The minimum wage is the least you can be paid per hour, by law. You are entitled to earn at least the highest minimum wage that applies to you, whether the standard is federal, state, or local. For example, the federal minimum wage is currently $7.25. If your city or state has passed a law setting a higher minimum wage, your employer must pay you at least that higher amount per hour; it cannot pay you the lower federal minimum wage instead. 

The minimum wage represents gross earnings: earnings before deductions, such as tax withholding, are taken. Your actual take-home pay may be less than the minimum wage.

Tennessee does not have its own minimum wage law. Therefore, employees in Tennessee are entitled to earn at least the federal minimum wage, $7.25 an hour. 

You qualify for overtime pay if:

• you are paid by the hour
• you are not exempt (for example, because you hold a “white collar” job), and
• you work over 40 hours in a workweek (or 8 hours in a workday in some states).

If you are eligible for overtime, you are entitled to 1-1/2 times your regular hourly rate for each overtime hour worked. Check the Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development for the overtime standards in Tennessee.

For more information about overtime eligibility, see Am I Entitled to Overtime Pay in Tennessee?

To calculate your hourly wage, take the total amount you are paid (whether by the hour, as a salary, by piece rate, or on commission) in a pay period, such as one workweek. Divide that total amount by the total number of regular time (not overtime) hours you worked to earn that money. Be sure to count every hour you worked, including time spent working from home (if allowed by your employer) and any break time for which you should be paid, including breaks that lasted 20 minutes or less and breaks during which you had to work. The hourly rate that you come up with must be at least the minimum wage in Tennessee.

For more information about your pay rights, see What Are My Rights to Pay for Work in Tennessee?

A tip credit is the amount of tips you earn that your employer can count towards its obligation to pay you the minimum wage.

An employer that is allowed to take a tip credit can pay you less than the regular minimum wage, as long as you earn enough in tips to bring your hourly compensation up to at least the minimum wage. Under federal law, for example, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but employers may pay tipped employees as little as $2.13 an hour, as long as the employee earns at least the rest in tips. An employer taking advantage of this lower minimum wage is taking a tip credit of $5.12 an hour. 

Not all states allow employers to take a tip credit. Some states that allow a tip credit set the minimum tipped wage amount at $2.13 an hour, like federal law; others have established a higher tipped minimum wage. To find out whether your state allows a tip credit (and, if so, for how much), see What are My Rights to Tips in Tennessee?

Does your employer require you to pool tips? Tip pooling, sometimes called tip sharing or tipping out, is a common practice in establisments where only some employees receive tips directly from customers, especially restaurants. 

In a tip pool, tipped employees put a certain amount or percentage of their tips into a pot, which is then shared among a group of employees. Whether a tip pool is legal depends on who shares in the pool, among other things. 

The general rule is that tips belong to the employee who received them. However, employees can be required to pay part of their tips into a tip sharing arrangement, as long as it meets these legal requirements: 

• The employer may not share in the tip pool. 
• Only employees who regularly and customarily receive tips may share in the tip pool. For example, wait staff, bussers, and bartenders may be part of the tip pool, but "back of the house" employees -- like cooks and dishwashers -- may not.
• Only the amount of tips an employee actually takes home counts towards any employer tip credit. In other words, if an employee has to share tips, the employee's hourly wage includes only what the employee got back from the tip pool, not what the employee had to put into the pot. 

Believe it or not, employers in many states have no legal obligation to give their employees any breaks during the work day. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require employers to provide any breaks, and many states follow the same rule. Other states require employers to provide rest breaks, meal breaks, or both. 

A small number of states -- California, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington -- require employers to provide paid rest breaks during the work day.

Fewer than half the states require employers to let employees take time off (typically, 30 minutes) to eat a meal. However, employers do not have to pay employees for their meal breaks, as long as the employee does not have to do any work during the break. If you have to work through or during your break, you are entitled to be paid for it. Additionally, under federal law, employees must be paid for any breaks their employer chooses to provide, if they last for 20 minutes or fewer. 

To find out what your state requires, see Does My Tennessee Employer Have to Give Me Breaks From Work? 

If your employer hasn't paid you overtime, hasn't given you legally required breaks, didn't give you a final paycheck, or has otherwise not paid you everything you are owed, you should take steps to assert your rights. There are three things you can do:

• Complain within your company. Use your company's internal complaint process to raise your concerns. Ask the company to investigate and make the situation right. The law protects you from employer retaliation for asserting your wage and hour rights. 
• File a wage claim. If your company doesn't resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, find out whether your state has an administrative wage claim procedure. In most states, you can file a claim with the state agency that enforces wage and hour laws. Your claim may be investigated, settled, or sent to an administrative hearing, where you can present evidence that you were not paid properly. It's a good idea to talk to an employment lawyer if you are considering filing a wage claim. A lawyer can help you word the complaint properly, present your best evidence persuasively, and reach the best possible outcome -- all while preserving your arguments for court, if things don't work out. 
• File a lawsuit. If other avenues don't work, you can sue your employer in state or federal court for wage theft. At this point, you will definitely need legal representation to persuade a judge or jury to enter a judgment in your favor.  

If you decide to file a claim for unpaid wages, be sure you have all of the information and documents you will need, including:

• personal information, such as name, birthdate, address, phone number, email address, and Social Security number
• name, address, and phone number of your employer
• the location where you actually worked (this may be different from the employer’s official address)
• your manager’s or the company owner’s name and phone number
• a description of the type of work you did or do for the employer
• pay stubs or wage statements showing how, when, and how much you were paid for the period in question, and
• work hours, shift assignments, or other time records showing hours worked in the period in question.

You can find more information about what you need to have on hand to file a wage claim at Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development.

Here at Legal Consumer, we want to help people find answers to everyday legal questions about important topics like bankruptcy, Obamacare, inheritance, and more. 

Now, we’ve turned our attention to employment law. Because, while almost everyone has (or has had) a job, it can be surprisingly tough to get good, high-quality local information about workplace rights. 

Wage and hour questions -- about overtime, minimum wage, tips, paycheck deductions, and more -- come up every day. Your hours for your employer's wages is the basic exchange of the employment relationship. Yet, it can be tough to find accurate, up-to-date, and easily understood information about federal, state, and local wage and hour laws.

On this website, when you choose your state or enter your zip code, you will quickly learn:

• the minimum wage where you work
• who is eligible for overtime (and how to calculate what you are owed)
• when you should get your final paycheck
• whether your employer is handling your tips properly
• what to do if your employer is violating wage and hour laws,
• and more.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to get the information, forms, and resources you need to understand and enforce your wage and hour rights, so you can make sure you are paid, legally and on time, for all of your work.