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Part 6: Final Pay and PTO

The federal floor, and its limits

Here is what federal law does and does not do, stated plainly. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not set a special deadline for your final paycheck. Under the federal rule, final wages are due on the regular payday for the pay period. Any earlier deadline you have comes from your state law. Federal law also does not require an employer to pay out unused vacation or other paid time off when a job ends. Whether you are paid for that time is controlled by your state law and your employer's own written policy.

So this chapter runs on two documents, and you need both: your state's final pay rule, and the time-off policy you agreed to. Find the state rule at your state labor agency: search "[your state] final paycheck law site:.gov". Find the policy in the handbook or acknowledgment you saved in Part 2.

Reconcile the check, line by line

Worksheet 3, Final Pay and PTO Reconciliation, walks the check against your own records. The lines to check:

• Hours: regular hours for the final period, against your own notes or schedule.
• Rate: your last rate of pay, including any raise that had already taken effect.
• Overtime: hours over 40 in a workweek, at the rate your pay records support.
• Commissions or bonuses: what the written plan says about amounts earned before your last day. The plan document controls, so read the plan, not the memory of a conversation.
• Time off: the balance the employer confirmed in Part 3, paid or unpaid according to the policy and state law you just pulled.
• Deductions: only the ones you authorized in writing or that the law requires. A deduction you have never seen before is a question, in writing, with the stub attached.

Keep the final pay stub with the reconciliation. If the numbers later matter, in a tax return, a benefits question, or a dispute, the stub is the source document and your worksheet is the map to it.

If it is wrong, or late

Ask first, in writing, and be specific: the line, the amount you expected, the document you are reading from, and the answer you are asking for. Specific letters get specific answers. Log the exchange in Worksheet 6.

If the written question does not fix it, you have official doors. Your state labor agency takes wage complaints under state law. The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division takes complaints about federal wage law: complaints are confidential, the Division states that an employer may not retaliate against a worker for filing one, and you can start by calling 1-866-487-9243, which directs you to the nearest Wage and Hour office. Know which law you are using: state deadlines for final pay are enforced under state law, federal minimum wage and overtime under federal law. The agencies' own pages, at dol.gov/agencies/whd and your state labor agency site, explain which door fits which problem.

PocketBack's Paycheck and Unpaid Wages kit builds this reconciliation out in full, with the written-question letters and a deadline tracker for your state's wage claim window. It is linked from this guide's page at getpocketback.com. The worksheet in this guide covers the check itself. The kit is for when the check is wrong and the first letter did not move it.

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