You worked the hours. They do not owe you what they skipped. They owe you twice.Maybe it was the half hour before every shift. Maybe it was sixty hours a week on a salary that was supposed to cover forty. Maybe they made you a "manager" the month the overtime started.Most people do the arithmetic in their head, get a number that sounds too small to fight over, and let it go.They are doing the wrong arithmetic.29 U.S.C. 216(b). An employer who has underpaid the minimum wage or overtime is liable for the unpaid wages "and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages".And the same paragraph makes the court award "a reasonable attorney's fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action". Not deducted from your money. Added on top of theirs. That is why a wage and hour lawyer will look at a case worth three thousand dollars for nothing.This book prints what the federal statute actually says, with the section number attached: that overtime is calculated per workweek under 207(a)(1), so fifty hours one week and thirty the next is ten hours of overtime, not an average of forty;that a job title exempts nobody under 213(a)(1), which turns on a bona fide executive, administrative or professional capacity, and that being paid a salary is one test out of three;that under 211(c) it is the employer who must "make, keep, and preserve" the records of your wages and hours, so having nothing written down of your own is not the end of your claim;that under 203(m)(2)(B) an employer "may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes", including letting managers take a share, "regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip credit";that firing you for complaining is a second violation under 215(a)(3), carrying reinstatement, lost wages and an equal amount again;and that under 255(a) you have two years, three if the violation was willful, after which a claim is "forever barred", on a rolling window that drops another week off the back every week you wait.Then it does the work. Where the evidence actually lives on your phone. How to ask for your own payroll records. How to do the arithmetic. The difference between the Wage and Hour Division, a private lawyer and your state agency, and how to choose.And the free route that can quietly cost you half. Accepting a government-supervised payment in full is a waiver of the doubling under 216(c). Sometimes accepting is right. It should never be accidental, and there is a chapter on the four questions to ask before you sign the receipt.Every worksheet you need is written out to copy, including the hours grid, the records request, the arithmetic, the complaint, and the first free call to a lawyer.It is honest about the limits. Many readers are genuinely exempt, and chapter 10 helps them find that out rather than hiding it. Arbitration agreements are common and no book can tell you what you signed. Your state law is frequently better than the federal law, with longer deadlines, daily overtime and penalties on a late final paycheck, and since there are fifty systems this book points you at yours and stops.United States, federal law.Information, not legal advice. Current as of August 2026.
