Category: Paychecks & Work
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Most hourly workers are owed time-and-a-half after 40 hours in a week under federal law
Under federal law, most hourly workers who put in more than 40 hours in a week are owed extra pay, and plenty never collect it. Non-exempt employees must be paid time-and-a-half for those overtime hours, one of the oldest worker protections on the books and also one of the most commonly shortchanged. Knowing the rule…
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Gig and freelance workers must make quarterly estimated tax payments or risk an IRS penalty
For anyone earning money on the side, whether driving, freelancing, selling online, or picking up gig work, the tax bill does not wait until April. The IRS expects self-employed workers to pay as they earn, in four installments across the year, and the next one is due September 15. Skip them, and the penalty is…
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The federal minimum wage has not risen from $7.25 an hour since 2009
It is one of the most stubborn numbers in American economic life: $7.25 an hour. That has been the federal minimum wage since July 2009, the longest the country has ever gone without raising it. For workers in states that follow the federal floor, more than sixteen years of inflation have quietly eaten away at…
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Tipped workers must still reach the full minimum wage, or the employer owes the difference
The paycheck says $2.13 an hour, and to a lot of new servers that number looks like the whole story. It is not. Under federal law, a tipped worker is still guaranteed the full minimum wage of $7.25 for every hour worked, and when tips do not get them there, the employer has to make…
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Laid-off workers may still qualify for unemployment even after turning down a severance offer
Losing a job is hard enough without a second worry piled on top: the fear that saying no to a severance package, or taking one, will quietly cancel any unemployment benefits. It is a common assumption, and for most laid-off workers it is wrong. Turning down a severance offer does not, by itself, disqualify someone…
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The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers to offer accommodations like light duty
A pregnant worker asked her manager for a stool so she could sit during long shifts, and instead of a stool she was told to go home on unpaid leave until the baby came. Under federal law, that response is now backwards. Since 2023, employers of a certain size have been required to work with…
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Warehouse workers paid as little as $2.03 an hour recovered $1.08 million in back wages
A wage that low sounds like a typo, but federal investigators found it was real. A freight company in southern California was paying some of its warehouse workers as little as $2.03 an hour, roughly a quarter of the federal minimum wage, until the U.S. Department of Labor stepped in and forced the employer to…
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Tech layoffs top 127,000 in 2026 as Apple, Oracle and TikTok cut staff
Job cuts across the technology industry have piled up faster in 2026 than in the year before, with the running total now above 127,000 positions eliminated. The number is drawn from a widely followed layoffs tracker and spans hundreds of companies, from the largest names in Silicon Valley to smaller startups. For anyone working in…
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Several states raise their minimum wage again on January 1, with Washington set to top $17 an hour
A new round of state minimum-wage increases is set to take effect on January 1, 2027, and for millions of hourly workers it means a slightly bigger paycheck the first week of the new year. More than a dozen states adjust their wage floors at the start of each year, either through voter-approved step increases…
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State law sets when your last paycheck and unused vacation must be paid after you leave a job
Leaving a job, whether by choice or not, raises an immediate question that surprises a lot of workers: when does the last paycheck have to arrive, and does unused vacation come with it? The answer rarely comes from federal law. It comes from the state where the work was done, and the rules swing widely…