Wage and hour law is about one question: are you being paid what the law says you must be paid? The federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets the baseline for minimum wage and overtime, and most states add their own, often higher, requirements.
The disputes that show up most often are not exotic. They are unpaid overtime, work done off the clock, misclassification of employees as independent contractors, “exempt” salaried titles doing non-exempt work, tipped employees covering business costs, and final paychecks that never arrive. Each of those has a rule behind it, and the rule is usually friendlier to workers than employers let on.
Questions this section takes up
- Who counts as an employee, and why misclassification matters
- When overtime is owed, and what “exempt” really means
- What you can do about a shorted or missing paycheck
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I write these pages as a law student, for general education. Nothing here is legal advice. If you are dealing with a real dispute, talk to a licensed attorney in your state.