A new proposal by President Obama could help put more money into the pockets of salaried workers.

As a manager for a national auto supply chain, Lora McCrary puts in between 50 and 70 hours a week remodeling stores across the country.

But because she’s a salaried employee, she’s ineligible to earn overtime. The long hours have taken a toll on her.

“I’m just so beat down,” McCrary, 50, said from a job site in Florida. “I’m 100 pounds heavier than I was when I started the job.”

So when she heard the news that President Barack Obama wants to expand overtime rules so that more Americans are eligible, she was excited.

“Right now, too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve,” Obama wrote in an op-ed for the Huffington Post. “That’s partly because we’ve failed to update overtime regulations for years.”

The overtime threshold was last raised in 1975. According to the Department of Labor, 62 percent of workers qualified for overtime back then. Now, just 8 percent do. In fact, a family of four would have to live in poverty before a breadwinner would qualify for overtime – the poverty threshold for a family of four is $24,008, but the overtime threshold is just $23,660.

Under the new proposal, the federal government would lift the overtime threshold from $23,660 to $50,440.

With a salary of just over $40,000, McCrary is one of the 5 million working Americans who would benefit from the new rule. She stands to earn up to $15,000 more annually, and doesn’t hesitate when asked what she’d do with the money: “I would put [it] in savings for old age. I have to start to put something away to fall back on.”

McCrary’s current job offers stock options and a 401(k) retirement plan, and she’s taken advantage of those benefits for the past two years. But like many parents, McCrary put her children’s future ahead of her own. That included helping them pay for college. But it sapped efforts to save for herself.

Nationwide, a movement has swelled that is calling attention to the struggles of fast-food and retail employees, car washers, home care professionals and others who make minimum wage. The Obama administration’s proposed rule targets white-collar employees, managers and supervisors who are often full-time and salaried. Currently, if these workers put in more than 40 hours a week, it doesn’t translate into more pay.

The proposal could take months to implement. It is subject to a 60-day public comment period. The administration can put the rule into effect through regulation. The conservative-led Congress can try to fight it.

Adjusting public policy to keep up with the times is long overdue, said McCrary, who has noticed that some supervisors seem reluctant to ask to be paid for all of the hours they work.

“Some of the people have been out here for so long, they don’t even argue about it. This is the way it’s always been,” she said. “It is time for a change.”

WENDI C. THOMAS a writing fellow for the Center for Community Change.