The Obama administration's new plan to require overtime pay for salaried workers earning up to $47,000 is an understandable, but unrealistic reaction to the problem of stagnating wages and a diminishing American middle class. People are working longer hours for comparatively less pay, and something needs to happen to jostle the system back into alignment.

But the tight deadlines to implement the new rules don't match the reality of the American workplace. The U.S. Department of Labor plans to double previous income limits on overtime pay and impose new rules on employers as of Dec. 1. Instead of receiving a financial windfall from higher overtime pay, many salaried employees could wind up making less as they go on the time clock.

Americans frustrated by the multimillion-dollar salaries being paid to corporate chief executives might react: Heck yeah, it's about time they had to share the wealth. But there are thousands of small employers — retailers, nonprofits and, yes, even local newspapers — that simply cannot afford what this policy demands.

The measure comes as President Barack Obama pushes a congressional proposal to gradually increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020 from its current federal level of $7.25.

Note the key difference here: He's not recommending such a drastic increase all at once. He recognizes that American employers couldn't withstand the shock. Yet his administration seeks to impose draconian rules on overtime pay, giving employers only six months' advance notice.

The newspaper industry is hardly unbiased on this issue. Across the board, we face a constant struggle to stay in business, whether it's The New York Times or the Peoria Journal Star. Our staffers push themselves hard, putting in long hours to fulfill a demanding mission that serves a public good.

The National Newspaper Association, like other industry groups, has long embraced the need for salary adjustments on a graduated basis. "The Labor Department failed to do its job for a decade by creating more graduated adjustments that small businesses could live with. Then it decided to try to force the small-business economy to leap the whole chasm in a single bound," says association President Chip Hutchison, publisher of The Times Leader in Princeton, Kentucky.

Under the new rules, the mission will no longer take priority, whether it's keeping the public informed or performing nonprofit work to house the poor or fight cancer. The time clock will dominate all other considerations. And if employers can't afford it, they'll either have to reduce salaried full-time employment or go out of business.

People running, say, fast-food restaurants who make less than the $47,000 threshold could soon have to adjust their resumes. The hours they accept as an investment to attain valuable management experience could soon disappear. The term "hourly employee" will take on a whole new, and not terribly impressive, meaning.

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