By Daniel Wiessner

May 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday formally repealed a rule adopted under Democratic former President Joe Biden that would have extended mandatory overtime pay to 4 million salaried workers but was struck down by two judges.

The department issued a final rule saying the move was necessary to implement the pair of 2024 rulings by Texas federal judges in separate cases brought by the Republican-led state and a small marketing firm, Flint Avenue.

"Put simply, this action is a technical correction accounting for changes in the law that have already occurred," the department said.

Federal wage law exempts workers with "executive, administrative, and professional" duties from receiving overtime pay, and the Labor Department has for decades used salary as one factor in deciding when that applies.

The 2024 rule would have required employers to pay overtime premiums to salaried workers who earn less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year, when they work more than 40 hours in a week. At least four lawsuits were filed challenging the rule, including one by major business groups.

The previous threshold of about $35,500, adopted in 2020 during Republican President Donald Trump's first term, went back into effect after the court rulings and has been enforced since then, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

The Biden administration and worker advocates had said that lower-paid salaried workers often do the same jobs as hourly employees, but work more hours for no additional pay. The 2024 rule also had established automatic increases in the salary threshold every three years to reflect wage growth.

But the judges who blocked the rule said it flouted federal wage law by basing eligibility for overtime pay on salaried workers' wages rather than their job duties.

The Trump administration initially appealed the ruling in Flint Avenue's case, but dismissed the appeal last week after it had been stayed pending the repeal of the rule.

Under Democratic former President Barack Obama, the Labor Department in 2016 doubled the salary threshold to about $47,000. A federal judge in Texas the following year said that ceiling was so high that it could sweep in some management workers who are exempt from overtime pay protections, and struck it down.

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