Wage cases are won on documents, and the pay stub is almost always the most important one. It is the employer’s own written statement of what it paid, for which hours, at what rate, with what deductions, and when those figures do not match what actually happened, that gap is the entire case.
What surprises most workers is that federal law does not require a pay stub at all. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep accurate records; it does not require them to hand you a copy. Pay stub rights come from state law, and they vary from nine mandatory itemized categories to nothing whatsoever.
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What Federal Law Actually Requires
Under 29 C.F.R. Part 516, covered employers must keep, for each non-exempt employee, identifying information, hours worked each day and each workweek, regular hourly rate, straight-time and overtime earnings, additions to and deductions from wages, total wages per pay period, and pay dates. Payroll records must generally be retained for three years, and the supplementary records used to compute wages, such as time cards and wage rate tables, for two years.
Those retention periods are worth memorizing, because they define the practical window in which a claim is provable from the employer’s own files. The federal minimum wage remains 7.25 dollars per hour, and overtime is owed at one and one half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek under 29 U.S.C. 207. Many states set higher floors, and the Department of Labor publishes current minimum wage rates by state.
What a Compliant Stub Contains
In states that regulate wage statements, the required contents are fairly consistent. A stub that omits any of these is worth flagging, because the omission itself may be a violation and it is also usually the place where money went missing. Examples of what a complete statement shows, and what pay stubs typically look like in practice, include:
- Gross wages earned in the pay period, and the inclusive dates of that period
- Total hours worked, separated into straight time and overtime, for non-exempt employees
- All applicable hourly rates and the number of hours worked at each rate
- Piece rate units and the applicable piece rate, where paid by the piece
- All deductions, each itemized separately rather than lumped as one figure
- Net wages earned
- Employee name and identifying number, and the legal name and address of the employer
- Accrued paid sick leave balance, in the growing number of states that require it
How state requirements differ
| Approach | Representative states | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Detailed itemization required, with per-violation penalties | California, New York, Massachusetts | A defective stub is a standalone claim, independent of whether wages were underpaid |
| Written statement required, general contents | Illinois, Washington, New Jersey, and most states | Missing stubs support a records violation and shift the evidentiary burden |
| Access or view-only requirement | A handful of states requiring only that records be available on request | Employee must affirmatively ask, ideally in writing |
| No pay stub requirement | Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee | Federal recordkeeping rules still apply to the employer, but no stub must be issued |
California illustrates why this matters. Labor Code section 226 requires nine specific categories on each wage statement, and section 226(e) provides statutory damages for knowing and intentional violations, capped in the low thousands of dollars per employee, plus costs and attorney fees. New York’s Wage Theft Prevention Act similarly provides daily damages for failure to furnish compliant wage statements, subject to a statutory cap. In both states, employers have paid substantial sums for paperwork failures where the underlying wages were correct.
The Evidentiary Rule That Decides Close Cases
The single most important principle in wage litigation comes from Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., decided by the Supreme Court in 1946. Where the employer has failed to keep adequate records, the employee is not penalized for that failure. The employee need only produce sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of the uncompensated work as a matter of just and reasonable inference, and the burden then shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or to negate the reasonableness of the inference.
The practical translation is blunt: sloppy employer records help the employee. A worker with a handwritten calendar of shift times and no pay stubs is frequently in a stronger position than a worker facing a complete, professionally maintained payroll file. This is also why employers who suddenly produce reconstructed time records mid-case invite scrutiny.
Where the Money Usually Goes Missing
Certain discrepancies appear over and over. When reviewing stubs, compare them against your own record of hours and look for:
- Hours that stop at exactly 40. Especially where the same employee shows 40.00 every week for months, which rarely happens naturally.
- Automatic meal break deductions. Thirty minutes deducted daily whether or not the break was actually taken and free of duties.
- Rounding that only runs one direction. Rounding is permissible if neutral over time; consistently rounding start times up and end times down is not.
- Off-the-clock work. Pre-shift setup, post-shift closing, mandatory security screening in some contexts, and after-hours messaging.
- A regular rate that ignores bonuses. Non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and commissions must generally be folded into the regular rate before calculating overtime, which most stubs never show.
- Deductions that push pay below minimum wage. Uniforms, tools, cash register shortages, and required equipment cannot lawfully reduce pay below the applicable minimum wage or cut into overtime compensation.
- Tip credit errors. Where the credit is taken, cash wages plus tips must reach at least the applicable minimum wage, and the employer must make up any shortfall.
- Salary reclassification. Being paid a salary does not by itself make an employee exempt from overtime.
Exempt Status Is Narrower Than Employers Assume
To qualify for the white collar exemptions from overtime, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis at or above the regulatory threshold, and must actually perform exempt executive, administrative, or professional duties. The standard salary level set by the 2019 regulation is 684 dollars per week, and a 2024 rule raising that figure was vacated by a federal court, so the applicable threshold should always be confirmed against current Department of Labor guidance.
The duties test is where most misclassification lives. A job title of assistant manager means nothing if the person spends most of the week running a register. And the salary basis itself can be broken by improper deductions: docking an exempt employee’s pay for partial-day absences, for example, can jeopardize the exemption for the employee and potentially for others in the same classification, subject to the safe harbor provisions in the regulations.
Remedies, Deadlines, and Getting Your Records
Under the FLSA, the limitations period is two years from the violation, extended to three years for willful violations, under 29 U.S.C. 255(a). Recovery generally includes the unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, meaning double damages, unless the employer proves it acted in good faith with reasonable grounds. A prevailing plaintiff is entitled to reasonable attorney fees and costs under 29 U.S.C. 216(b), which is why these cases are viable even at modest dollar amounts.
State claims often reach back further. New York permits recovery over a six-year period for wage claims, and several states allow three or four years. Retaliation for complaining about wages, internally or to the agency, is separately prohibited under 29 U.S.C. 215(a)(3).
If you have no stubs, request your complete payroll and time records in writing, keep a copy of the request, and start a contemporaneous log of hours today rather than reconstructing later. A written request creates a dated record; an oral one does not. Complaints can be filed with the federal Wage and Hour Division or with a state labor agency, and in many states the state route is faster and covers more.
Frequently Asked Questions
My employer never gives pay stubs. Is that illegal?
It depends on your state. Federal law requires employers to keep accurate payroll records but does not require issuing a pay stub. Most states do require a written or electronic wage statement each pay period, and a few, including California and New York, attach per-violation penalties to defective statements. In the small number of states with no requirement, the absence of stubs is still valuable, because inadequate employer records shift the evidentiary burden in your favor.
I am salaried. Can I still be owed overtime?
Yes. Salary alone does not create an exemption. You must also be paid at or above the regulatory salary threshold and actually perform exempt executive, administrative, or professional duties. Job titles are irrelevant to the analysis. Misclassification is common in retail management, inside sales, technical support, and administrative roles where the actual day-to-day work is routine rather than discretionary.
Can my employer deduct for a till shortage or a broken item?
Not if the deduction brings your pay below the applicable minimum wage or reduces overtime compensation. Federal rules require that wages be paid free and clear, and many states go further by prohibiting deductions for cash shortages, breakage, or ordinary business losses entirely, or requiring signed written authorization for each deduction. Check both your state statute and the itemization on your stub, since unlawful deductions are often mislabeled.
What if I was paid in cash with no records at all?
You can still bring a claim. Under Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery, where the employer failed to keep adequate records, you need only show the amount of uncompensated work by just and reasonable inference, and the burden shifts to the employer to disprove it. Contemporaneous evidence helps: text messages about shifts, schedules, bank deposits, parking receipts, coworker testimony, and a personal calendar of hours worked.
Does immigration status affect a wage claim?
Courts have generally held that undocumented workers may recover unpaid wages under the FLSA for work already performed, because the statute protects the labor rather than the worker’s status. Threatening to report a worker to immigration authorities for raising a wage complaint is treated as unlawful retaliation. Some remedies for work not performed may be limited, so specific advice from an employment attorney is important here.
The Bottom Line
Start a written record of your hours today and send a dated written request for your complete payroll and time records. Those two steps take fifteen minutes and are what make the difference between a provable claim and a recollection, particularly given that supplementary records need only be kept for two years. Other practical guides are collected in the Legal Advice section, including Are You Eligible to Be Excused from Jury Duty Due to Personal Circumstances?.
This article is general information about wage and hour law, not legal advice; consult a licensed employment attorney about your specific situation.
