Author: Brian Lund
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D.C.’s minimum wage is now $18.40, and employers must cover any tip shortfall
For a worker paid at the District of Columbia’s wage floor, July changed the value of every hour on the timecard. The citywide minimum rose to $18.40, while the direct cash wage for tipped employees rose to $10.30. Tips can fill the gap, but the legal duty to guarantee the full minimum remains with the…
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Bouchon and Thomas Keller Restaurant Group will pay $2 million to settle an EEOC harassment case
A workplace case at a celebrated Las Vegas restaurant ended with a dollar amount large enough to command attention and a compliance plan designed to change what happens after a worker complains. Bouchon and Thomas Keller Restaurant Group agreed to pay $2 million to resolve a federal harassment and retaliation lawsuit. The settlement does not…
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The FTC mailed 9,419 refund checks that stop being cashable 90 days after they are issued
The FTC sent 9,419 checks totaling more than $672,000 to consumers deceived by Trend Deploy. The checks must be cashed within 90 days of issuance.
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Regulators took over a Kansas City credit union, where retirement accounts carry their own $250,000 of coverage
NCUA placed WeDevelopment Federal Credit Union into conservatorship on July 10, 2026. IRA and KEOGH accounts are separately insured up to $250,000 on top of individual coverage.
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Average hourly pay and consumer prices both rose 3.5% over the past year
Average hourly earnings rose 3.5 percent over the year to $37.64 while the CPI rose 3.5 percent over the same window. Long-term unemployment is up 286,000.
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Unclaimed back wages go to the Treasury after three years
The Labor Department holds recovered back wages for three years before sending them to the U.S. Treasury. Here is how the Workers Owed Wages search works and what it requires.
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Your bank must free up $275 of a check deposit the next business day
On July 1, 2025, the dollar figures inside the federal check-hold rules went up. What did not move was the machinery around them. Regulation CC still runs on an availability schedule that has been in place since 1990, and it still works the same way it always has: a small slice of a check deposit…
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There is no federal $5 cap on overdraft fees — Congress killed that rule before it ever took effect
Ask around and a fair number of people will tell you that a bank cannot charge more than five dollars when an account goes negative. It is a specific, confident, widely repeated belief, and it is wrong in two directions at once. No such limit is in force today. And even the rule that people…
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Third-party apps send a 1099-K only above $20,000 and 200 payments, but your side income is taxable either way
A household clears out a garage over the summer, lists a couple dozen things on a resale app and collects a few thousand dollars. January comes and no tax form arrives in the mail. The natural conclusion is that the amount was too small for the Internal Revenue Service to bother with, and that the…
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$2.6 million will go to women an Alabama recycling plant refused to hire as laborers, federal investigators said
Somewhere in Pell City, Alabama, and the towns around it, are women who applied for laborer work at a recycling plant and never heard back. By the federal government’s account, some of them were turned away as long ago as 2006, and the pattern ran until late 2022. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says…