What is overtime?
Established by the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), overtime requirements were designed after the Depression (1938) as a means of encouraging economic recovery. Specifically it created a monetary penalty for employers who did not spread their existing work among a greater number of employees. Overtime pay was intended as an incentive to employers to hire more people, rather than increasing the hours worked. This FLSA provision is still required of all employers with penalties enforced through the Department of Labor (DOL). Who is eligible for Overtime pay? Within the FLSA an important distinction is drawn between employees covered by the Overtime provision, non-exempt, and those not covered, exempt, as applies to their occupations. Non-Exempt Status: Support positions both administrative and technical covered by provisions of the law are non-exempt from overtime requirements and are eligible to receive overtime pay. At the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), this includes
Overtime is a term used to describe hours worked over a legal limit or in excess of convention. In many nations, employees may not work more than 40 hours in a week or eight hours in a day. Overtime hours must be compensated at a different rate, acknowledging that overtime puts additional strain and stress on an employee. Conversationally, “overtime” may refer both to these overtime hours and to the additional compensation. Typically, this compensation is time and a half pay, although in some areas it may be double time. People who work full time jobs are often at risk of accruing overtime hours because any small deviation from their schedule can cause them to run over. For example, if someone needs to come in early for a conference call with a different time zone, or stay late to finish something, he or she will run into overtime over the course of the week without an schedule adjustment such as a long lunch. Many companies try to avoid running their employees into overtime because of
Generally, hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week are considered overtime under FLSA and must be paid at time and a half of the regular wages. However, some medical and government employees have different threshold of when overtime is triggered. FLSA applies on a workweek basis. An employee’s workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods. It need not coincide with the calendar week, but may begin on any day and at any hour of the day. Different workweeks may be established for different employees or groups of employees. Averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted. Normally, overtime pay earned in a particular workweek must be paid on the regular pay day for the pay period in which the wages were earned.
For most employees, overtime hours are any hours actually worked in excess of 40 hours in a workweek. Actual hours worked does not include time an employee takes off for vacation, sick days, or holidays. Overtime hours are supposed to be paid at time-and-a-half of an employee’s regular rate of pay. For example if you make $10 per hour, then you should be paid $15 per hour for all hours you work over 40 in a work week.
