My Employer is not Paying OvertimeA common question that our clients ask us is, “Should my employer be paying me for overtime?”  Both Indiana and Federal Law require the payment of overtime wages unless an employee is exempt.  Some examples of exempt employees include outside salespeople, teachers, executive, administrative or professional employees, certain farm workers, and employees in certain computer-related occupations.  The vast majority of hourly workers are entitled to receive overtime for every hour, over 40 hours, worked in a given week.  Current Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 per hour.  Therefore, even if you are paid a salary, your average hourly wage, based on a 40 hour week, must equal $7.25/hr.  If you are working more than 40 hours per week, your employer should be paying you time and a half for every hour over 40 worked during the week. A common misconception among employers is that all salaried employees are exempt from the overtime requirements.  This is simply not true.

Another area where we often see abuses in wage and hour laws is in the case of tipped employees. Tipped employees are individuals engaged in occupations in which they customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips. The employer may consider tips as part of wages, but the employer must pay at least $2.13 an hour in direct wages.

The employer who elects to use the tip credit provision must inform the employee in advance and must be able to show that the employee receives at least the applicable minimum wage (see above) when direct wages and the tip credit allowance are combined. If an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference. Also, employees must retain all of their tips, except to the extent that they participate in a valid tip pooling or sharing arrangement.

Wages required by the FLSA are due on the regular payday for the pay period covered. Deductions made from wages for such items as cash or merchandise shortages, employer-required uniforms, and tools of the trade, are not legal to the extent that they reduce the wages of employees below the minimum rate required by the FLSA or reduce the amount of overtime pay due under the FLSA.

The United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is responsible for enforcing some of the nation’s most comprehensive federal labor laws on topics including the minimum wage, overtime pay, record keeping, child labor, family and medical leave, migrant and seasonal worker protections, lie detector tests, worker protections in certain temporary guest worker programs, and the prevailing wages for government-funded service and construction contracts. Collectively, these laws cover most private, state, and local government employment, and protect over 135 million workers in more than 7.3 million establishments nationwide. The Department of Labor has even created an app for employees to keep track of their time to determine if they may be entitled to overtime.

On June 30th, the DOL unveiled a proposed rule that would broaden federal overtime pay regulations to cover nearly 5 million more people and raise the minimum salary threshold required to qualify for the Fair Labor Standards Act’s “white collar” exemption to $50,440 per year in 2016, up from the current $23,660.

Employment law attorneys anticipate significant increases in the number of employees who will be entitled to overtime pay. Thus, even if you are currently considered an exempt employee, you may no longer be considered exempt under the new proposed rules.


If you have questions or concerns about the way your employer administers overtime pay or other employee benefits, please contact the Indianapolis Employment Law Attorneys at Goodin Abernathy, LLP.