Category: Paychecks & Work
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Florida’s minimum wage rises to $15 an hour on September 30
Florida’s lowest-paid workers are about to get their final scheduled raise. On September 30, 2026, the state minimum wage climbs from $14 to $15 an hour, the last of a series of $1 annual increases that voters set in motion six years ago. Tipped workers get a bump the same day. For someone working full…
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Misclassified as a 1099 contractor? You may be owed back overtime and minimum wage
Getting handed a 1099 at tax time can leave you feeling like you signed away your rights as an employee. You may not have. Whether you are truly an independent contractor or an employee who was labeled the wrong way turns on how you actually work, not on the form your company chose. And if…
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Employers must pay time-and-a-half past 40 hours a week, and unpaid overtime can be claimed up to two years back
Plenty of hourly workers put in more than 40 hours a week without seeing the extra pay the law requires, and when that happens the law is usually on their side. The Fair Labor Standards Act sets a clear rule for most hourly workers: past 40 hours, your pay rate goes up by half. When…
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A mass layoff usually requires 60 days’ written notice, and workers left out can be owed up to 60 days’ pay
If your job disappears in a sudden round of cuts, you may have more rights than your employer let on. A federal law called the WARN Act often requires big companies to give workers 60 days of warning before a mass layoff or a plant closing, and when they skip that notice, the people left…
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Unemployment benefits are taxable, but you can have 10% withheld upfront
Losing a job is stressful enough without a surprise tax bill the following spring, yet that is exactly what catches many people who collect unemployment. The benefits feel like a lifeline, not a paycheck, so it is easy to forget that the federal government treats them as taxable income. There is a simple way to…
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Tipped workers can deduct up to $25,000 of tips through 2028
For millions of servers, bartenders, hairstylists, and delivery drivers, tips are not a bonus, they are the paycheck. A new federal tax break aims squarely at that money, letting many tipped workers deduct up to $25,000 of tips a year. It will not show up as a bigger tip jar, but it can meaningfully cut…
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As Walmart, Intel and Verizon file August layoff notices, a laid-off worker can keep health coverage for up to 18 months through COBRA
Layoff headlines tend to focus on the corporate body count, but for the person losing the job, the first practical fear is often about the doctor’s office, not the paycheck. A wave of August cuts at large employers is a useful moment to spell out a right many workers do not realize they have: if…
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Hourly workers can now deduct up to $12,500 of overtime pay through 2028, many for the first time
If you work overtime, the tax code just changed in your favor, and it is the kind of change that shows up as money kept rather than money spent. A new deduction lets many workers subtract a chunk of their overtime pay from the income the IRS taxes, up to $12,500 a year. It runs…
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A federal court has ordered four Spokane-area restaurants to pay $750,000 to 42 workers shorted on pay
When an employer agrees to pay back wages and then does not, the government can go to court and make it. That is what happened to a group of Washington restaurants, and the result is a federal order to pay $750,000 to 42 workers who were shorted on overtime and minimum wage. The case is…
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DC Water fired an older worker for a younger one and now owes $217,000 to settle a federal age-bias case
Losing a job in your fifties is hard enough without the suspicion that your age was the real reason. A federal case against one of the country’s larger public utilities put a dollar figure on that exact situation, and the number is nearly $217,000. For any worker over 40, the settlement is a plain reminder…
