Calculate your overtime pay for the additional hours you work over and above your standard working hours.
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Overtime pay is the extra money you earn for working beyond your regularly scheduled working hours. It's meant to reward your extra effort and is an important aspect of many employees' compensation packages.
In the United States, workers protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) are entitled to overtime compensation when they work more than 40 hours in a workweek, at a rate of at least one and a half times their standard pay rate.
Here's the basic idea: if you usually earn $10 per hour, when you work overtime at time and a half, you'll get paid $15 per hour for those extra hours. Employers do this to ensure you're compensated fairly when you work longer than normal.
Let's expand the above example. We'll say that you're earning $10 per hour, and you work ten extra hours on top of your 40 regular hours in a single week. Assuming you receive time and a half for your overtime, your weekly pay might look like this:
| Pay type | Rate | Hours | Totals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $10 | 40 | $400 |
| Overtime | $15 | 10 | $150 |
| TOTAL | 50 | $550 |
You'll need to check your contract or ask your employer about the terms of your overtime pay. Learn about overtime pay in the different countries and formats, its rates and how you can work it out easily. If you don't know what your hourly rate is, you can use our salary to hourly calculator to work it out.
Let's take a look at the most common rates of pay for overtime.
You'll often get a "time and a half" rate when you work standard overtime, which means your pay equals 1.5 times your regular hourly wage. This typically happens when you work more than the standard number of hours in a day or week, often beyond 40 hours in a week in many states.
Let's give it a go for an example: Jane earns $22 an hour. So, when she gets paid double time, her hourly rate increases to $22 per hour × 1.5 = $33 for the additional hours.
Let's take a look at what the overtime entitlements are in the U.S. and how they can vary by state.
Double overtime (or "double time") is when you earn twice your regular hourly wage for working on certain days, holidays, or beyond certain thresholds. It's less common than time and a half, and the details depend on your company, and, of course, the contract.
Let's go back to an example. Jane earns $22 an hour. So, when she gets paid double time, her hourly rate increases to $22 per hour × 2 = $44 for the additional hours.
The federal government has established specific protections for employees in the United States, as stated in the framework Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). This act serves as the foundation in which employers must adhere to: basically, employees who work beyond 40 hours in a single week are entitled to overtime pay.
According to federal law, overtime pay is set at a rate of one and a half times the regular hourly wage (time and a half), although this is merely the minimum guaranteed. Employers have the flexibility to offer a more generous overtime rate if they choose to do so. 1
When it comes to holiday pay, there isn't any federal legislation governing it legally. If you work on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays, you're not entitled to receive automatic compensation. With that said, it's common practice among most employers to provide additional pay on these occasions as a way to motivate and maintain the satisfaction of their workers. It's important to note that there isn't a federally mandated rate for the extra pay, however.
It's worth noting that not every employee that is of the category of exempt individuals and are therefore, not covered by federal overtime laws. This category includes individuals earning at least double the state minimum wage, as well as those in specific licensed or certified professions. Exemptions also apply to those employed by close family members, workers in domestic service or agriculture, and long-distance truck drivers. 2
It's advisable to investigate the overtime laws of your specific state. At the federal level, overtime is strictly calculated on a weekly basis. Nonetheless, certain states set additional overtime overtime for any day in which an employee works more than 8 hours. Currently, these include Alaska, Nevada, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. 3 You can see the overtime laws for individual states listed in this handy table from Paycor Publishers.
Additionally, Colorado enforces overtime pay if an employee works more than 12 hours in a day, while Oregon is at ten hours and a half for days exceeding 10 hours and exclusively in the manufacturing sector. And, if you work in California, you'll become eligible for overtime when you work more than 12 hours in one day or more than eight hours on the seventh day in a week. 4
If you want to learn more about your rights to overtime as an employee, here are some recommended resources for U.S. and U.K. workers:
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