Federal overtime and the California daily rule
United States federal overtime comes from the Fair Labor Standards Act. A non-exempt employee is paid one and a half times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. There is no federal rule that a day longer than eight hours is overtime by itself. Five days of nine hours is 45 hours, so five of them are overtime and forty are straight time, even though no single day looks unusual. A week of four ten-hour days is 40 hours and, under the federal rule alone, is straight time. The page adds the seven boxes and applies that 40-hour line when you choose federal. It does not convert a salary into an hourly rate. If you are paid a salary, the regular rate is a separate calculation, and the Department of Labor and the California DIR both describe ways to do it. Type the hourly figure that calculation produced.
California adds a daily rule on top of the weekly one. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement states the general case for a non-exempt employee: one and a half times the regular rate for hours over eight and up to twelve in a workday, and double the regular rate for hours over twelve. Eight hours is a day's work. A single 14-hour day is therefore eight hours straight, four hours at time and a half, and two hours at double time, even though the week is far under 40. Labor Code section 510 is the statute the DIR summary tracks. The page applies that split to Monday through Saturday, and to Sunday as well unless Sunday is a seventh consecutive day of work. Agricultural workers and a list of exemptions and exceptions follow different rules. This page is the general non-exempt rule only.
The seventh consecutive day in a workweek has its own premium. The first eight hours on that day are time and a half, and hours past eight are double time. The DIR states that in the same list as the daily rule. On this page the workweek is Monday to Sunday, and the seventh-day premium applies only when every day in that week has some hours. A week with a zero in it is not seven consecutive days, so Sunday is an ordinary day: the first eight hours are straight time, and only the daily eight-hour and twelve-hour lines apply. If your employer’s workweek starts on a different day, shift the hours so the seventh box is the seventh day of that workweek. The page cannot see a seventh day that fell in last week’s box.
Daily overtime and weekly overtime are not stacked on the same hour. Hours already paid at a daily premium are not also counted as the weekly hours past 40. The practical order is the one wage-and-hour worksheets use. First give each day its daily premium. What remains is straight time. If that straight time is still over 40, the excess becomes time and a half and the straight-time hours stop at 40. Six days of eight hours in California are a clear example: no day is over eight, so there is no daily premium, but the week is 48 hours, so eight hours are weekly overtime. Seven days of eight hours add the seventh-day premium on top: the first six days produce 40 straight hours and eight weekly overtime hours, and the seventh day is another eight hours at time and a half. None of those seventh-day hours are straight time.
The regular rate is not always the number on the offer letter. The DIR says it includes hourly pay, the hourly value of some other pay, and, in many cases, a nondiscretionary bonus. A discretionary gift does not go into the regular rate. Two rates in one week can require a weighted average. A flat-sum bonus has its own overtime fraction, divided by the maximum legal regular hours rather than by all hours worked. None of that is in this page. The rate you type is treated as the regular rate already. If a bonus is due, work the regular rate first, then type it. Unauthorised overtime is still owed in California if the employer suffered or permitted the work. The page does not know whether the hours were authorised. It prices the hours you enter.
Several things this page will overpay or underpay if you ignore them. An exempt employee, including many salaried professionals who meet the duties and salary tests, is not owed overtime at all. An alternative workweek schedule of four ten-hour days can be straight time in California when it has been properly adopted. A collective agreement can set something different where the law allows it. Hours paid for a holiday or a sick day, when no work was done, do not count toward overtime. The DIR’s own example is a week that looks like 48 paid hours because of a sick day but is only 40 hours worked, and those 40 are not overtime. Leave the sick day out of the boxes. Minimum wage can floor the regular rate, and California’s minimum wage is not checked here. Other states are not California and are not the federal rule with a different label. If the job is in another state, the federal column is only a floor, and that state’s labor department is the source for anything stricter.