Top-shelf brands not only taste better but may also be less likely to prove a migraine trigger. I caution patients to order a specific brand of alcohol when ordering a cocktail rather than relying on well drinks or lower-quality brands. It has been noted in some studies that in less than 30 percent of people, red wine triggers headache no matter the number of drinks consumed.

© 2024 Harvard Health Publishing® of The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Distribution of daily alcoholic beverages consumption (total daily quantity and by type of alcoholic drink), for all person‐days, within‐person means, and within‐person SDs. The majority were female (419/487, 86.0%), actively working (293/378, 77.5%). Most of the females had regular menstrual cycles (247/419, 58.9%). Individuals https://ecosoberhouse.com/ reported a mean (SD) of 6.1 (3.3) migraine days per month and 3.7 (1.7) migraine attacks per month. If both stress and alcohol are migraine triggers for you, combining them won’t do you any favors. In addition to this, people are sometimes more likely to drink more when they are feeling stressed and a little reckless.

Why do I get a migraine attack when I drink alcohol?

The alcohols more likely to trigger a migraine attack are dark liquors like bourbon, whiskey or red wine. If you do drink alcohol, it’s important to be mindful of your consumption and to experiment to see what works best for you. Many people find their migraine symptoms are heightened after consuming caffeine or alcohol. Conversely, other people say that a cup of coffee can stop their migraine symptoms, and some medications designed to fight migraine pain may contain a dose of caffeine.

Alcoholic neuropathy

• People can talk with their doctors about possible methods to prevent or ease alcohol-induced headaches.
• People who get migraine attacks during or after drinking should consider reducing or eliminating alcohol.
• Individuals from different ethnic backgrounds may have variable sensitivity to alcohol.
• Note that to qualify as a cocktail (or delayed alcohol-induced) headache, the pain must start within three hours of drinking.
• To learn more about all of your migraine treatment options, visit the AMF Resource Library.

The most common signs and symptoms are stuffy nose and skin flushing. Other neurotransmitters play a role in the pain of migraine, including calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP). Migraines might occur rarely or strike several times a month. For some people, an aura might occur before or during migraines. They're usually visual but can also include other disturbances.

Helpful Resources

Your chances for recovery depend on how early the disease is diagnosed and how much damage has already occurred. Avoiding alcohol is the best way to treat these conditions and relieve symptoms. The earlier you stop intake, the more likely you are to recover. Optic neuropathy can also develop as a result of accidental methanol poisoning. Methanol is used in some hand sanitizers instead of ethyl alcohol. In some cases, methanol poisoning can occur as a result of drinking homemade alcohol or moonshine.

Is Alcohol Consumption a Trigger for Migraine?

Unfortunately, nothing can prevent reactions to alcohol or ingredients in alcoholic beverages. To avoid a reaction, avoid alcohol or the particular substance that causes your reaction. Rarely, severe pain after drinking alcohol is a sign of a more serious disorder, such as Hodgkin's lymphoma. Alcohol intolerance can cause immediate, uncomfortable reactions after you drink alcohol.

The only way to prevent these uncomfortable reactions is to avoid alcohol. Medication-overuse headaches occur when medications stop relieving pain and begin to cause headaches. You then use more pain medication, which continues the cycle. Though migraine causes aren't fully understood, genetics and environmental factors appear to play a role.

Moreover, people who drink alcohol may not drink as much water, intensifying the water loss. It may also trigger headaches related to headache disorders, such as migraine. A 2016 review notes that alcohol may trigger a tension headache, especially if a person also has migraine. The research found that 21% of people with migraine say that alcohol is a tension headache trigger, compared with just 2% of people without migraine.

Here is the advice of one wine expert

If you're someone that drinks a lot of coffee, you may experience a withdrawal headache when you miss your usual cup. Withdrawal headaches that you feel in the afternoon can be a direct result of your body noticing it hasn't received its usual dose of caffeine. Secondary headaches are related to a medical condition such as alcohol and headaches head injury, high blood pressure, infection, trauma, and tumor. Side effects of medication or substance withdrawal can also trigger headaches. Excessive consumption of alcohol causes alcohol-related neurologic disease. When you consume alcohol, it’s absorbed into your bloodstream from the stomach and the small intestine.

• A migraine is headache with other symptoms such as sensitivity to light and sound, nausea, vomiting, aura and more.
• Studies show that many people with migraine choose not to drink alcohol for fear that it may trigger a migraine attack.
• Our Move Against Migraine support group is a place for you to connect with others (via Facebook) who live with migraine to exchange stories and find community and support.
• Don’t give up on your search to find an integrative treatment that works for you.
• Afternoon headaches can often be triggered by something that occurred during the day, such as muscle tension, drinking too much coffee, or skipping lunch.

The company does not offer tours of dispensaries, but travels to senior living communities to provide educational information. Taking too many edibles can cause dizziness, confusion, changes in heart rate and blood pressure, panic attacks, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, and can even land some people in the emergency room. The company Trulieve, which has the largest retail footprint for cannabis products in the United States and https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/abuse-in-older-adults-a-growing-threat/ a 750,000-square-foot cannabis cultivation facility in north Florida, is also connecting with older people through educational sessions at senior living communities. Earlier this year, Mr. Hickerson was bused to an event organized by Glass House, one of the biggest cannabis brands in the country, along with about 50 other people from his retirement community who were offered cannabis products at a substantial discount.

• In fact, the number of older adults dying from alcohol-related causes rose by 18.2 percent between 2019 and 2020.
• In addition, retired people don’t have to worry about job performance and naturally have more free time to either use drugs or hide their use.
• Older adults are more likely than individuals in younger age groups to experience long‐term health conditions and to take multiple prescription medications, which may further complicate the negative effects of substance use (Mattson, Lipari, Hays, & Horn, 2017).
• The purposes of this paper are (a) to critically analyse the social context of substance use among older adults and (b) to offer strategies for nurses and other health care providers to optimally support the health of older adults experiencing problematic substance use issues.
• Physiological changes that occur with aging leave older adults more vulnerable to the ill effects of alcohol and drugs, as metabolism and excretion of substances slow down, increasing the risk of toxicity.

Health care professionals need to continue to do as thorough of assessments as possible and enlist the help of formal measures, Web-based assessment, and build in the questions outlined earlier as routine. As the baby boom generation ages, the health care system will be challenged to provide culturally competent services to this group, as they are a unique generation of older adults. Knowledge about older-adult substance use and the issues that contribute to late onset or maintained addiction in late life will need to be continually updated as we learn how and why this generation of adults uses substances. Furthermore, the advancement and development of interventions that may be more useful for, effective for, and desired by this incoming generation of older adults than previous generation, such as mobile interventions, will be crucial to alleviating the projected pressures on the health care system. Additionally, an equity lens can help health care providers understand that substance use and the harms of use are increased by social conditions such as abuse, trauma, grief, loss, and social determinants of health such as income and social environments (Browne et al., 2018; EQUIP Health Care, 2017).

Conditions

This type of treatment offers a safe, structured environment with constant access to medical professionals, counselors, and other mental health professionals with expertise in treating older adults suffering from addiction. One of the primary https://ecosoberhouse.com/ reasons older people struggle with substance use disorders is a decrease in family support and social interaction as they age. Unfortunately, social isolation is common among older adults as family members and friends move away or pass away.

The combined 2007 and 2014 past year use data for this report are based on information obtained from 23,300 adults aged 65 or older. For example, some people with alcohol use disorders may occasionally binge drink, while others drink daily. Substance use disorders are characterized by intense, uncontrollable cravings for drugs and compulsive drug-seeking behaviors – even in the face of devastating consequences.

Are older adults impacted differently by alcohol and drugs?

These harms may be exacerbated for older adults who are facing multiple transitions as they age; older adults are often neglected, might face elder abuse, experience additional grief and loss as loved ones pass away, and might be subject to changes in financial and social contexts (Kuerbis et al., 2014). Understanding how multiple contextual challenges can influence substance use will also help health care providers use potentially successful interventions to address substance use (Varcoe et al., 2018). To promote ethical and optimal health care for older populations, factors such as social determinants, risk behaviours and environments, and health and social care aspects need to be addressed in a comprehensive and contextual assessment of substance use. Given the intersectoral nature of social disadvantages, and to promote social justice and equity, substance use needs to be viewed as a consequence of other factors. Nurses and other health care providers need to remind themselves that substance use can vary depending on social, historical, and economic contexts, and that the consequences of substance use are often shaped by social inequities based on gender, age, and/or income (Varcoe et al., 2018).

You should always talk to your doctor before you stop using a drug, even an opioid. They can help you reduce or prevent withdrawal symptoms by gradually lowering https://ecosoberhouse.com/ your dose over time until you no longer need the medicine. CBT can also help manage other co-occurring mental health conditions a person with OUD may have.

He’s performed in prisons and recovery centers, and last January, he testified before Congress in support of anti-fentanyl legislation. With the curricula evolving each year, Singh and Sanghvi are also incorporating the effects of disparities in pain care. “There’s a lot of stigma about this medication, and just in general about patients with opioid addiction,” Chua said. Signs are the things that can be observed by others while symptoms are what the person with addiction experiences. Each person's experience with addiction is unique, so some of these may be present while others are not.

How To Diagnose Opioid Addiction

Both methadone and buprenorphine activate tiny parts of nerve cells (opioid receptors) to control cravings, and they are effective and similar in safety and side effects. They may be used as maintenance treatments and, in some cases, to taper off opioid use. Taking an opioid regularly increases the risk of becoming addicted. The time it takes to become physically dependent varies from person to person, but it is usually a couple of weeks. Taking an opioid for a day or two is not a problem for most people, but some studies show that even the first dose can have physiological effects that can make someone vulnerable to opioid use disorder. When you stop using opioids, you will experience a period of withdrawal.

• Some prescription opioid medications take effect quickly and are highly potent, increasing their addictive potential.
• He led a criminal investigation into Purdue Pharma that resulted in the company’s guilty plea in 2007 to having misled regulators, doctors and patients about the dangers of OxyContin.
• According to a 2011 study in the medical journal Cell, itching occurs because opioids activate special “itch-specific” receptors in the spinal cord.
• It is important to remember that OUD is not the result of personal failure or insufficient willpower; it is a brain disease for which effective treatment options are available.

Patients who are highly motivated and have good social support tend to do better with the support of these medications. Withdrawal symptoms may increase in severity over 72 hours before beginning to ease. Unlike withdrawal from other drugs such as alcohol or benzodiazepines, withdrawal from opioids is uncomfortable but rarely life-threatening. Treatment can include supportive measures to ease symptoms and help ensure the person is safe, including administering methadone or buprenorphine. Treatment for opioid use disorder is available from health care professionals and may be provided on an outpatient basis or through a residential program such as a rehabilitation center (rehab). Treatment in any of these settings may include use of medications such as methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone, paired with support programs that can help people recover.

What Causes Opioid Use Disorder?

Note that if someone is prescribed opioids for pain and is using them as prescribed, the physical dependence criteria are not factored into the number of signs and symptoms. This activation of the reward pathway makes opioids addictive for some people. Continued use of the drugs causes changes in the brain that lead to tolerance.

You might have an opioid addiction if you crave the drug or if you feel you can’t control the urge to take the drug. You may also be addicted if you keep using the drug without your doctor’s consent, even if the drug is harmful for you. Opioid addiction can lead to problems in daily life, such as trouble with health, money, work or school, the law, or your relationships with family or friends. Those close to you may become aware of your addiction before you do. In some states, a prescription nasal spray called naloxone (Narcan) is available to keep on hand in case of an overdose.

What causes addiction to opioids?

The most effective treatments for opioid use disorder include the combined use of medication and behavioral treatment. These treatments are routinely provided on an outpatient basis, including primary care or at federally regulated opioid treatment programs. They can also be provided at a part- or full-time residential facility that specializes in treating substance use disorders. What’s more, these statistics don’t include the damage opioid misuse can inflict on people’s everyday lives, not to mention those of the people around them.

But over time, the opioid use disorder is likely to lead to serious problems. When addicted to a drug, a person will continue to use the drug even when it makes life worse. Opiates, also known as “Opioid Painkillers,” include prescription drugs such https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/signs-and-symptoms-of-opioid-addiction/ as Hydrocodone, Fentanyl, and Morphine. These substances are effective pain relievers when taken as directed by a physician. However, the calming effects that Opioid Painkillers produce are habit-forming and can lead to future patterns of abuse.

Educate yourself on the signs and symptoms of overdose — and be prepared

People misusing opioids may try to switch from prescription drugs to heroin when it’s easier to get. Drug dependence occurs with repeated use, causing the neurons to adapt so they only function normally in the presence of the drug. The absence of the drug causes several physiological reactions, ranging from mild in the case of caffeine, to potentially life threatening, such as with heroin. Some chronic pain patients are dependent on opioids and require medical support to stop taking the drug. If a woman uses prescription opioids when she's pregnant, the baby could develop dependence and have withdrawal symptoms after birth. This is called neonatal abstinence syndrome, which can be treated with medicines.

• While methadone and buprenorphine can produce feelings of euphoria in people who do not otherwise take opioids, they do not cause euphoric effects in people with OUD, who have developed a tolerance to opioids.
• When you become addicted to a drug, it might seem like your body and mind can’t function without the drug.
• People who used opioids chronically can also develop narcotic bowel syndrome.
• Drug addiction is a disease for which help and treatment options are available.
• It also discusses its cognitive and psychological symptoms, the DSM-5-TR diagnostic criteria for OUD, and signs of opioid overdose.

We’re located in North Hollywood, in a gorgeous, home-like treatment center on Ampere Avenue. Fill out the form below to contact one of our admissions specialists. They’ll provide compassionate support and guidance, answer your questions, and help you begin the path to recovery. Read our blog to learn more about our holistic treatment approach, different types of addiction, and more.

What’s the Difference between Sobriety and Recovery?

These tools offer personalized insights by tracking sobriety milestones and providing motivational data. In 2025, these digital sobriety aids have evolved to include psychological metrics, which help individuals better understand their progress and challenges. The active use of these calculators further enhances self-awareness and goal-setting within recovery journeys. Resources such as the Digital sobriety tools available in today’s recovery landscape illustrate how technology empowers individuals, aligning with the comprehensive support approach of modern sobriety practices. As we stand on the threshold of a new era in 2025, the distinction between sobriety and clean living has become more defined yet interwoven. Sobriety is no longer just about abstaining from alcohol but encompasses a broader mental and emotional health dimension, supported by innovations like the sobriety calculator.

The recovery process is one of ongoing healing and it is rarely accomplished alone. A person in recovery is continually making an effort to work through the issues that caused alcohol or drug use to occur in the first place. When someoneattends rehab, they quickly learn that substances are not the only problem. If you’ve been thinking about attending rehab for drug or alcohol addiction, you’ve probably seen the terms “sobriety” and “recovery” come up a lot in your research.

• Building a sober community and maintaining a support system has been critical to keeping me on track in sobriety.
• Sobriety refers to the act of abstaining from drugs or alcohol, while recovery is a comprehensive journey of healing and personal growth that goes beyond just stopping substance use.
• These tools offer personalized insights by tracking sobriety milestones and providing motivational data.
• After graduating high school, he attended college at the University of Coastal Carolina & Salisbury University.
• Though challenging, recovery is a continuous commitment to personal growth, transformation, and reclaiming one’s sense of identity.
• This shift in mindset encourages holistic wellness practices, integrating principles like mindfulness, sustainable consumption, and eco-friendly living.

Understanding The Difference Between Sobriety and Recovery is essential for anyone on the path to overcoming addiction, as it highlights the comprehensive approach needed for true, lasting change. Navigating the journey of overcoming alcohol addiction involves understanding the fundamental concepts of sobriety and recovery. While often used interchangeably, there is a significant difference between recovery and sobriety. Sobriety generally refers to the state of abstaining from alcohol or substance use, whereas recovery encompasses a broader, more holistic process of healing and transformation. The timeless 12 Steps of AA undergo continuous refinement to resonate with the evolving cultural and technological climate of 2025.

Ready To Start Your Journey?

• Our recovery services encompass healing, self-discovery, and support for embracing a healthier lifestyle to create a brand new you.
• It incorporates an all-inclusive method to healing mentally, physically and spiritually; the secondary benefits include experiencing personal growth and transformation.
• Whether you’re battling drug or alcohol addiction, we are here to provide care that meets your specific needs while we accompany you on your path to success and sobriety in Los Angeles.
• James works alongside the clinical director and administrative team to help ensure that every client benefits from a customized treatment plan and holistic approach that offers freedom from the grips of addiction.
• She served as a Wellness coordinator at Search for Change, Inc and currently serves as an Independent Practice Coach from 2011 to present.

Will Gordon – a Boston native and middle school teacher whose hard-fought battle with alcohol addiction led to total organ failure and a life-saving double transplant in 2023. Through the gift of organ donation and unwavering support from my wife and family, I found my way back from the edge. Today, I share my journey from rock bottom to recovery with raw honesty and hard-earned hope hosting TheWillpowerPodcast, reminding others that even our darkest chapters can lead to meaningful change. Once I got past the early days of sobriety I started thinking of my sobriety journey as my recovery journey. I realized that it was about SO much more than just ditching the booze.

In 2025, the intersection of sobriety and clean living will be significantly shaped by behavioral health advances, fostering integrated recovery practices. These advances focus on holistic approaches, addressing mental, emotional, and physical health as interconnected elements. Featuring heavily in modern sobriety practices, methods like cognitive-behavioral therapy and mindfulness are utilized to bolster mental resilience during recovery. Organizations like Mental Health Centers.org highlight the synergy between mental health improvements and addiction recovery. This integral approach ensures a more comprehensive understanding of patients’ needs, promoting long-term sobriety. Furthermore, as addiction treatment services continue to embrace these strategies, individuals gain access to enhanced support networks that focus on overall wellness.

They provide a pivotal community aspect by fostering direct human connections crucial for emotional support. The seamless integration of physical and virtual meetings caters to individual preferences, ensuring inclusivity and ease of access. Locations like Florida and Ohio showcase innovative adaptations within the meetings, boasting strategies that blend traditional support with tech-based solutions. Evidence from AA meetings evolution in Ohio highlights how these gatherings have adapted to modern demands while retaining their fundamental ethos, ensuring that they remain relevant in supporting sobriety. Understanding the distinction helps set realistic goals and encourages individuals to seek comprehensive care.

Understanding the nuances between sobriety and recovery is crucial for individuals seeking help, their loved ones, and professionals in the field. On the road to healing from addiction, the terms “sobriety” and “recovery” often come up. While usually used interchangeably, these concepts represent distinct aspects of overcoming addiction. Recovery offers you a lifelong, wonderful experience of getting to give life your best shot every day.

The Difference Between Abstinence and Recovery

While both are important to success in wellness, they focus on different aspects. At Grace Recovery, we are here to help you every step of the way along your road to recovery. That’s why we offer a wide range of treatment options from addiction treatment options to mental health treatment to ensure you receive the right care to uniquely support your road to recovery.

She has served in both clinical and leadership positions in a number of roles, in inpatient and outpatient settings, as a Primary Therapist and Clinical Supervisor. After years of battling alcohol and drug addiction, Shannon found purpose in aiding and assisting the still suffering alcoholic and addict. Shannon decided to switch careers and went back to school to obtain his Addiction Counseling degree and certification in Human Services in 2022 from Anne Arundel Community College.

Differences Between Recovery and Sobriety

Whether you are struggling with addiction, mental health or both, our expert team is here to guide you every step of the way. Don’t wait— reach out today to take the first step toward taking control sober house of your life. To facilitate this, she suggests educating families about the disease model of alcoholism. Additionally, she recommends tools like Soberlink’s Alcohol Monitoring System to help families stay connected. Establishing open lines of communication can relieve the “immediate pressure” on the person in recovery and help address the underlying issues more effectively. If you are struggling with substance abuse, any of the tools below can help you achieve sobriety.

AA Meetings Directory stands as a beacon of support in this transformative era, aligning with modern sobriety and clean living principles. By offering access to AA Meetings and a myriad of resources, the platform acts as a guidepost for those seeking recovery. For individuals grappling with alcohol dependency, embracing the future with these resources https://yourhealthmagazine.net/article/addiction/sober-houses-rules-that-you-should-follow/ promises not just recovery but a sustainable and enriched way of living.

Shifts towards lifestyle devoid of alcohol continue to gain momentum in 2025, driven by a growing awareness of wellness and sustainable living. This societal trend enhances the focus on environmental consciousness, where holistic health choices impact both personal well-being and ecological balance. Resources like the Ultimate Guide to Sobriety with AA Meetings Directory highlight how these trends inspire healthier living.

Substance Use Disorder Treatment at White Oak Recovery Center

Whether you’re focusing on sobriety, recovery, or both, the journey of addiction recovery can be challenging but also incredibly rewarding. By understanding the differences between sobriety and recovery, seeking support, and making positive changes in all areas of life, individuals can achieve long-term success in their recovery journey. Recovery, on the other hand, goes beyond simply abstaining from substance use. It involves addressing the root causes of addiction and making positive changes in all areas of life. This can include therapy, support groups, and making healthier choices in relationships, career, and hobbies. In embracing this change, we move beyond the confines of dependency, recognizing the comprehensive nature of recovery.

• Founded in 1996, Santé’s mission is to provide long-term recovery because left untreated, addiction is a fatal disease.
• I realized that it was about SO much more than just ditching the booze.
• Prior to entering the substance abuse and mental health field, Shannon was a Corporate Executive for 18 years.
• Himself, an alumni of The Freedom Center, Michael brings a personal experience of the program to his role.
• Everybody is recovering from something because recovery is the healing process and we're all healing from different things in life.

These can include past traumas, living situations, and negative influences. They also have not developed healthy coping mechanisms to replace the urge to use. Many people who consider themselves to be sober from drugs may instead swap to drinking when times are tough.

Average annualized direct costs will be $802.9 million with updating and $615.6 million without updating. Average annualized transfers with a 7 percent real discount rate will be $1.5 billion with updating and $990 million without updating. For Type 3 workers and Type 2B workers (the 50 percent of Type 2 workers who regularly work occasional overtime, an estimated 969,100 workers), the Department used the incomplete fixed-job model to estimate changes in the regular rate of pay. However, because these workers will receive a 50 percent premium on their regular hourly wage for each hour worked in excess of 40 hours per week, their average weekly earnings will increase. The reduction in hours is relatively small and is due to a decrease in labor demand from the increase in the average hourly wage as predicted by the incomplete fixed-job model (Table 15).

Table 29—Number of Affected Workers Employed by Small Entities, by Industry and Employer Type

The Department expects that this rule could lead to multiple benefits, which were discussed qualitatively in the NPRM. The Department is finalizing § 541.5, Severability, as proposed, with that addition of clarifying language as discussed below. In 2002, five years after he left the White House, Stiglitz published “Globalization and Its Discontents,” which was highly critical of the International Monetary Fund, a multilateral lending agency based in Washington. The book’s success—and the Nobel—turned him into a public figure, and, over the years, he followed it up with further titles on the global financial crisis, inequality, the cost of the war in Iraq, and other subjects. As a vocal member of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, Stiglitz has expressed support for tighter financial regulations, international debt relief, the Green New Deal, and hefty taxes on very high incomes and large agglomerations of wealth. One can only be dismissed from an Oxford House because of drinking, using drugs, non-payment of rent, or disruptive behavior.

Figure 4—Flow Chart of the Rule's Effect on Earnings and Hours Worked

A majority of the commenters opposing the updating mechanism challenged the Department's authority to adopt such a provision. Most commenters that supported the updating mechanism did not specifically discuss the Department's authority to institute such a mechanism. As to commenters supporting the proposed triennial updating mechanism that addressed the issue, they supported the Department's authority. The Department is sensitive to commenter concerns about the potential impact of this rulemaking on affected employers.

Table 27—Comparison of Projected Costs and Transfers With and Without Updating

Second, the new salary level will result in overtime protections for an additional 2.2 million currently exempt workers who meet the standard duties test and earn between the long test salary level ($942 per week) and the final salary level. As explained earlier, the Department is setting the standard salary level above the long test level to account for the shift to a one-test system in a manner that reasonably distributes the impact of this switch. The final rule will limit the number of affected workers by setting a standard salary level below the midpoint between the long and short test salary levels and by using earnings data from the lowest-wage Census Region (the South).

• 2d 1 (D.D.C. 1999), two landlords who rented their homes to people with disabilities were denied standard landlord insurance and were directed to purchase costlier commercial insurance policies.
• Because the Department cannot predict employers' precise reactions to the rule, the Department calculated bounds on the size of the estimated transfers from employers to workers, relative to the primary estimates in this RIA.
• The Department's new standard salary level will, in combination with the standard duties test, better define and delimit which employees are employed in a bona fide EAP capacity in a one-test system.
• In updating years, costs will increase due to newly affected workers and some regulatory familiarization costs.

Table 31—Overview of Parameters Used for Costs to Small Businesses and the Impacts on Small Businesses

As a result, the shift from a two-test to a one-test system significantly broadened the EAP exemption because employees who historically had not been considered bona fide EAP employees were now defined as falling within the exemption and would not be eligible for overtime compensation. This broadening specifically impacted lower-paid, salaried white-collar employees who earned between the long and short test salary levels and performed substantial amounts of nonexempt work. Under the two-test system, these employees had been entitled to overtime compensation if their nonexempt duties exceeded the long test's strict 20 percent limit on such work. Under the 2004 standard test, these employees became exempt because they met both the low standard salary level and the less rigorous standard duties test, which does not have a numerical limit on the amount of nonexempt work. Despite the inability to incorporate these survey results into the analysis, select results are presented here.

The Department sought comments on whether the date for the first automatic update should be adjusted if it were to make an initial adjustment to any of the compensation levels. (ii) No later than the effective date of the updated earnings requirements, the Wage and Hour Division will publish on its website the updated amounts for employees paid pursuant to this part. As the Department stated in the IRFA, it is difficult to directly evaluate compliance cost impacts by entity size due to lack of data concerning the distribution of affected workers by entity size. Therefore, many small entities will employ zero affected workers; small entities that do employ affected workers may employ one affected worker, or have nearly all workers affected, and anywhere in between. The number of small entities that employ affected workers will be inversely related to the number of affected employees per entity; if small entities only employ one affected worker, more entities will be affected, and vice versa. The Department used a time estimate per affected worker, rather than per establishment, because the distribution of affected workers across establishments is unknown.

Table 2—Summary of Affected Workers, Regulatory Costs, and Transfers—Standard and HCE Salary Levels

Table 34 presents estimated first year direct costs and payroll increases combined per entity and the costs and payroll increases as a percent of average entity payroll. The Department presents only the results for the upper bound scenario where all workers employed by the entity are affected. Combined costs and payroll increases per establishment range from $1,800 in insurance to $57,200 in hospitals. Combined costs and payroll oxford house traditions increases compose more than two percent of average annual payroll in one sector, food services and drinking places (3.6 percent). Compare workers' predicted earnings to the predicted salary and compensation levels to estimate affected workers. The Department estimated that in Year 1, 4.3 million EAP workers will be affected, with about 292,900 of these attributable to the revised HCE compensation level (Table 26).

Figure 10—10-Year Projected Number of Affected Workers in Small Entities, and Associated Costs and Payroll Increases

Commenters asserted that this may cause growth in the 35th percentile of full-time salaried workers to no longer reflect prevailing economic conditions. The Department believes it has chosen the most effective option that updates and clarifies the rule and results in the least burden. Among the options considered by the Department, the least restrictive option was using the 2004 methodology (the 20th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time nonhourly workers in the lowest-wage Census region, currently the South, and in retail nationally) to set the standard salary level, which was also the methodology used in the 2019 rule. As noted above, however, the salary level produced by the 2004 methodology is below the long test salary level, which the Department considers to be a key parameter for determining an appropriate salary level in a one-test system using the current standard duties test. Using the 2004 methodology thus does not address the Department's concerns discussed above under Objectives of, and Need for, the Rule. As previously explained, the Department believes the updating mechanism adopted by this final rule will ensure greater certainty and predictability for the regulated community.

Table 11—Minimum Wage Only: Mean Hourly Wages, Usual Weekly Hours and Weekly Earnings for Affected EAP Workers, Year 1

The assumptions small businesses used to estimate first-year compliance costs ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 per entity were not described. However, the Department clearly outlined its methodology and assumptions used to estimate regulatory familiarization, adjustment, and management costs that it expects businesses, including small businesses, might incur. First, this rulemaking is narrow in scope as it only makes changes relating to earnings thresholds in the part 541 regulations. The Department therefore expects that most businesses will not require significant time to become familiar with these regulations, or that they will require significant time from outside consultants.