Overtime Labor Laws in Mississippi

There are only six states that have no minimum wage law and no overtime laws, and Mississippi is one of them. That leaves workers and employers in the state to have to defer to the federal overtime labor law, the Federal Labor Standards Act, or FLSA for short.

This law only handles certain cases of overtime, though. For instance, the FLSA over has jurisdiction over certain employers. These employers have to have certain characteristics and revenue amounts. They must be interstate companies, for instance, which means they must have offices in more than one state, or they must provide goods and/or services across state borders.

Another characteristic that must be met for employers to be held under the federal overtime law is that they must have a revenue stream in a year that is greater than $500,000. Certain types of businesses, such as hospitals and schools, are also mandated to follow the federal overtime laws.

When we say that they are mandated to follow federal rules, that basically means they must follow the standard rule of the 40 hour work week that we’re all familiar with, and have been since we first started working way back when. Essentially, it means that employers must pay employees at least time and a half for any time spent working over 40 hours in a week.

For the federal law, working on the weekends, on a holiday, or more than 8 hours in a day doesn’t matter. What counts is that 40 number, and what your hours add up to after a seven-day period of working.

And as we explained earlier, this rule holds true in Mississippi as long as the employer meets the qualifications to fall under the FLSA guidelines. Of course, there are more exceptions to the rule than we can list here. But perhaps in a future blog on the federal law, we can get into all of them.