3 Key Takeaways
- Federal and New York State law set clear rules about minimum wage and overtime, and many employers don’t follow them.
- If you’re not being paid correctly, the burden of proof is largely on your employer, not you.
- New York employees have up to six years to bring a wage and hour claim, one of the most generous windows in the country.
Your paycheck might be short, and you might not even know it
Wage theft doesn’t always look obvious. Sometimes it’s a paycheck that seems fine on the surface but doesn’t actually add up when you do the math. Two of the most common violations we see affecting employees involve minimum wage and overtime, and both are governed by federal and state law.
The two laws that protect you
The rules around wages come primarily from two places: the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is federal law, and the New York Labor Law (NYLL), which applies specifically to workers in New York State. Together, they set the floor for what employers must pay, and give employees a real path to recover what they’re owed.
Minimum wage: More nuanced than it sounds
Most people understand the basic idea, employers must pay at least a minimum hourly rate for each hour worked. But violations still happen, often in subtle ways. One common example: an employee is paid a flat $300 or $400 a week regardless of how many hours they actually worked. Depending on those hours, that flat rate may fall below the minimum wage requirement.
This comes up especially often when people are paid monthly or biweekly, because it’s easier for the math to get lost.
You might be surprised to learn that this often affects commission-based workers. If you work on commission and have a pay period where you didn’t earn any commissions, your employer is still required to make sure your pay meets the minimum wage threshold for that period. No commissions doesn’t mean no floor.
Overtime: The rule a lot of employers quietly ignore
Overtime kicks in once you’ve worked more than 40 hours in a single workweek. At that point, every additional hour must be paid at 1.5 times your regular rate, commonly called “time and a half.” So if you earn $10 an hour, your overtime rate should be $15.
What we see instead, all the time, is employers paying the same flat hourly rate for every hour worked, whether it’s hour 35 or hour 55. That extra half isn’t just a bonus; it’s required by law.
This is especially common in the construction trades. Painters, plumbers, carpenters, and other workers will regularly put in 50 or 60 hour weeks. They are often paid straight time across the board. If that sounds familiar, it’s worth looking into.
Your employer has to prove your hours, not you
Here’s something most employees don’t realize: The law places the burden of keeping accurate time and payroll records on the employer, not the employee. If your employer hasn’t kept those records, that’s their problem, not yours.
To make a claim, you only need to provide a fair and reasonable estimate of the hours you worked. From there, it’s on the employer to dispute it with actual evidence.
And there’s more evidence available than most people think. In a recent case, an employer insisted no workers could start before 9 a.m., but text messages from supervisors sent before 7 a.m. told a very different story.
Some types of evidence that can support a wage claim include:
- Cell phone records
- Toll and E-ZPass records
- Vehicle GPS logs
- Computer login/logout records
- Testimony from coworkers
- Emails and texts
New York employees have extra time to act
If you work in New York, you have up to six years to bring a wage and hour claim under state law, one of the most employee-friendly statutes of limitations in the country. Under federal law alone, that window is only three years. That extra time matters, and it means you may have more options than you think even if the issue goes back a while.
Wage and hour laws vary by state
Where you work makes a real difference in what protections you have. In Texas, for example, overtime claims are governed entirely by federal law, with a two to three year window to file. In Florida, workers bringing claims under the state’s minimum wage law have four years to act, and five years if the violation was intentional. Every state is different, and the rules around deadlines, damages, and how to file a claim can vary quite a bit. For a general overview of your rights under federal law, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is a good starting point. But if you have questions about your specific situation, it’s worth talking to someone who knows the law in your state.
If something feels off with your paychecks, don’t ignore it
You don’t need to have it all figured out to ask a question. If your hours or paycheck haven’t felt right, we’re happy to talk it through. Reach out to us at 516-203-7180, sometimes a single conversation is all it takes to understand where you stand.
