Your employer calls you a salaried employee and tells you that overtime doesn’t apply to you. This may be wrong. The salary status alone does not remove overtime rights under federal law, and thousands of Kentucky workers are underpaid every year because their employers misused that label. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets strict requirements about who actually qualifies as an exempt employee – and the rules are more specific than most people realize.
The Basic Overtime Rule Under the FLSA
The FLSA requires covered employers to pay non-exempt employees 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a single workweek. This is the federal floor. The Kentucky overtime statute, KRS § 337.285, mirrors this requirement.
Kentucky also adds a protection that federal law does not: if you work all seven days of the workweek, your employer must pay you time-and-a-half for each hour worked on the seventh day – even if your total hours for the week are less than 40. This rule applies separately from the weekly threshold in KRS §337.050.
Who Is Actually Covered by the FLSA?
Most workers in Kentucky are covered by the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act). The law applies to any business with annual revenue of at least $500,000 or that engages in interstate commerce, which includes most retailers, manufacturers, healthcare organizations, and service providers in the state. If your work crosses state lines, even if your employer’s total revenue is lower, you may also be covered individually.
When an Employer Can Legally Withhold Overtime
Exemptions exist for certain employees, but they are limited and require meeting specific criteria. These exemptions are commonly known as “white-collar” exemptions and apply to executive, administrative, and professional positions. To qualify for these exemptions, an employee must meet two requirements:
- Salary level test: As of 2026, the minimum salary threshold remains at $684 per week ($35,568 annually). This threshold was set by a federal court after the Department of Labor proposed an increase in 2024 was blocked. Employees earning less than this amount cannot be considered exempt, regardless of their job title.
- Duties test: An employee’s day-to-day duties must align with the specific exemption category. For example, a “manager” position that involves mostly the same tasks as their employees likely does not qualify for an exemption.
Common Ways Employers Violate Overtime Law
Overtime violations in Kentucky can take several forms. Some of them are accidental, but many are not. Some examples include:
- Misclassifying hourly workers as salaried employees in order to avoid the calculation of overtime.
- Requiring employees to work off the clock, such as before they punch in or after they have officially clocked out.
- Averaging hours across two or more weeks in order to keep any single week below 40 hours, which is not permitted by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
- Paying “comp time” instead of overtime wages to private sector workers, although this practice is only allowed for certain government employees.
- Splitting job duties between two related employer entities in order to keep each position’s hours below 40.
How Far Back Can You Recover Unpaid Overtime?
Under the FLSA, the standard lookback period is two years. If your employer’s violation was willful – meaning they knew the law and paid you wrong anyway – you can recover three years of unpaid wages. Kentucky’s wage statutes provide an additional avenue for pursuing unpaid compensation. Back pay is not the only form of recovery available. Under the FLSA, courts can also award liquidated damages equal to unpaid wages, effectively doubling what you recover.
What to Do If You Think You’re Owed Overtime
Start by collecting all relevant documents related to your work hours and pay. This could include pay stubs, timesheets, emails, and any other communications that show when you worked and how much you were paid. If your employer is controlling the time records and you do not have access to them, this is a matter that your attorney can help you address through the legal process.
At Abney Law, we have helped Kentucky workers recover unpaid wages in various industries, including healthcare, retail, logistics, and construction. Our attorneys understand how employers structure pay to obscure violations and we can prove these violations. If you work more than 40 hours per week and do not see time-and-a-half reflected in your paychecks, a consultation may be the first step to recovering the wages you are owed.