WASHINGTON — Now that the second of three planned increases in the federal minimum wage has passed (as of July 24), all U.S. businesses are required to raise eligible employee wages to $6.55 and display the proper labor law notice at each business location. To be compliant, all businesses with at least one employee must display the new regulation, regardless of whether employees are hourly, salaried or compensated at more than the minimum wage.
“Without the publicity that occurred when Congress enacted the wage increase last year, it’s easy for busy employers to forget that a new wage needs to be phased in — and posted — each July through 2009,” explains Nina Slattery, general manager of GovDocs, Inc., a St. Paul, Minn., company that works with employers to help them stay current with labor law regulations.
The Department of Labor (DOL) enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which sets basic minimum wage and overtime pay standards. These standards are enforced by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, a program of the Employment Standards Administration.
Workers who are covered by the FLSA are entitled to a minimum wage of not less than $6.55 per hour, and overtime pay at a rate of not less than one and one-half times their regular rate of pay is required after 40 hours of work in a workweek. Many states also have minimum-wage laws; in cases where an employee is subject to both state and federal minimum-wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher of the two wages.
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