Who Must Be Paid Minimum Wage?

April 13, 2006

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Even though you may have already determined that all your employees — or at least a few individual employees — must be paid the minimum wage because of their nonexempt status, check to see if your employees fall into this list of occupations who don't need to be paid minimum wage under the FLSA (but are still protected by other provisions such as overtime pay and child labor):

students in institutions of higher learning
students working for schools.
employees in American Samoa and some employees in Puerto Rico
tipped employees, in conjunction with tip credit

In some cases, you can pay certain types of employees what is referred to as a subminimum wage. The categories of employees who may be paid subminimum wages are:

learners
apprentices
messengers
certain workers with disabilities
students working in retail or service establishments
students working in agriculture

If you are considering paying someone a subminimum wage, you'll have to jump through a few hoops to do it. There are rules to follow and permission from the federal government to obtain. You may find it to be more trouble than it's worth.

Still interested? If you want to pay someone in one of the above groups a lawful subminimum wage, your first step must be to obtain the appropriate forms from the federal government. Depending on the specific category of worker, there will be different forms to complete.

In some cases, you may also have to provide additional information. For example, when applying to pay subminimum wages to a person with a disability, you may also have to complete forms that will allow the government to obtain medical records so that they can make a determination about your application.

To obtain forms, contact your local office of the Wage and Hour Division. Check your phone directory's government listings. You should see a listing under Employment Standards Administration for the Wage and Hour Office nearest you.

The government will then process your application and let you know whether or not your application has been accepted.