The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, and youth employment standards. The FLSA establishes a federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and requires overtime pay at a rate not less than 1.5 times the regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek for covered nonexempt workers’. Many states also have minimum wage laws and where a worker is subject to both federal and state minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher minimum wage.

Bona fide administrative, executive, professional, and outside sales employees are exempted from minimum wage and overtime pay under Section 13(a)(1) of the FLSA. However, a job title does not exempt an employee from those provisions. Instead employees must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and receive a salary of at least $455 per week ($23,600 per year). President Obama drew attention to the low salary standard in a 2014 Presidential Memorandum directing the Department of Labor to update the minimum wage and overtime standards. Effective December 1, 2016, the standard salary level will increase to $913 per week and will automatically update every three years to reflect economic changes.

Many employees are often unaware of minimum wage and overtime pay laws until it is too late. Generally, under the FLSA an employee cannot recover back pay more than two years after it is due to him. However, if the employer willfully violates the FLSA, an employee has three years to assert his claim. To file a complaint under the FLSA, contact the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.