Time-and-a-Half Pay

Understanding Time-and-a-Half Pay: Your Guide to Overtime Compensation

This comprehensive guide helps both employees and employers understand time-and-a-half pay, a crucial form of overtime compensation. Learn how this premium pay, also known as an increased wage for extra hours, is calculated and when it applies, ensuring fair compensation for hours worked beyond the standard workweek. ⏰

How to Calculate Your Time-and-a-Half Overtime Pay

While a direct calculator isn’t embedded on this page, mastering the calculation of time-and-a-half pay is straightforward. This process helps you accurately determine your overtime compensation by focusing on two key inputs. For additional financial tools, explore our Salary After Tax Calculator.

1. Regular Hourly Rate: Input the employee’s standard hourly wage, for example, $25.00. This is the base rate before any overtime. For state-specific payroll insights, see our Tennessee Paycheck Calculator.
2. Overtime Hours Worked: Enter the total number of hours worked beyond the standard workweek, such as 10 hours. This is the basis for your increased wage. You might also find our Michigan Paycheck Calculator helpful for regional calculations.

Once you have these values, the calculation is simple: apply a 1.5x multiplier to the regular hourly rate for each overtime hour. This yields your total overtime compensation.

Time-and-a-Half Pay Worked Example for 2025

To clearly demonstrate time-and-a-half pay, let’s walk through a realistic scenario for 2025. Consider Sarah, a non-exempt employee, who earns a regular hourly rate of $22.00. In a particular workweek, she worked 48 hours, which means she accumulated 8 hours of overtime pay (48 total hours – 40 standard hours).

• Regular Hourly Rate: $22.00
• Overtime Multiplier: 1.5
• Overtime Rate: $22.00 × 1.5 = $33.00 per hour
• Overtime Hours: 8 hours
• Overtime Pay: 8 hours × $33.00/hour = $264.00
• Regular Pay (40 hours): 40 hours × $22.00/hour = $880.00
• Total Gross Pay for the Week: $880.00 (regular) + $264.00 (overtime) = $1,144.00

Thus, Sarah’s total gross pay for that week, including her time-and-a-half overtime compensation, comes to a total of $1,144.00.

Key Assumptions and Limitations for Overtime Compensation

• This guide primarily assumes a standard 40-hour workweek, as defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in the United States, for determining overtime pay eligibility.
• Calculations for time-and-a-half pay are based on the federal requirement of 1.5 times the regular rate for non-exempt employees.
• It does not account for specific state overtime laws, which may include daily overtime requirements (e.g., in California) or different thresholds for increased wage.
• The information provided here does not cover specific collective bargaining agreements or company policies that might offer higher premium pay rates.
• Exempt employees, as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) under FLSA regulations, are generally not eligible for time-and-a-half pay.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is time-and-a-half pay calculated?

To calculate time-and-a-half pay, multiply an employee’s regular hourly wage by 1.5 for each overtime hour worked. For salaried non-exempt employees, first determine their regular hourly rate by dividing their weekly salary by the standard workweek hours before applying the 1.5 multiplier.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in the U.S., employers are generally required to pay non-exempt employees time-and-a-half for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Some states also have daily overtime laws that may require it for hours worked beyond a certain threshold in a single day.

No, only non-exempt employees are typically eligible for time-and-a-half pay under federal law. Exempt employees, such as certain salaried executive, administrative, or professional staff who meet specific criteria, are not usually eligible.

Time-and-a-half pay is an overtime rate where eligible employees are compensated at 1.5 times their regular hourly rate for hours worked beyond the standard workweek, typically 40 hours.