Not being paid overtime after 40hours.?

Question

Here is the situation. My mom earns 10.56 an hour. She worked 40 hours at regular rate and 32 hours overtime. Total of 72 hours. Her employer calculated her overtime as 10.72x32. Instead of calculating 1.5 times her regular rate...they calculated 1.5 times minimum wage (7.15 here in NYS). Can they do that? Arent they supposed to calculate 10.56x1.5 as overtime?

She is a home health aide.

Answer 1

Does she work in the home health care industry? The NY law says for that industry they base overtime wages on minimum wage.

Answer 2

How many hours a week does your contract say you are expected to work for? If it says 40, and the other 25 you are doing outside of this, then yes you should be paid overtime. If, however, you are supposed to be working 65 hours a week (or indeed the amount is not stated), and this is what the salary pays you for, then you are not entitled to any overtime. What you feel should be salary and what should be overtime doesn't really matter, I'm afraid.

Answer 3

There are too many people who don't know jack s_h_i_t answering this one. Overtime for non-exempt personnel is indeed 1.5 times the regular rate of pay, not minimum wage. It is not at the employer's discretion. It's the law. Your mom's employer knows this and is a crook.

Edit: Oops. Should have read all answers. The guy above gave a better one than me (using the same source).

Answer 4

Federal law trumps any state laws for minimum wage if the state law requires less pay than the federal does. There are some jobs that are exempt from the federal law regarding time and a half for overtime, but I don't see anything that says that she would be. so yes, it would seem like she would get time and a half for hours worked over 40 per week.

Answer 5

An employer who requires or permits an employee to work overtime is generally required to pay the employee premium pay for such overtime work. Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and one-half times their regular rates of pay. The FLSA does not require overtime pay for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, or regular days of rest.

If her hourly rate is 10.56 per hour, then she should be getting 15.84 per hour for overtime (10.56 x 1.5). Her gross pay for that week should have been 929.28 (40 hours x 10.56 per hour = 422.40, and 32 hours x 10.56 x 1.5 = 506.88). Your mom could report the employer to the US Dept of Labor and your state Dept of Revenue, but then your mom's employer could decide your mom doesn't need overtime, or that your employer doesn't need your mom. The employer could make your mom's life miserable. If she feels comfortable in talking to her employer about it then I would say for her to do so.

Answer 6

Yeah it should be 10.56 x 1.5 for the overtime. if her employer is not giving it to her she can always call the dept. of labor to report this as this is not right.

Answer 7

In Texas, at least with my job (bring a full time front desk person at a hotel).... i do get paid for my overtime.

My managers. however... do not.They are on salary. They can work 72 hours a week, and only get paid for 40.

Answer 8

Overtime is what ever the employer says unless in the past she got 1.5x. If she did then she can complain.

Answer 9

Overtime pay is not a right. It is something that most companies provide. But they can pay her what they want as long as she is getting minimum wage x 1.5.

Answer 10

Give tonalc1 the points for best answer. He is the only one who knows the facts.