Page:Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt.pdf/21

Rh Our reading of the relevant regulations, as laid out above, properly concludes this case. Helix urges us to consider the policy consequences of that reading, labeling them “far-reaching” and “deleterious.” Reply Brief 24. In Helix’s view, holding that §602(a)’s salary-basis test never captures daily-rate workers will give “windfalls” to high earners, disrupt and “increase costs” of industry operations, and “impos[e] significant retroactive liability.” Id., at 24, 26; Brief for Petitioners 48. But as this Court has explained, “even the most formidable policy arguments cannot overcome a clear” textual directive. BP p.l.c. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 12) (internal quotation marks omitted). And anyway, Helix’s appeal to consequences appears something less than formidable in the context of the FLSA’s regulatory scheme. Indeed, it is Helix’s own position that, if injected into that plan, would produce troubling outcomes—because it would deny overtime pay even to daily-rate employees making far less money than Hewitt.

Initially, Helix’s complaint about “windfalls” for high earners fails in view of what this Court has observed about the FLSA: Workers are not “deprived of the benefits of the Act simply because they are well paid.” Jewell Ridge, 325 U. S., at 167 (explaining that the FLSA’s breadth fits its aims of deterring overwork and “spread[ing] employment”); see. The Secretary of Labor has often reiterated that point, recognizing since the FLSA’s enactment that Congress elected not to exempt all well-compensated workers. See, e.g., 69 Fed. Reg. 22173; see also 15 F. 4th, at 290 (case below) (“Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to categorically exempt all highly paid employees from overtime requirements”). That statutory choice undergirds how the HCE rule works. The rule spells out when higher-income employees like Hewitt are exempt from the FLSA (