Human Resource Blog

New Jersey Payday Law

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Is there a law in New Jersey that a worker must be paid on payday?

Yes. What’s interesting is that it’s covered by the state and federal minimum wage laws. Thanks to those laws, it’s illegal not to pay employees on payday. That’s because, in essence, by being paid nothing, the worker is being paid less than the minimum wage laws.

The Wage and Hour Divisions of the state labor department is the enforcing agency; the name may vary from state to state, but the responsibilities of the agencies are the same.

Failure to pay a worker on payday violates the federal law setting the minimum wage An employee must be paid at least $5.85 per hour. This is controlled by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938.

The Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Labor Department is the enforcing agency in this case. Employees who have not been paid are urged to call them at 866-487-9243.

Employees face some very serious limits in seeking compensation for unpaid labor.

First, the federal law only applies to companies with revenues of more than a half-million dollars a year.

Second, because failure to pay is specifically a violation of the minimum wage law, the going minimum wage may be all a worker can collect. The U.S. Labor Department will help the worker collect the minimum wage. But the federal government won’t become involved in collecting more than that, if the employer promised the worker a paycheck above the minimum wage.

In that case, the employee may have to sue the employer or take the business to small claims court in order to collect the unpaid wage or salary.

However, the state may come to the rescue. At least some states will. Those states have passed laws mandating that employers pay up on the amounts they have promised their employees. Sometimes that also includes benefits. The state’s department of labor will go to bat on the worker’s behalf.

But there are some states that have no such laws. In that case, again the worker will be faced with the task of hiring an attorney to recover those unpaid benefits and wages. JH