Category: Paychecks & Work
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Layoffs have hit more than 200,000 U.S. workers in 2026 — check your severance and final-pay rights
Layoffs have become a steady drumbeat in 2026. Tracking data counts more than 205,000 U.S. workers affected across 320-plus separate layoff events this year, which works out to roughly 865 job losses a day, with a large share of announcements citing artificial intelligence and automation as a factor. That aggregate is not one company’s story;…
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A federal court ordered $1.73 million in back overtime for 1,666 workers left out of the math
When 1,666 hourly workers at a Tennessee manufacturing site opened their overtime math, a piece of their pay was missing. Their employer had been earning incentive bonuses but leaving those bonuses out of the calculation used to figure overtime, which quietly shrank every overtime check. A federal investigation forced the money back: $1,730,598 in back…
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Nearly 20 states raise the minimum wage in 2026, lifting pay for about 8.3 million workers
A pay raise arrived for millions of workers this year without a single boss signing off on it. Nearly 20 states set higher minimum wages in 2026, most of them on the first day of January, and the increases reach far more people than the workers earning exactly the old floor. When a state lifts…
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Unpaid overtime can be reclaimed up to two years back, or three if an employer acted willfully
Workers who were shorted on overtime pay can claim it back — up to two years of unpaid overtime under federal law, and three years if the employer’s violation was willful. The right comes from the Fair Labor Standards Act, the same law that requires time-and-a-half for most hourly workers past 40 hours in a…
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Amazon is cutting about 16,000 corporate jobs, one of its biggest layoffs ever
Amazon is cutting about 16,000 corporate jobs, one of the largest white-collar layoff rounds in its history and part of a broader reduction that could reach close to 30,000 corporate roles across 2026. For the workers affected, the immediate questions are practical and financial: what severance is owed, when the final paycheck must arrive, what…
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Michigan’s minimum wage hits $15 on January 1, and most states set their 2027 rates next month
Three dates govern this story, and only one of them is on a paycheck. January 1, 2027 is when Michigan’s hourly floor moves to $15.00. September 30, 2026 is the deadline several states have set for publishing the rate that takes effect on that same January morning. And late August is when the price data…
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A Minnesota gyro chain owes 46 workers $613,037, about $13,327 each
$613,037. That is the figure the U.S. Department of Labor recovered in back wages from a Minnesota restaurant group after a federal investigation found it had not paid minimum and overtime wages as the law requires. Forty-six workers are attached to that total. The case is small enough to be invisible outside the Twin Cities…
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The Labor Department is scrapping the rules behind a 60-year-old federal hiring order on October 26
Executive Order 11246 never worked by inspecting anyone. It worked through a clause. Since 1965, covered federal contracts had to carry an equal opportunity clause, and a body of regulations sitting behind that clause told contractors exactly what they owed the people they hired and the people who applied: written plans, workforce analyses, records kept…
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Tyson closed two beef plants in one day, blaming one of the most historic cattle shortages ever
On August 13, 2026, Tyson Foods put out a news release announcing the end of operations at two beef plants on the same day: a beef facility in Joslin, Illinois, and a case-ready facility in Eagle Mountain, Utah. That same date now sits on Utah’s official layoff-notice table beside the name Tyson Fresh Meats and…
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An Alabama recycler will pay $2.6 million to women it refused to hire
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took TCI of Alabama, LLC to federal court after its administrative conciliation process failed to produce a pre-litigation settlement. On July 22, 2026, the agency announced how the case ended: a three-year consent decree under which the recycler will pay $2.6 million in monetary damages to compensate women who were…