How we research our guides
Wage laws are state and federal statutes, and they change: many states raise the minimum wage every January 1 or July 1. This page explains where our information comes from.
Sources
Each state page is built from the state labor department's own pages and forms, the state statutes on the legislature's website and, for federal rules, the US Department of Labor. We don't use law-firm or HR blogs as sources. Each page lists its sources and the month they were checked.
How we check
- Every state page is researched and then checked by a second reviewer against the official sources.
- Minimum wage numbers are the rate in effect in October 2026.
- Where an official guide and the statute disagree, we follow the statute.
- Where we could not confirm something, we leave it out or say so on the page instead of guessing.
The tools
The calculator uses each state's 2026 minimum wage, the federal 40-hour weekly overtime rule and, for California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado, the daily overtime rules in our state data. It gives an estimate, not a legal ruling: it doesn't count tips, local minimum wages or special industry rules. The final-pay checker shows a date only when the state's rule is a simple number of days or the next payday; otherwise it shows the rule itself.
Report an error
Email us at [email protected] with a link to the official source and we'll check it.