Human Resource Blog

Federal Minimum Wage in Tennessee

Do you have to pay the minimum wage if you have less than 10 employees? Should part-time workers be paid the minimum wage? We are a Tennessee company covered by the federal minimum wage.

An employer who meets revenue standards or engages in interstate commerce must pay the minimum wage, whether they have fewer than 10 employees. This is true regardless of whether or not the workers are part-time. There are very few exceptions to the minimum wage law.

Those exceptions include workers who are less than 20 years old, an only under some conditions. They may not be working to replace an older worker, and it applies only to the first 90 days on the job. If those conditions are met, the employer may pay them $4.25 an hour.

Part-time baby-sitters may legally receive less than the minimum wage. But minimum wage laws protect full-time baby-sitters.

In addition, some student-learners and some disabled employees are not covered, and may be paid less than the minimum wage.

There are some other jobs you might expect to be exempted, but they are not. Maids, cooks, and housekeepers are all covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which originally established the minimum wage.

It’s important also to realize that some states have approved minimum wages that are actually higher than the federal minimum. They are almost always entitled to the higher pay.

The current minimum wage is $5.85 an hour. Almost every company is included, as long as it has 2 or more workers and does at least a half-million dollars worth of business annually.

Every hospital and every business that provides medical or nursing care for its residents is also covered. Their employees must receive the minimum.

If a company does business across state lines, the minimum wage law protects the employees. Let’s assume the company is producing goods that are sold outside Tennessee. The FLSA will require the employer to pay the minimum wage, even if the firm does less than $500,000 in business yearly.

The out-of-state rule is interpreted in favor of the employee. If the workers, for example, sort, receive, or send packages and mail from out of state, the employees are covered. They are also covered if they make or take out-of-state telephone calls. JH