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I had to look COBRA up, here's the link for others benefit.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.html

Exempt employees are paid more because they are specialized or managerial employees. http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17a_overview.pdf (PDF) Some places may expect such employees to work more than 40 hours, or to work a minimum of 40 hours and more as necessary (such as our accounting department, where they work a lazy 40 hours that should be 30 hours, then for quarterly and annual book closings, they work 60 hour weeks or so). But it is not the basic expectation that all salaried employees are expected to work unpaid overtime. The job description should include hours worked. If it states they should be working 40 hours a week or defines office hours as 8 to 5 and they are expecting people to come early or stay late, then IBM has been requiring unpaid overtime. However, that is not related to the definition of what is exempt. Read the link, that defines the job duties required for exempt status. If IBM made exempt positions for non-exempt duties, they should be forced to back-pay all the affected employees with overtime pay based on their base-rate of their salary at the time (and if the governemnt wasn't run by pro-business anti-citizen people, they'd toss a fine on IBM for about ten times the dollar amount of the judgement). Exempt positions aren't made that way to be able to force unpaid overtime. They were initially made that way because the people that served those positions had great influence over their own pay and are not producing things that are time dependent (knitting a sock takes 5 minutes, so you make someone work 5 minutes longer and you get one more sock from them, vs. someone that balances the books for the company, if they work 20 hours in a week or 60 hours in a week, the books are still balanced). However, the exemptions have gone from just top management to all sorts of lower levels and people that do produce based on time (salesmen, programmers and such that should be exempt based on the current definition).

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs23.pdf>U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA

29 CFR Part 541, Defining and delimiting the exemptions for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales and computer employees, final rule

IBM may very well have been legally justified to not reimburse these folks the overtime pay in the first place. However, since it was found otherwise, I think the 15% pay cut to compensate is just spitting in the face of their employees. How many good engineers and other employees will they lose as a result of this move? It seems to me that if you have good people working for you, willing to stay after hours to keep things moving, you should reward them for the extra effort. Too bad if it happens that computer employees rack up lots of overtime, but it's the nature of the business and should be considered cost of doing business.

You may have a case against them. Check your rights and see if you have a case.

Tip? These ladies aren't starvin to death. They make minimum wage.

Minimum wage for jobs with tips is not exactly the same as without. link. I had a friend who worked as a Shuttle Driver and made $2.15 an hour because he was never tipped, even though they expected him to be.

FLSA--Fair Labor Standards act.


It governs the classification of exempt (salaried;not eligible for overtime) vs non-exempt (hourly;eligible for overtime)

disclaimer: US only.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/

You're incorrect.

An exemption was inserted in the last few years that covers "computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $455 per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour."

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm

I agree that if you are offered a salary, then that's it. The job is estimated at a standard work week, you work until the job is done, and you can only expect a certain constant paycheck in return. If you have to work longer hours, suck it up, that's part of being a professional.
______________
From the US Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm

Computer Employee Exemption

To qualify for the computer employee exemption, the following tests must be met:

        * The employee must be compensated either on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $455 per week or, if compensated on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour;
        * The employee must be employed as a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer or other similarly skilled worker in the computer field performing the duties described below;
        * The employee's primary duty must consist of:

1) The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software or system functional specifications;

2) The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications;

3) The design, documentation, testing, creation or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems; or

4) A combination of the aforementioned duties, the performance of which requires the same level of skills.

The computer employee exemption does not include employees engaged in the manufacture or repair of computer hardware and related equipment. Employees whose work is highly dependent upon, or facilitated by, the use of computers and computer software programs (e.g., engineers, drafters and others skilled in computer-aided design software), but who are not primarily engaged in computer systems analysis and programming or other similarly skilled computer-related occupations identified in the primary duties test described above, are also not exempt under the computer employee exemption.

Primary Duty

"Primary duty" means the principal, main, major or most important duty that the employee performs. Determination of an employee's primary duty must be based on all the facts in a particular case, with the major emphasis on the character of the employee's job as a whole.

A lot of the responses miss the point.

Salaried folks, like most of I.T., are paid for a job, not by the hour.

But, at least in the US, the 'normal' workweek, as our culture accepts it, is 40 hours. But in I.T. that does not apply, at least not anymore.

The past few years at every job and company I have worked for, and according to all the folks I know working at other companies, has expected a 'normal' workweek to be 45-50 hours as standard, not as the exception.

What that does to your health and life is profound. No time for family, no time for exercise, no time for personal or professional maintenance. You can not go to your kids play while you are babysitting a project in your cube. I do not care what kind of data plan you have for you video cell phone, it's not a substitute.

Now add projects on top of that expected 45-50 hour week, and what is left for anything outside of work? Little or nothing.

The problem is that it is perfectly legal, and that is what most companies use as their litmus test for 'ethical'.

In the US there are two categories of employee. Exempt and non-exempt. This refers to whether they are covered under the Federal wage and hour laws that require payment of overtime wages for any time over 40 hours a week.

Exempt means that you are listed in the law as being exempt from the over-time requirement. Computer programmers/admins, etc are one of the VERY few exempted.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm

The threshold is low. A little over $11 an hour, if paid on a weekly basis, or a bit less than $30 an hour if paid as salary, and a couple other conditions are met. Conditions tailor made to fit I.T., so they are always met.

These laws were passed way over a decade ago at the behest of I.T. consulting firms based in NYC, like Anderson and Computer Horizons. I had a link, now defunct, listing the sponsors of the bill, some well known, and all considered 'friends of the working man'. Maybe, but certainly not the working nerd. (Even at the Federal level it appears, the hatred of geeks and nerds that starts in High School and extends to college, never ends)

If not for these laws, I.T. would be paid hourly just like any other skilled trade. And skilled trade it is. I know many, many programmers, sys admins, DBA's, analysts, project manager, and the like that never received a college degree of any sort. They all learned on the job or went to one of the many computer trade schools, Like Chubb, ITT, etc, that now are all but gone.

There is nothing in the law that FORBIDS paying overtime wages, either straight time of time and a half. But because it is permitted, companies will use it as an excuse to not pay it. The same as they would do to any factory worker or skilled trade like a plumber or electrician or auto mechanic.

In other words, it may be legal, but that does not make it ethical.

Remove the law exempting us from overtime and you would see a huge change in I.T.. Some bad, temporarily at least, most good. Like not wasting our time with crap assignments and ill planned work at all hours of the day and night. Maybe starting to actually think through projects instead of planning them about as well as Little Rascals productions with Spanky as the PM and Darla as the Lead. But that is another thread.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs2. htm

OK, it's time for some people near the big users of H1B visas, but not employees of them, to ask to see those H1B files available for public access. Bring your laptop and scanner and let's get those on line. Bring two people, one with a camcorder, so if you're turned down for access, there's video of that.

>Are you using some wierd definition of "poor" that I don't understand?

Perhaps. I expect he means "working poor", ie: Those who are (usually) able to hold their own for basic living expenses (clothing, food, shelter, transportation) but are unable to afford luxuries (houses, cars, savings). The "working poor" has increased as house prices have skyrocketed and left many in apartments that leave them no future hope of having an investment. Yes, there's the old saw of apartments being cheap enough you can safe for the future, but how many of us do? Yes, that one guy that's going to reply will tell me he does. Good for him. The rest of us end up using a house as an investment.

>Home ownership is at an all time high

Due to backloaded mortgages that are now exploding in many people's faces.

>Unemployment is low.

Unemployment considers only those who currently have no job and are looking for work. There are many that are only skilled enough to earn $2.13 per hour in the US. Some of them choose welfare over a job as it pays better (they are not counted). There are also many working for $6.50 per hour who hope to earn as high as $8.00 when they retire. They are also not counted. Although, in all honesty, they should be, as while they are either employed or not looking for work, neither of them is living above desperate poverty.

In the 50s - 70s house prices were much less than they are now, adjusted for wages at the time. This is a very useful set of data as it shows the ease of which the poorest people in the nation could make the most expensive purchase the average person in the nation makes.

Example, using info from these two sites.

1963 - House prices are 14,400 times minimum wage.
1970 - House prices are 16,137 times minimum wage.
1980 - House prices are 20,838 times minimum wage.
1990 - House prices are 32,342 times minimum wage.
2000 - House prices are 32,815 times minimum wage.

They're only worse today. I wouldn't be surprised if the number surpassed 50,000 times minimum wage now. That's 30 years of straight labour at minimum wage to own a house, with not a cent for anything else. With expenses at the bank reccomended 2/3 of your salary, that's 90 years of straight labour. With today's pay, unless you earn at least 2 times minimum wage, it is literally impossible for you to own a home no matter how much effort you put into it. This isn't considering mortgages, which make that 90 years into 200+ years. That's a family with FOUR people earning to make the mortgage payments. Another TWO would need to employed to earn enough to clothe and feed the rest of the family. [At least Muslims have it right by allowing up to 8 wives, that would give enough income to afford to live at minimum wage in a house in the US]. In the 1960s, however, it was possible for anyone to own a home if they were willing to put effort into it.

This is what he means by poor. Unable to own that which is customary for most others to own. Considering minimum wage puts you mathematically unable to own a home, and a vast amount of Americans earn this, they are poor.

>There is no overtime pay on salaries.

Sorry, but that isn't true: There are two types of salaried jobs - exempt and non-exempt.

Salaried - exempt, means no overtime. Salaried, non-exempt positions are entitled to overtime - usually it's paid for any time over forty hours per week, based on the hourly rate derived from the weekly salary. Hourly employees are paid overtime for any time worked over eight hours a day.

Most people think that salary always means no overtime, when the truth is that many salaried positions aren't exempt under the law, even though many employers treat them as such to avoid paying overtime and take advantage of people's ignorance to save money. This is especially true in IT, where people doing helpdesk/sysadmin work are usually treated as exempt although the work that they do doesn't fall under either the "Professional" or "Computer Software Professionals" classifications as defined.

See: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/ for more information.

Most programmers, as far as I understand, are classified as "exempt" regarding overtime pay.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay /fs17g_salary.htm

However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $455 per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour.

I've worked as a hiring manager for more than one company, and I've rarely ever seen an hourly employee get paid for breaks. It's not a common thing. They get paid for the time they work, which is the essence of an *hourly* employee by definition.

I guess no one thought to check up with the Department of Labor Compliance Assistance office. And as a "hiring manager," you really should be familiar with this stuff:

http://www.dol.gov/compliance/topics/wages-other-b reaks.htm

From the summary:

. . . if employers do offer short breaks (lasting about five to 20 minutes), federal law considers these short breaks time for which employees must be compensated.

Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. However, when employers do offer short breaks (usually lasting about 5 to 20 minutes), federal law considers the breaks work-time that must be paid.

Actually, the DoL does say short breaks (read 5-20 minutes) are to be paid. (My source) So the 15-minute breaks should be compensated. The lunch break is even stated in federal law as being different and non-compensateable. This is a non-story, as has been said.

When job reqs get that specific, it means that there already someone with exactly the same qualifications working for them, most likely an H1B and or someone with F1-practical-training waiting to become H1B. These adverts are crafted to reduce or reject other applicants, not to select any.

Good news, everyone! The Department of Labor has addressed this, and employers no longer need to pretend that they tried to hire someone that was already in the US.

The Department of Labor has published it's strategic 5 Year Plan.

http://www.dol.gov/_sec/stratplan/strat_plan_2006- 2011.pdf

Under Performance Goal 2H, "Address worker shortages through the Foreign Labor Certification Program", we find:

"H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker."

Isn't that special? I could bring in a new hire H1-B at what DOL thinks are the prevailing wages for Engineers, a whole 40K/year in Silicon Valley (Level 1 Engineer, DOL stats!), and I can use them to displace overpriced US college grads. Pretty slick. Of course the displaced workers can be retrained to something more appropriate.

Repeat after me:

"Do you want fries with that?"

How much does a human life cost, exactly?

Can you trade them on the stock market?

Does the value depreciate with time?

It doesn't require drug testing, however. This according to the Department of Labor site and the text of the law itself. Basically, it requires employers and employees to sign statements that drug use in the workplace is forbidden and can result in loss of employment.

-b.

Well, most people choose to use their vacation time, which means they definitely aren't docking those people's salaries. For those who don't have any vacation time left, though, it seems to me they have to pay full salary to the employees. See FLSA2005-41.

Since employers are not required under the FLSA to provide any vacation time to employees, there is no prohibition on an employer giving vacation time and later requiring that such vacation time be taken on a specific day(s). Therefore, a private employer may direct exempt staff to take vacation or debit their leave bank account in the situation presented above, whether for a full or partial day's absence, provided the employees receive in payment an amount equal to their guaranteed salary. In the same scenario, an exempt employee who has no accrued benefits in the leave bank account or has a negative balance in the leave bank account still must receive the employee's guaranteed salary for any absence(s) occasioned by the employer or the operating requirements of the business.

That leaves a third scenario, though. What if the employee does have enough accrued vacation time, but doesn't want to use it? Is it OK for the employer to offer to not "debit [the employees] leave bank account", in exchange for the employee foregoing pay? Probably yes.

So yes, HP has to pay its employees for their forced time off. However, they can reduce those employees vacation time to a negative value for doing so. (Note that a negative vacation time wouldn't have to be paid back if the employee then quit.)

I'm surprised (or maybe not) that most of the discussion so far has focused on complaining about how lousy the U.S. is without actually answering the original poster's question, and yours is the first post (as far as I've seen) that mentions COBRA.

The OP probably has three reasonable options: membership in a professional organization that offers insurance; Kaiser, if it's available, as they actually have affordable self-employment plans, though most hate their model and the quality of care is a crapshoot; and COBRA on the wife's current insurance, which is almost assuredly what should be done.

The COBRA plan will offer continuity of coverage, which is important for covering things related to the pregnancy, birth and the first weeks of the child's life. You'll be paying her former employer's group rate (even though you're covering the whole premium cost, it's better than you'll get in some random plan elsewhere), etc.

You might consider not telling her workplace that she's going to stay at home at all, and taking advantage of whatever leave is offered before severing ties. Your wife can take a four-month FMLA leave during which her employee will have to continue her coverage (and pay their previous share of the premiums). [note] But in any case it's very likely COBRA is the right thing to do after separation.

Usually this COBRA isn't a bad deal because companies are able to shop around, but you still might do better with other options. The main trick is to become part of a group. Some places there are local software developers associations, and membership in these could qualify you for the group rate (I think this was true back when I looked into it in WA state in the late 90's). If you're not part of a group the cost is usually higher or the benefits less. I think this is because a larger fraction of individuals sign up for insurance when they know they're going to need it to pay for something in the near future.

The other important thing is don't let your insurance lapse. It might seem like not a big deal to quit your old insurance and risk a few months before you get something new, but in many cases when you start up insurance after a period of not being insured, the insurance will refuse to cover pre-existing conditions for a long period of time. (Meaning it might not help much to wait to get insurance until after you've been diagnosed with cancer.)

Caveat: I'm not a health care or insurance professional; this is all from my personal experience so if somethng I've written prompts you to make a decision, please double-check with another source. Also I think laws related to this are different from state to state, so there's a big possibility that things will be different where you live from where I live.

Even if your wife leaves her job, she (and the family, if you have a family policy) can stay on her former employer's health insurance for 18 months under COBRA. But they can charge you the actual cost of the policy plus two percent. (Meaning if she currently plays 80% of the cost of the policy through deductions and the company pays the other 20% percent, after you go on COBRA you'll pay the 80% + 20% + up to 2%. The HR department of her company can tell you the COBRA rates.)

After the 18 months of COBRA runs out, the insurance company is required to offer you a non-group policy that is not medically underwritten. I think they usually call this a HIPAA policy. This will probably be more expensive than the policy you get through COBRA, but you can't be denied for pre-existing conditions.

It's been a while since I've read the DOL publication on COBRA, so follow the link above to verify that none of the details have changed.

Hi, It's me again, AC. Just to update. The Labor link I posted was wrong. Too much of a holiday weekend I guess. The link should have been to The Department of Labor http://www.dol.gov/ . The problem is with the broadly written wording of the FLSA:

"For the FLSA section 13(a)(1) exemptions to apply, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis of no less than $455 per week and perform certain types of work that:

        * is directly related to the management of his or her employer's business, or
        * is directly related to the general business operations of his or her employer or the employer's clients, or
        * requires specialized academic training for entry into a professional field, or
        * is in the computer field, or
        * is making sales away from his or her employer's place of business, or
        * is in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.

FLSA Section 13(a)(17) exempts hourly paid employees who perform certain types of work in the computer field if they are paid at a rate of not less than $27.63 per hour.

Exemptions are determined based on each specific employment situation. Job titles alone do not determine the exempt or non-exempt status of any employee. "

Even though the law states that job titles do not matter, the droolers in management still believe that it does.

Well, the United States Federal Department of Labor disagrees with you. The Federal Minimum wage does not apply to every state. Of course, you would know that if you had actually gone to the department of labor website, when I gave you the link, instead of just assuming that your personal opinion was law.

I'm not going to argue here. Federal means applicable to every state in the country.

You mean this map?
http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

The federal minimum wage law applies to the whole country-- otherwise it would be ignorant to even have a federal minimum wage. I live in Tennessee, one of the states with no state minimum law. The federal law STILL applies. The only exception is in certain professions, and certain age groups.

Before accusing me of simply spouting opinion, make sure you fully understand your own sources. All that map says is that the states colored in goldenrod have no state minimum, so only the federal law applies. You're basically saying that if a state didn't have any murder laws on the books, or no state income tax, that the federal laws regarding those things aren't applicable either. That makes no sense whatsoever.

For the record, I found this information on my own-- your link was provided later in the thread, and all you did was post the link to the site's homepage. No specific documentation was cited. You didn't even do a good job trolling, if that was your intent.

Comparing gas prices to other commodities seems to be a little odd. Let's say Mr. Smith has a car with a 15 gallon tank. In the Heyday of only a dollar a gallon, that was a nice tidy, simple $15 dollar fillup. Today, at $3.30 a gallon, that's $49.50. Ok, that's only an increase of $34.50. But back in creaky old 1998, when you could still get Gasoline for under a buck a gallon... EVERYTHING else did not also cost 3 times less than it does now. We don't make 3 times as much money now as we did in 1998.

Is weekly really that accurate of an estimate? I fill up about every other week, and I only have a ten gallon tank. Is less than $40 a week really that much of a killer? I spend more on games/movies.

Of course, the killer is that although gas prices have tripled, we still have 6 states in the US that do not have ANY minimum wage regulations. http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm [dol.gov] Arizona, Louisana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Back in 1998, you could and DID find jobs that paid $4 or $5 an hour (not some backwoods ranch hiring stall muckers...

And you'll generally find most of those jobs are of the high school teenager type. Unless you're a waiter or other wierd category, federal minimum is $5.15/hour. In addition, increasing mimimum wage does more to unemploy those workers than it helps them out(the rise in cost of basic services generally wipes the manadated 'raise' out).

I'm talking about mainstream jobs in major cities like Phoenix or New Orleans or Jackson or Mobile or Nashville or Charleston. Now, if you happen to live, work, and struggle in one of these states, paying three times as much for gasoline has probably moved you into publlic transportation. Why? Because you can STILL wait in line at the Employment office for 3 hours, to browse through jobs that pay $4 to $5 an hour. Except it costs you 3 times as much in fuel to go job hunting.

Then don't take the job. It's obviously not worth that much to the potential employer if they're only willing to pay that much. Either that or they have a labor pool that is willing to take those terms. Let them suffer with not having any employees. The New Orleans tourist industry has had to substantially increase their pay in order to attract workers since the hurricane. As for public transportation, sure it sucks, but isn't part of the deal with oil is that cheap sources of it are running out, so we need to wean ourselves from it? The more people taking mass transit the better. Enough people take it, it can actually start saving money and resources. Service will improve, getting more people to take it.

That 3x modifier also applies to home heating oil too

Then heat with something other than oil. Get a couple electric space heaters. Insulate your house more. Wear more clothing and keep the house cooler. Note: This is conservation, which will reduce the demand, reducing the cost of the cost of the product.

Yes, it often happens in the political discussions when a moderator disagrees with you as opposed to when you are actually a troll, redundant, or off-topic, and would rather see your post have a zero so fewer people can see it, instead of intelligently debating with you.

In other words, exactly how your post should have been modded? I mean, considering it is of topic and should be seen by as few people as possible... especially considering how your post is a response to someone's SIG, and not even their post.

However, On the topic...

Comparing gas prices to other commodities seems to be a little odd. Let's say Mr. Smith has a car with a 15 gallon tank. In the Heyday of only a dollar a gallon, that was a nice tidy, simple $15 dollar fillup. Today, at $3.30 a gallon, that's $49.50. Ok, that's only an increase of $34.50. But back in creaky old 1998, when you could still get Gasoline for under a buck a gallon... EVERYTHING else did not also cost 3 times less than it does now. We don't make 3 times as much money now as we did in 1998.

Of course, how many times you have to fill your tank every week depends on a huge number of factors, so that answer is going to vary greatly from person to person. But now, paying that additional $30+ per fill up really adds up. At a modest once a week fillup, that's more than $120 per month additional. Twice a week, $240. Three times a week, $360. For all the people who were just scraping by... those people who did not make oodles of extra cash per month, higher gas prices mean less money for other things, like food.

Gasoline ranks pretty high in the priority list too. YOu need to pay your Rent, so you can keep an address and a job. You have to pay your utilities so your alarm clock can continue to get you up on time for that job. And then there is Gasoline. You need to make sure you can get some, so you can continue to get to work, as well as go get groceries, as well as try to find a cheaper apartment to live in, etc...

That 3x modifier also applies to home heating oil too. Except it was a much sharper rise in a much shorter period of time. What used to cost a homeowner $800 to heat the home for just the winter, now costs more than $2400 for that same, short, 3 month span. And in the worst month, January, when that same Homeowner would be looking at two 200 gallon tank fillups (once at the beginning of the month, and once near the end of the month) what used to be $400, is now $1200. Ask any homeowner. Coming up with an additional $800 in January is never easy. The worst part about home heating oil as well, is that this price of just around $3 per gallon, is the off season price. That's the price if you PRE_PAY for your fuel ahead of time. If you have to call and pay for that Oil delivery in the winter time, as opposed to planning for it, it will cost you even MORE.

Who the hell can afford to have to make the equivalent of ANOTHER house payment every year? Who can afford to have their car insurance double (or even triple) in price per year? Because that is what paying these prices for Gasoline, Diesel, and Heating Oil are doing. Only filling that 15 gallon tank in the car one a week? You are paying $1440 more a year now than in 1998. Twice a week? $2880 more. Did your wages triple as well since 1998? Did you even get the equivalent of $3000 in raises between then and now? Do you pay triple in rent (or in mortgage payments) now, as opposed to less than a decade ago?

Of course, the killer is that although gas prices have tripled, we still have 6 states in the US that do not have ANY minimum wage regulations. http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm Arizona, Louisana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Back in 1998, you could and DID find jobs that paid $4 or $5 an hour (not some backwoods ranch hiring stall muckers... I'm talking about mainstream jobs in major cities like Phoenix

Comparing the US to Europe is apples and oranges, a better measure is comparing unemployment rates within the US with State minimum wages. States with higher minimum wages don't necessarily have higher unemployment rates.

She makes at least a few hundred a month, cant really remember how much, but she does very good for herself for a mother of 5 kids.

I hope she has some other form of (non-government-provided) income! A couple hundred a month is nowhere near enough to provide for five children (Assumption 1: She lives in the US or an equivalent country, not a third-world country where a few hundred a month is insanely rich. Assumption 2: When you say "a few hundred", I assume that means "a few hundred dollars". Since you probably really mean "a few hundred pounds", given your usage of the word "mum", adjust the following numbers appropriately for the currency.)

US Federal minimum wage is $5.15/hr (many states have a higher minimum wage than the federal standard). A full-time (40 hours per week) worker at minimum wage makes $206/week before taxes, or $824/mo (4 weeks in a month). While the minimum wage is supposed to be a "living wage", that full-time minimum wage worker earns $10,712 per year (again, before taxes -- while she'll get that money back come tax time, her normal take-home pay will be much less). That's just barely above the poverty line for a single-person household. For the lady in question, her household consists of at least six (possibly seven, as you made no mention of a father/husband). The poverty threshold for a six person family is $26,800/year, which is more than twice what can be made holding two 40hour/week minimum wage paying jobs. And since "a few hundred per month" is generally assumed to be smaller than $824/mo (I'd equate "a few hundred" with "less than or equal to $500"), she's even worse off than a minimum wage worker. She's certainly not getting rich by any definition of the word.

Assuming your friend's mom's kids are grown and she has no large bills or debts (owns her own home or has a rent-controlled apartment, lives within her means, etc), then I guess it may be possible to live comfortably off of a few hundred pounds a month. If she's still actively raising her children, that doesn't sound like nearly enough to survive.

Employers and managers should be very aware of the potential liability they may incur if they allow non-exempt employees to work from home, where their working hours are difficult to monitor. The law clearly stipulates that non-exempt employees must be paid for all overtime hours worked - whether or not the work was approved or in violation of policy. I'm not saying this is right or good, I'm just sayin'.

From the Department of Labor website:

Overtime Pay May Not Be Waived: The overtime requirement may not be waived by agreement between the employer and employees. An agreement that only 8 hours a day or only 40 hours a week will be counted as working time also fails the test of FLSA compliance. An announcement by the employer that no overtime work will be permitted, or that overtime work will not be paid for unless authorized in advance, also will not impair the employee's right to compensation for compensable overtime hours that are worked.

In the U.S., around 7% [1] of the population is self-employed, and roughly half are employed by small businesses [2], so I don't think the situation is all that different. Only a very small percentage of businesses compete for VC funding, but they happen to be in sectors that receive a lot of public attention, particularly technology. I doubt that venture capital is much more or less prevalent than it is in other nations with similar economic climates and legal restrictions on investment.

In the United States there's a very large cultural attraction to the idea of "striking it rich." People, for the most part, fantasize less about living comfortably (rather, they just assume they'll do that) than about being fabulously, stupendously rich. Thus there is a lot of attention paid to people who have made millions via VC funding and through garage startups, and less to the majority of small businesses that are actually typical, and get their funding from banks and private financing. People don't want to hear about the one pizza restaurant that expanded out to become three pizza restaurants and let the owner and his family live well, they want to hear about the one pizza restaurant that became a nationwide chain and let the owner buy a fleet of Gulfstream V's and retire to Bali.

[1] Source here. (Hopefully that link won't break.)
[2] http://www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/misc/entrepre.htm

Ever heard of the term DINO? A lot of those voted for Dubya. Oh, yeah, Lousiana has no minimum wage law, some Democrats they are. Damn worthless DINOs are giving Democrat a bad name.

If you lay off more than a certain number of people at one time, different rules are in effect.

There's a federal law called WARN, and California has a stricter version.

p.s. WARN would be a great Wikipedia article, if someone wants to make one :)

Payment in scrip was outlawed more than 100 years ago.

I am absolutely certain.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay /fs17a_overview.htm is a link to the Department of Labor's fact sheet on the subject.

(Laws varied by state, but this is the minimum standard to protect employees.)

I would be amazed if anyone with as much money as Walmart or any bank would ever consider such a blatantly illegal scheme (though many have tried other, more subtle schemes).

I don't think so.

First, according to the USL's FLSA, "**most** employees in the United States be paid [...] overtime pay at time and one-half the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek."

Also, there are only 5 categories of jobs that are exempt from overtime. Just this week, I know my employer illegally classified me as exempt.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay /fs17a_overview.htm

gas prices in my home are not up much once you factor in inflation over the past 15 years.

Inflation is meaningless. I'm paying less for a TV than in 1989, but I might buy one every 15 years. Food is more expensive, though, as well as heating fuel.

Note that gasoline is a large part of the inflation itself. A far better metric than "inflation" is the Federal minimum wage.

In January 1989, Gasoline was $1.00 per gallon (source). The Federal minimum wage was $3.35 per hour (source). In 1989, someone making the federally mandated minimum wage worked one hour for three and a third gallons of gasoline.

Today's prices need no source; look at the sign on your way home. It's $2.47 this morning here. The federal minimum wage is $5.15; the worker making minimum wage today can afford about two gallons of gas for an hour's slavery, as opposed to the 3 1/3 in 1989.

Please stop believing everything the liars in government tell you and do a little basic research yourself. Thirty seconds googling found the true increase in the price of gasoline.

Geez you are so wrong it's ridiculous. Unfortunately, this is par for the course for most /. readers - whiny bitches who lack the facts to back up their assertions. This is particularly ludicrous when it's so easy to look up the actual law (hint: try Title 29, "Labor" where Chapter V "Wage and Hour Division" is prominent).

Where I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area the rental rates are similar. I pay $765/month for a *very* modest 3 bedroom and it's an absolute steal, but minimum wage in Texas is only $5.15. Unfortunately that's what I'm making right now until I can find a real job, so I'm quite familiar with the frugal life.

In case you think that ars is a more credible source than cnn, heres some more along with an even more credible source. Anti-FUD is in fashion I see..

Federal contractors are still required to have an affirmitive action program. http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/ofccp/aa.ht m

This general means these companies have had to prove compliance and keep track of this data.

For the love of Mike, people, READ THE FRICKIN' PDF!

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/fedreg/final/200502017 6.htm

The rule is for FEDERAL CONTRACTORS!!! Hello, can anyone read around here. This does not apply to NON-FEDERAL CONTRACTORS. Again, READ THE PDF. It's prefereable to having morons posting comments.

Hurrah - someone with research skills!

The actual rule:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/fedreg/final/200502017 6.htm
Obligation To Solicit Race and Gender Data for Agency Enforcement Purposes

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060207-6127 .html

Do you know what the OFCCP is? It is the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and that little taste of bureaucratic alphabet soup is a part of the Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration. The OFCCP's job is to ensure "that employers doing business with the Federal government comply with the laws and regulations requiring nondiscrimination." In essence, that makes the OFCCP one of the many departments that exist within the government to monitor activities and make sure things are done properly and fairly. A noble goal, to be sure, but the OFCCP has distinguished itself with a new rule going into effect this week regarding the tracking of those who apply for jobs on the Internet, and it may have repercussions for anyone using electronic means to search for a new career.

Actually, this is right in step with the Affirmative Action laws. Affirmative Action states that you can't hire less of some specific group (race, gender, whatever) that you have reasonably available (well, not really, but that's the way it gets interpreted generally). The best way to determine the availability of qualified applicants for the job is to keep a list of what applicants come in on what percentage of race.

So if you have a position, and 10% of the qualified applicants (people that met all posted qualifications) are Martian but your workforce for that job is only 5% Martian, there's a good chance that the EEOC will come down on you for not meeting affirmitave action criteria.

And, of course, all that contradicts the statements that affirmative action is not there to set quotas. Basically it's a big ol' gray area that can cause lots of headaches for employers, and it's in their best interest to do whatever they can to back themselves up against discrimination lawsuits. This site has an overview that's not filled with too much legalese.

GEEZ...

This applies to contractors who are going to provide employees/contractors to FEDERAL GOVERNMENT JOBS. Not all business in the US. http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/esa/ESA20051958 .htm