Can You Get Overtime On Salary In California?

Despite common belief, you can get paid overtime on salary pay under California law if you make below a certain amount.

Can You Get Overtime on Salary Pay in the U.S.?

Being paid a salary is not an automatic indicator that an employee is exempt from receiving overtime. To be exempt, an employee has to make a certain amount and pass tests regarding their job duties.

Under federal law and according to the Department of Labor, salaried employees are eligible for overtime unless they make over $455 per week on a salary basis. This standard does not apply to outside sales employees, teachers, lawyers, or doctors.

Computer employees are governed by different standards which allow them to be paid overtime if they make less than $455 per week on a salaried basis or less than $27.63 per hour on an hourly basis.

If employees are paid less than federal exemption standards and do not pass exemption tests regarding the requirements of their job duties, they may be paid overtime pay even when they are salaried.

The Department of Labor also states that overtime pay is paid at one and a half times an employee’s hourly rate. For salaried employees, hourly rates are found by dividing a weekly salary by the number of hours worked. One and a half the calculated rate would then be paid for all hours worked over 40 hours in a single work week.

Can You Get Overtime on Salary Pay in California?

In California, it is assumed that all employees are entitled to overtime. Instead of proving that an employee is owed overtime, an employer has to prove that they are exempt from overtime pay under state regulations. The state’s Department of Industrial Regulations states: “A salaried employee must be paid overtime unless they meet the test for exempt status as defined by federal and state laws.”

There are countless categories of exempt employees in California, including executive, administrative, professional, computer, and outside salesperson employees. The full list of overtime exemptions is exhaustive and includes terms from numerous labor codes.

The California Department of Industrial Regulations directs salaried employees to calculate their hourly rate as follows:

• Multiply their monthly salary by 12 to get their annual salary
• Divide their annual salary by 52 to get their weekly salary
• Divide their weekly salary by 40 hours (the maximum legal number of regular hours) to get their regular hourly rate

If salaried employees are non-exempt, they must be paid one and a half times their calculated hourly rate for all hours worked over 40 hours in a week.

California’s special overtime laws also apply to salaried employees who are non-exempt. In addition to overtime being paid after 40 hours worked in a work week, overtime pay is also paid if employees work between 8 and 12 hours in a single workday and for the first 8 hours of the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

Double-time is a unique overtime feature that pays employees twice their regular rate of pay for certain hours worked beyond overtime hours. This rate is paid whenever an employee works more than 12 hours in a single workday and for all hours work over 8 hours in the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

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