Unpaid Wages & Back Pay Calculator

How to calculate the unpaid wages you are owed, one workweek at a time

The FLSA measures compliance workweek by workweek, so that is the unit to work in. Four numbers do the job: the hours you actually worked, the hours your employer actually paid you for, the rate you were paid, and the regular rate that should have applied. Required pay for the week is the first 40 hours at the required rate plus every hour past 40 at 1.5 times that rate. The shortfall is the gap between that and what you actually got, multiplied by the number of affected workweeks.

Here is the trap most back-pay formulas fall into. If you were paid for 40 hours and actually worked 48, those 8 unpaid hours sit above the 40-hour line, so they are overtime hours owed at time and a half, not straight time. At $16 an hour that is $192 a week, not $128. The common shortcut of (hours worked minus hours paid) times your rate understates the claim by a third.

Reconstructing the real hours is usually the hard part, so keep whatever records you have: texts about early starts, badge swipes, delivery timestamps, your own notes. The timesheet hours calculator adds them up, and the overtime pay calculator builds a regular rate that includes nondiscretionary bonuses, differentials, and commissions. If you were paid a salary, exempt status is a threshold legal question, but you can approximate the regular rate by dividing your weekly salary by the hours you actually worked.

What the FLSA covers, and what it does not

The federal claim rests on two duties: at least $7.25 an hour (29 U.S.C. §206) and at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek (29 U.S.C. §207). A shortfall that breaks one of those is the part that doubles, which is why the calculator gives the minimum-wage shortfall and the overtime shortfall their own lines.

Being paid $18 when your offer letter said $20 is still real money owed, but it is a state wage-payment or breach-of-contract claim rather than an FLSA violation. That is why it appears on its own "other unpaid straight time" line and stays out of the liquidated-damages figure. Many states supply their own damages on that amount, so the line is not a lesser claim, just a different one.

In most of the country, state law raises the floor. Usually that just means a higher state or city minimum wage. California goes further, with waiting-time penalties and daily overtime. Salaried non-exempt workers whose overtime was figured on the half-time method want the fluctuating workweek calculator instead. Tipped workers have their own cash-wage and makeup test, covered in the tip credit calculator.

Liquidated damages and the 2-year or 3-year lookback

Under 29 U.S.C. §216(b), the standard remedy is your unpaid back wages plus an equal amount as liquidated damages, so the FLSA portion of a claim usually doubles. A court can reduce or deny the doubling under §260 only if the employer proves it acted in good faith and on a reasonable belief that its pay practice was lawful, and courts rarely find that where an employer never checked.

The lookback is 2 years from each violation, or 3 years if the violation was willful. Because the clock runs per paycheck, the oldest weeks drop off one at a time while you wait, which is what the excluded-workweeks figure in the calculator shows. Willfulness and the good-faith defense are separate questions: an employer can lose one and win the other, so the two toggles never move together.

Two routes lead to recovery. A complaint to the DOL Wage and Hour Division is free and needs no lawyer (1-866-4US-WAGE), and WHD can supervise payment or sue on your behalf. A private suit under §216(b) can also recover attorney's fees and court costs. Firing or punishing you for complaining is itself unlawful under §215(a)(3). One reason the calculator reports gross figures only: back wages are taxable wages reported on a W-2, while FLSA liquidated damages are not wages for employment-tax purposes under Rev. Rul. 72-268, so blending them into a single net number would be wrong.

Paying back wages correctly, for one worker or a whole crew

Once everyone agrees on the shortfall, someone has to actually pay it. Back wages run through payroll like any other wages: income tax withholding, FICA, the employer FICA match, and FUTA plus SUTA on top. When the underpayment hit a whole shift, the correction is a payroll run for several people rather than one adjustment. The multi-employee payroll calculator handles the group, and the employer cost calculator shows what the correction costs above gross.

The Payroll Calculator app for iOS and Android models each worker independently: state, W-4, hourly rate, multiple overtime entries, and year-to-date FICA, FUTA, and SUTA earnings so wage bases truncate correctly part way through a year. It then rolls the group up with employer SUTA, FUTA, and the FICA match in decimal-precise math.

Related calculators:

• Retro pay calculator: use this instead when your employer already agrees it owes you, such as a raise that started before payroll caught up.
• Overtime pay calculator: build the regular rate that feeds the required rate here.
• Timesheet hours calculator: total the hours you actually worked, off-the-clock time included.
• Final paycheck calculator: wages held back at separation and the state deadlines that apply.