, such as those in the NYC metro area, may impose higher minimum salary requirements than the state.

About the Exempt Salary Threshold
Under federal and state laws, employers must compensate their employees with 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for any hours of overtime work. However, under these laws, employees who work in an executive, administrative or professional (EAP) capacity are exempt from overtime pay if they satisfy, among other things, the salary level requirements for their exemption. 

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the current salary level requirement for the EAP exemption is $35,568 per year. For highly compensated employees, the salary level is $107,432 per year. While these salary levels apply in most U.S. jurisdictions, some states - including the ones listed above - have adopted EAP salary levels higher than the ones required by the FLSA.

If you have any exempt employees in these states who are currently earning less than the new required salary amounts, please make sure you sign into Efficenter and update those employees’ pay rates. Efficenter administrators can easily identify the pay rates for their employees by running the Employee Report under the Efficenter Reports tab, and can make rate updates for the affected employees in Employee Files > Pay Rate/Position.