Summary. Seven steps, starting with the one that takes ten seconds a day.

Start here, today

Open a note on your phone and write down the time you started work and the time you stopped. Every day.

Include the work before you clocked in and after you clocked out. Include the meal break you did not actually get. Include the messages you answered from home.

Ten seconds a day. It is the single highest-value thing a worker in this situation can do, and it is worth more than everything else in this guide combined — because the limitations clock runs backward from the day you file, and every week of waiting retires a week of claim.

And know this before you go further: the obligation to keep accurate time records belongs to your employer. If they did not keep them, you may prove your hours by reasonable inference from whatever evidence exists, and the burden shifts to them to disprove it. The absence of records is their problem, not yours.

Step one: audit the pay stub

Pull the last six months of pay stubs and look for four things.

1. Are the hours right? Compare to your own record, your schedule, and your memory. Look specifically for weeks where you know you worked past 40 and the stub shows 40.

2. Is overtime being paid at all? If you are salaried, go to Step two.

3. Is the overtime rate right? This is the invisible one. The "regular rate" is not your hourly rate. It must include nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials, commissions, and most incentive pay. If you received a production bonus, an attendance bonus, or a quarterly payout, the overtime you worked during that period should have been recalculated at a higher rate and the difference paid.

Almost no employer does this. Look at any bonus payment and ask whether an overtime adjustment followed it.

4. What is being deducted? Uniforms, tools, training, register shortages, breakage, walkouts, and cash drawer differences are restricted or prohibited in many states, and any deduction that drops you below minimum wage for the week is a federal violation regardless.

Also check: whether meal breaks were automatically deducted on days you did not get one · whether you were paid for pre-shift and post-shift time · and whether your rate matches your state or city minimum wage, which is frequently higher than the federal one.

Step two: test the exemption, if you are salaried

Being paid a salary does not make you exempt. It is one requirement of three, and the employer bears the burden of proving all of them.

Ask, honestly:

What do I actually do all day? Not what the job description says. If you spend most of your time doing the same work as the people you supervise — running a register, stocking, serving, driving, producing — the executive exemption probably fails.

Do I customarily and regularly direct two or more full-time employees?

Do I have real authority over hiring, firing, or discipline — or at least influence that carries particular weight?

Do I exercise discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance? Following a detailed manual, script, or checklist is generally not that.

Has my salary ever been docked for a partial-day absence, a register shortage, equipment damage, or slow business? Improper deductions can defeat the exemption entirely.

If the answers point away from exemption, you may be owed overtime for every hour over 40 for the past two years — three if the violation was willful — plus an equal amount in liquidated damages.

And ask the employer, in writing: "Could you confirm whether I am classified as exempt, and which exemption applies?" The answer is useful whichever way it comes.

Step three: test the classification, if you are a "contractor"

A signed agreement, a 1099, and a business license do not settle this. The label loses to the reality.

Signs you may actually be an employee:

  • The company tells you when and where to work
  • You use the company's equipment, vehicle, or software
  • You cannot subcontract the work or send a substitute
  • You have no other clients
  • You were an employee doing the same job before
  • You wear a uniform or a company logo
  • The company sets your rate
  • The relationship is indefinite rather than project-based
  • The work is the company's core business — a driver for a delivery company, a stylist at a salon, a nurse at a staffing agency

That last one matters most. Several states apply an ABC test under which you are an employee unless the company proves all three prongs, and the middle prong — that the work is outside the company's usual course of business — fails for anyone doing what the company sells.

What misclassification costs you: overtime · minimum wage protection · the employer's share of payroll taxes · workers' compensation · unemployment eligibility · and, in many contexts, anti-discrimination coverage.

Step four: reconstruct the hours

You do not need perfect records. You need a reasonable, consistent, supported estimate.

Build a simple table: week by week, hours actually worked, hours paid, the difference, and the basis for that week.

Evidence that supports it:

  • Your own contemporaneous notes — honest and made at the time beats precise and made later
  • Texts and emails with timestamps, especially outside scheduled hours
  • Badge swipe and building access logs (the employer has these)
  • Point-of-sale records showing transactions you rang
  • Computer login and logout times
  • Dispatch, route, and delivery records
  • GPS or telematics from a company vehicle or phone
  • Patient charting timestamps, in health care
  • Posted or texted schedules
  • Security footage — which is overwritten in days, so send a preservation letter early
  • Co-workers, on a common practice
  • Your pay stubs, which show what you were paid and by inference what you were not

Send a preservation letter as soon as you are serious. One paragraph: identify the categories of records, ask that they be preserved, and note that litigation is anticipated. It costs nothing and it prevents the most common evidentiary loss.

Step five: complain in writing

This step does two things and both matter.

It may fix the problem. Some violations are genuine payroll errors that get corrected when identified.

And it converts a wage claim into a wage-plus-retaliation claim if the employer reacts badly. The retaliation claim is frequently the stronger one, because the timing is provable and the causation is visible without reconstructing two years of hours.

Write it simply:

"I want to raise a concern about my pay. Since [date] I have been working approximately [N] hours per week, but my pay stubs show [N] hours and no overtime. I believe I am owed overtime for hours over 40. Could you look into this and let me know?"

Keep a copy. Note the date. Send it from an account you control — and forward a copy to your personal email, because work accounts get shut off.

Retaliation is prohibited, and protected activity includes internal complaints in most jurisdictions, complaints to an agency, and participation in an investigation. If anything changes after your complaint — hours cut, schedule changed, discipline, a sudden performance issue, termination — write down the date and what happened, the same day.

Step six: choose the forum

Four routes, with real tradeoffs.

The state labor agency

Usually the right first stop. Free, no lawyer needed, and in most states a straightforward administrative claim process with a hearing and an order.

Why: state law frequently provides more than federal law — higher minimum wages, daily overtime, break penalties, waiting-time penalties on a late final paycheck, longer limitations periods, and in some states treble damages or personal liability for owners.

Ask the agency: what the deadline is · whether filing tolls anything · what remedies are available · and whether the state has a wage payment fund for insolvent employers.

The federal Wage and Hour Division

Free. Investigates, can supervise payment of back wages, and can sue on its own.

Advantages: costs nothing, and an investigation frequently covers everyone at the workplace rather than just you.

Limitations: you do not control it · it can be slow · a supervised payment may not include liquidated damages · accepting one generally waives your private right of action for those wages · and filing does not stop the limitations clock for a private suit.

A private lawsuit

Advantages: you control it · liquidated damages doubling the back wages are the default · attorney's fees shift to a prevailing plaintiff · state claims can be joined · and it can proceed as a collective action where the violation is uniform.

The practical point: wage and hour attorneys take these on contingency precisely because of fee shifting, and the consultation is nearly always free. A claim you think is too small to bother a lawyer with is frequently exactly the claim they want.

Small claims

Fast and cheap for a modest amount, where the state permits wage claims there. No fee shifting, no collective mechanism.

And check for an arbitration agreement

Many employment agreements require individual arbitration and waive collective proceedings. Read what you signed. It changes the strategy — frequently toward an agency filing, which such a clause typically cannot foreclose.

Step seven: the final paycheck, if you have left

Most states impose a deadline — commonly immediately or within 72 hours on discharge, and by the next regular payday on resignation.

Many states impose a penalty for late final pay, in some cases continuing wages for each day late, up to 30 days. That penalty is frequently larger than the underlying wages.

Also check:

  • Whether accrued vacation must be paid out — a state-law question, and in some states it is earned wages that cannot be forfeited
  • Whether commissions earned but not yet paid are owed
  • Whether the employer may deduct for equipment, uniforms, shortages, or training — heavily restricted in many states
  • Whether the employer is withholding the check pending return of property, which is prohibited in most states

Demand it in writing, cite the state deadline, and note the penalty. That letter alone produces payment with some regularity.

Collecting from an employer with no money

A judgment against a dissolved company is worth nothing, which makes this the question that decides whether you are paid.

Name individuals. The definition of "employer" reaches persons acting in the employer's interest, and owners and managers with operational control over pay practices have been held individually liable. Several states impose personal liability on officers by statute.

Look for joint employers. A staffing agency and its client · a franchisor and franchisee, depending on control · a general contractor and a subcontractor's workers — and several states impose direct liability on general contractors for a subcontractor's wage violations.

Watch for successors. A company that dissolves and reappears with the same owners, equipment, and workforce may be liable as a successor. It is a recognized pattern.

Ask about bonds and funds. Some industries require a contractor licensing bond a wage claim can reach. Some states operate a wage payment fund for insolvent employers. Ask the state labor agency.

On public projects, prevailing wage obligations and a payment bond frequently give a direct route that does not depend on the employer's solvency.

And look at the paycheck, the W-2 or 1099, the sign on the building, the vehicles, the uniform, and who actually directs you. Where those point to different companies, name all of them.

While you are still working there

  • Keep the daily log. Ten seconds.
  • Save every pay stub, and check them.
  • Screenshot the schedule weekly.
  • Email yourself a weekly summary — a dated email to your own account is contemporaneous evidence.
  • Note every bonus and its date, for the regular-rate calculation.
  • Ask about your classification in writing.
  • Complain in writing when something is wrong.
  • Do not sign an acknowledgment that you were paid in full, or a release, without understanding it.
  • Know you cannot privately waive these rights. An agreement to accept less than minimum wage or to forgo overtime is generally unenforceable, and settling a federal wage claim frequently requires court or agency approval.

Four claims, worked through

The title that meant nothing

Ottoline Beauvais-Nkemdirim was an "Assistant Store Manager," salaried at $52,000, working 55 to 60 hours a week with no overtime. Her employer's position was that she was salaried and had "Manager" in her title.

She tested the duties instead. Reconstructed from her own schedule notes: roughly 85% of her time on the register, stocking, receiving trucks, cleaning, and covering breaks. She could not hire, fire, discipline beyond a verbal warning, set schedules, or order inventory.

She also found three occasions where the company had docked her salary for partial-day absences — improper deductions that can defeat the exemption entirely, potentially for everyone in the classification.

Recovery: roughly 17 unpaid overtime hours per week, over three years (the pattern was willful), doubled by liquidated damages, plus attorney's fees.

The lesson. The title is irrelevant. Salary is necessary and insufficient. The question is what you do all day — and the employer has to prove the exemption, not you.

The delivery driver

Fitzgerald Achebe-Vance signed an independent contractor agreement, got a 1099, and was required to hold a business license.

He also wore the company uniform, drove a logoed van, followed assigned routes, used the company scanner, worked hours the company set, could not decline assignments, had no other clients, and could be terminated at will.

His state applied the ABC test. The company failed the second prong immediately: delivery is a delivery company's usual course of business, so a driver cannot be doing work outside it.

What the misclassification had cost him: unpaid overtime on years of 55-hour weeks · the employer's share of payroll taxes he had been paying himself · workers' compensation he never had · unemployment eligibility · and expenses shifted onto him.

The lesson. The contract and the 1099 are evidence, not answers. The middle prong is where these fail.

The break that never happened

Perpetua Ilunga-Whitcombe's hospital timekeeping system automatically deducted thirty minutes for a meal break every shift. She almost never got one — she ate at the nurses' station, answered call lights, and was interrupted constantly.

Two rules decided it. A meal period is unpaid only if the employee is completely relieved of duty. And an automatic deduction is lawful only where there is a real mechanism to cancel it and the employer does not discourage its use — and an employer who knows the breaks are not happening must pay.

Thirty minutes a shift, five shifts a week, two years — all at the overtime rate because she was already past 40 — doubled by liquidated damages.

And the proof came from the employer's own system: patient charting timestamps showed continuous activity during every "break."

The bonus that changed the rate

Cassius Oyelaran-Sandoval worked at a plant with regular overtime and a quarterly production bonus of $600 to $900. His overtime was paid at 1.5 times his hourly rate.

It should have been higher. The regular rate must include nondiscretionary bonuses, and a production bonus is nondiscretionary. When it is paid, the overtime already worked in that period must be recalculated at the higher rate and the difference paid.

Nobody had done it — not for him, and not for the 340 other people at the plant.

Individually a few hundred dollars a year. Collectively, over three years, substantial — and exactly the kind of violation that produces a collective action, because it is uniform, arithmetically certain from payroll records, and requires no testimony about what anyone did all day.

The lesson. This is the most invisible violation in wage and hour law. It appears on no pay stub as a shortfall. Look at every bonus and ask whether an overtime adjustment followed it.

A calendar

Today

  • Start the daily hours log on your phone
  • Pull the last six months of pay stubs
  • Forward anything useful to your personal email

This week

  • Audit the stubs: hours · overtime paid · overtime rate against bonuses · deductions · automatic meal deductions · state and city minimum wage
  • If salaried: test the duties, honestly
  • If a "contractor": test the classification, especially the core business question
  • Send a preservation letter if you are serious — security footage is overwritten in days

Week two

  • Build the week-by-week reconstruction table
  • Gather supporting evidence: texts · badge logs · POS records · logins · schedules · charting timestamps
  • Complain in writing, keep a copy, note the date

Week three

  • Call the state labor agency — ask about deadlines, remedies, penalties, and any wage payment fund
  • Book a free consultation with a wage and hour attorney
  • Check whether you signed an arbitration agreement

If you leave or are fired

  • Demand the final paycheck in writing, citing the state deadline and the penalty
  • Ask about accrued vacation and unpaid commissions
  • Note any deduction taken and check whether it is permitted
  • Watch for anything that looks like retaliation, and document it the same day

Do not wait. The limitations clock runs backward from filing. Every week retires a week of claim.

The mistakes that cost the most

Waiting. The most expensive one, and the most common. Weeks of claim expire while you decide.

Not keeping a log. Ten seconds a day, and it is worth more than everything else.

Assuming salary means exempt. It does not, and the employer has the burden.

Assuming a 1099 settles the classification. It does not.

Not looking at the overtime rate. The regular-rate violation is invisible and arithmetically certain.

Complaining only verbally. The written complaint is what creates the retaliation claim.

Assuming the claim is too small for a lawyer. Fee shifting is what makes these viable.

Not checking state law first. Higher minimums, daily overtime, break penalties, waiting-time penalties, longer limitations periods, personal liability.

Signing a "paid in full" acknowledgment or a release without understanding it.

Accepting a supervised federal payment without knowing it may waive liquidated damages and your private claim.

Not naming everyone — owners, joint employers, staffing agencies, general contractors, successors. A judgment against an empty company is a piece of paper.

The letters

Four letters do most of the work. All of them are short.

The internal complaint

[Date]

RE: Question about my pay

Dear [Manager / HR]:

I want to raise a concern about my pay and ask that it be looked into.

Since approximately [date], I have been working about [N] hours per week — including [pre-shift setup / closing duties / working through meal breaks / after-hours messages]. My pay stubs show [N] hours and no overtime.

[If salaried:] I am classified as exempt. Most of my time is spent on [specific duties]. I would like to understand which exemption applies and how the duties test is satisfied.

[If a bonus is involved:] I also received a [production/attendance/quarterly] bonus of $______ on [date]. My understanding is that a nondiscretionary bonus must be included in the regular rate, and that overtime worked during that period should be recalculated.

Could you look into this and let me know? I am raising it directly rather than anywhere else, and I would like to get it right.

[Name] · [Date]

Copy retained; also sent to my personal email.

The preservation letter

[Date]

RE: Preservation of records — [Your name], [employee ID], [dates of employment]

I am raising a concern regarding wages and anticipate that this may become a formal claim.

You are requested to preserve, and not to alter, delete, or overwrite, the following:

  1. All time records, punch data, and timekeeping system data for me and for similarly situated employees
  2. All payroll records, including the regular rate calculations and any bonus, commission, or incentive payments
  3. Schedules, posted or distributed, and any scheduling system data
  4. Badge swipe and building access logs
  5. Point-of-sale, dispatch, route, and delivery records reflecting my activity
  6. Computer login and logout records
  7. Security camera footage for [dates] — I understand this is overwritten and ask that it be preserved now
  8. Communications — email, text, and messaging — regarding hours, scheduling, breaks, or pay
  9. Job descriptions, duties documents, and any exemption analysis for my position

Please confirm in writing that these have been preserved.

[Name] · [Date]

The demand letter

[Date] · Sent with proof of delivery

RE: Demand for unpaid wages — [Name], [dates of employment]

The employment. I worked for [employer] from [date] to [date] as a [position], [hourly at $____ / salaried at $______].

The violation.

[ ] Unpaid overtime. I regularly worked approximately [N] hours per week and was not paid overtime for hours over 40. [ ] Misclassification as exempt. My primary duties were [specific]. I did not [manage as a primary duty / direct two or more employees / exercise discretion on matters of significance]. [Improper deductions were also taken from my salary on (dates).] [ ] Misclassification as an independent contractor. [The company controlled when, where, and how I worked; provided the equipment; I had no other clients; and the work is the company's core business.] [ ] Off-the-clock work. [Pre-shift / post-shift / through automatically deducted meal breaks]. [ ] Regular rate. Nondiscretionary bonuses of $______ paid on [dates] were not included in the regular rate, and the overtime was not recalculated. [ ] Minimum wage. Deductions for [___] reduced my pay below the applicable minimum wage. [ ] Final paycheck. My final paycheck was due [date] under [state statute] and was [not paid / paid on (date)].

The amount.

Item Amount
Unpaid overtime, [dates] $
Unpaid minimum wage $
Unlawful deductions $
Break penalties, [N] days $
Waiting time penalty, [N] days $
Subtotal $
Liquidated damages (equal amount) $
TOTAL $

A week-by-week calculation is enclosed.

The law. The Fair Labor Standards Act provides for back wages, liquidated damages in an equal amount, and attorney's fees to a prevailing plaintiff. [State law additionally provides ____.]

I am willing to resolve this without litigation. Please respond by [date, 21 days out]. If I do not hear from you, I will file with [the state labor agency / the Wage and Hour Division] and pursue all available remedies.

[Name] · [Contact] · [Date]

The final paycheck demand

[Date]

RE: Final paycheck — [Name], separation date [date]

My employment ended on [date]. Under [state statute], my final paycheck was due [immediately / within 72 hours / by the next regular payday], which was [date].

As of today it has [not been paid / been paid short by $______].

Amounts owed:

Item Amount
Regular wages, [dates] $
Overtime $
Accrued unused vacation $
Earned commissions $
Improper deductions to be returned $
Total $

[If applicable:] I note that a deduction of $______ was taken for [equipment / uniform / shortage / training]. Such deductions are [prohibited / restricted] under [state law].

[If applicable:] I understand [state] law provides a waiting time penalty of continuing wages for each day the final paycheck is late, up to [N] days, which as of today would be $______.

Please issue payment within [seven] days. [Withholding a final paycheck pending return of company property is not permitted in this state.]

[Name] · [Contact] · [Date]

What to look for in your industry

Violations cluster. Knowing the pattern where you work tells you what to check first.

Restaurants and food service. Invalid tip pools including managers or kitchen staff · unpaid side work · automatic meal deductions · unpaid opening and closing · deductions for walkouts, breakage, and register shortages, which are prohibited or restricted nearly everywhere · and note that failing any tip credit requirement means the credit is lost entirely and full minimum wage is owed for all hours.

Retail. Assistant manager misclassification — the single largest exempt-status problem in the country · unpaid closing and security-check time · mandatory meetings on unpaid time.

Health care. Automatic meal deductions during continuous patient care · unpaid shift-change handoff · unpaid mandatory training · on-call time with severe restrictions · charge nurse roles misclassified as exempt. Charting timestamps are the proof.

Construction. Contractor misclassification, frequently through labor brokers · unpaid travel between sites during the workday · cash payment without records · prevailing wage violations on public projects, which carry their own remedies and a payment bond · general contractor liability in several states.

Trucking and delivery. Contractor misclassification · unpaid detention and loading time · pay structures that fall below minimum wage in low-mileage weeks · unpaid pre- and post-trip inspections.

Home care and domestic work. Live-in and sleep-time rules misapplied · unpaid travel between clients · misclassification · third-party employer questions.

Warehousing and logistics. Pre-shift and post-shift time · rounding that runs one direction · production bonuses excluded from the regular rate · staffing agency joint-employer issues.

Salons, car washes, and small retail. Cash payment · commission structures that fall below minimum wage in slow weeks · deductions for products and supplies · unpaid "training" periods.

And a pattern worth naming: violation rates are consistently higher where a workforce is immigrant, young, or working through a staffing agency — because complaint rates are lower. Immigration status does not affect entitlement to wages already earned, and wage agencies do not condition claims on it.

Retaliation: what to do if it starts

The most common reason workers do not pursue wage claims is fear of the consequence. That fear is rational, and the law's answer to it is one of the stronger provisions in employment law — but only for the worker who documents.

What is protected. Filing a complaint, instituting a proceeding, or testifying. In most jurisdictions that includes internal complaints to a supervisor or HR, complaints to a state agency, participation in an investigation, and an oral complaint clear enough to put the employer on notice.

What retaliation looks like — and it is frequently not a firing:

  • Hours cut, or the good shifts reassigned
  • A schedule change that makes the job unworkable
  • A sudden performance problem after years without one
  • Discipline for something long tolerated
  • Exclusion from meetings, training, or overtime
  • A transfer to a worse location or shift
  • Increased scrutiny, write-ups, or surveillance
  • A hostile change in how you are treated
  • Termination

What to do, the same day something changes:

  1. Write it down — date, time, what happened, who did it, what was said, who saw it
  2. Email it to your personal account, which creates a timestamp you control
  3. Note the timeline — the date you complained and the date of the change. Proximity is the proof.
  4. Do not stop performing. A performance problem after a complaint is much easier for an employer to defend if the performance actually declined.
  5. Keep copies of everything — evaluations, commendations, and disciplinary records both before and after
  6. Get the reason in writing if you can: "Could you tell me in writing why my hours were reduced?"
  7. Tell your lawyer or the agency immediately. Retaliation frequently changes the value and the posture of the whole case.

Why this matters strategically: the wage claim requires reconstructing hours across two or three years. The retaliation claim requires a calendar — you complained on the 4th, they cut your hours on the 11th. It is simpler to prove, it carries its own remedies including reinstatement and lost wages, and in many cases it is the claim that gets the case settled.

Which is the practical reason to complain in writing before anything else happens. Not because it will fix the pay — sometimes it does — but because it establishes the date, and the date is what makes everything afterward provable.

Talking to a lawyer

Workers routinely conclude their claim is too small to bother anyone with. That conclusion is wrong more often than it is right, and it is worth understanding why.

Fee shifting changes the arithmetic. A prevailing plaintiff recovers attorney's fees from the employer. Which means a $9,000 unpaid overtime claim is economically viable in a way a $9,000 breach of contract claim is not — the lawyer is not paid out of your recovery.

Liquidated damages change it again. The default is that back wages are doubled. A claim you value at $12,000 is frequently a $24,000 claim plus fees.

And uniform violations multiply. A regular-rate error, an automatic meal deduction, or a misclassification is rarely yours alone. What looks like a small individual claim is frequently the first thread of a collective action — which is exactly the case a wage and hour firm wants.

The consultation is nearly always free. Bring:

  • Your pay stubs (as many as you have)
  • Your daily hours log and reconstruction table
  • Your job description and any offer letter or contract
  • Any arbitration agreement you signed
  • Bonus and commission records
  • Your written complaint and any response
  • Dates — hire, separation, complaint, any retaliation
  • A short written summary of what you think happened

Questions worth asking:

  1. Do I have a claim, and what is it worth in a realistic range?
  2. Does my state provide more than federal law here — penalties, longer limitations, personal liability?
  3. Is my limitations clock running, and how much have I already lost?
  4. Does the arbitration agreement I signed change the strategy?
  5. Should I file with the state agency, the federal agency, or sue?
  6. Is this likely a collective action?
  7. Who else should be named — owners, a staffing agency, a general contractor?
  8. What happens if they retaliate?
  9. What do you need from me, and what does this cost me?

And if a private lawyer is not available: the state labor agency takes claims for free, legal aid offices in many places handle wage claims, worker centers exist in most metropolitan areas and specialize in exactly this, and law school clinics frequently take these cases. None of them charge, and all of them would rather hear from you early than in the last month of the limitations period.

Frequently asked questions

I'm salaried — am I owed overtime? Possibly. Salary is one requirement of three, and the duties test decides it. The employer bears the burden.

My employer kept no records. That helps you. Hours may be proven by reasonable inference and the burden shifts to them.

They never authorized the overtime. Irrelevant if they knew or had reason to know. The standard is "suffered or permitted."

Can they fire me for asking? No. And if they do, the retaliation claim is frequently worth more than the wages. Complain in writing and keep a copy.

How far back? Two years federally, three for willful violations — and the clock runs backward from filing, so delay costs claim. State law is frequently longer.

Do I really get double? Liquidated damages equal to the back wages are the default unless the employer proves good faith.

Is my claim too small for a lawyer? Probably not. Fee shifting is what makes these viable, and the consultation is free.

Where do I start? The state labor agency in most states, and a free consultation with a wage and hour attorney in parallel. Both cost nothing.

Related documents

Educational only, not legal advice. State wage and hour law frequently provides more than federal law. Check your state's minimum wage, daily overtime, break penalties, final paycheck deadline, and limitations period.