Wage & Employment Law Guides

Use a Law Guide When the Calculator Is Not the Question

A calculator can multiply hours by a rate, but it cannot by itself decide whether the hours are legally compensable, whether an exemption applies, whether a commission was earned, or which deadline governs a claim. Those are legal-rule questions.

• Federal and state law can cover different issues. The FLSA is a federal baseline for minimum wage and overtime; state law can add pay-frequency, final-pay, daily-overtime, leave, penalty, or other protections.
• Different claims can use different deadlines. The federal FLSA generally uses a two-year back-pay period, extended to three years for willful violations, but state claims can use different rules.
• Remedies depend on the claim. For covered FLSA minimum-wage or overtime claims, back wages and an equal amount as liquidated damages may be available. State remedies, including California PAGA, are separate and fact-specific.
• Classification comes before calculation. Job titles and 1099 labels do not by themselves determine employee or overtime status. The applicable legal test comes first.
• Official sources matter. Each substantive guide is written to point users toward the relevant government agency or statute rather than relying on a site-wide table of rules that can become stale.

Federal reference: U.S. Department of Labor — Back Pay. California PAGA reference: California DIR PAGA FAQ.

Find the Right Guide by Problem

How the Guides and Calculators Fit Together

The site intentionally separates legal-rule pages from calculation pages. That prevents a simple calculator from implying a legal entitlement it cannot determine, and it keeps each page focused on one search intent.

1. Identify the issue first. Use a guide to determine whether the question is missing hours, overtime, minimum wage, holiday pay, worker classification, termination rights, or another category.
2. Verify the jurisdiction. Federal law can set a baseline while state, provincial, local, contract, or collective-bargaining rules change the result. A California-specific guide should not be applied as a nationwide rule.
3. Calculate only the component the tool names. For example, the Unpaid Wages Calculator estimates missing straight-time wages; the Overtime Pay Calculator estimates overtime; and the Wrongful Termination Calculator estimates a wage-loss component rather than a legal settlement value.
4. Keep additional remedies separate. Interest, statutory penalties, liquidated damages, attorney-fee rules, and other remedies can depend on the claim and should not be silently added to a basic calculator result.
5. Keep the records behind the number. Pay stubs, time records, schedules, compensation plans, termination documents, and agency notices are more important than the calculator output itself when a dispute has to be explained or documented.

This structure also makes it easier to move between pages without duplicating the same legal explanation. The guide owns the rule; the paired calculator owns the arithmetic.