Wage and Hour Calculator

This calculator applies the Fair Labor Standards Act's core overtime rule (29 U.S.C. § 207), the 40-hour workweek standard Congress set in 1940 — time-and-a-half pay for every hour worked beyond 40 in a week — to figure out what you were actually owed versus what you were paid, assuming you were paid straight time for all hours including overtime (the classic misclassification or off-the-books overtime scenario). It splits your weekly hours into regular hours (capped at 40) and overtime hours (anything above 40), prices the overtime hours at 1.5x your hourly rate, and compares that "should have been paid" total against what a straight-time calculation would have produced at your actual hours; the difference is the weekly underpayment, which by construction equals 0.5x your rate times every overtime hour — the "half" that straight-time pay misses. That weekly gap is then multiplied by however many weeks you specify, up to a lookback cap the calculator enforces itself: 104 weeks (2 years) for ordinary violations, extended to 156 weeks (3 years) if you mark the violation willful, matching the FLSA's actual statute-of-limitations structure.

Willful violations also trigger liquidated damages equal to the full back-pay amount — effectively doubling recovery — which is the real FLSA remedy for employers who knowingly or recklessly violated the law, not a made-up multiplier. The tool also nets out an estimated 33% contingency attorney fee, typical for wage-and-hour cases, to show what you'd likely keep. One thing to watch: this model assumes a flat hourly rate paid for all hours with zero overtime premium; it doesn't handle the fluctuating workweek method, salaried-exempt employees converting to an hourly equivalent, or state laws stricter than the federal floor (several states require overtime after 8 hours in a day, not just 40 in a week) — those need a different calculation.