Full Description

The problem

Employers and developers frequently misinterpret federal wage-and-hour requirements because the rules are spread across the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Department of Labor regulations, opinion letters, fact sheets, court decisions, exemptions, and special industry rules.

A situation that looks simple—such as paying a salaried employee, using independent contractors, taking a tip credit, deducting payroll costs, or calculating overtime—can involve multiple overlapping federal requirements.

This Skill is designed to help identify those issues systematically before they become expensive compliance problems.

What it does

The Federal Wage & Hour Compliance Issue Spotter performs a structured first-pass review of U.S. federal wage-and-hour compliance.

It helps identify potential issues involving:

• FLSA enterprise and individual coverage
• Employee vs. independent contractor classification
• Joint-employer considerations
• Federal minimum wage requirements
• Overtime eligibility and calculation
• Regular-rate calculations
• Salaried and exempt-employee classifications
• Executive, administrative, professional, computer, outside-sales, and highly compensated employee exemptions
• Hours worked and off-the-clock work
• Remote work and compensable time
• Waiting time, on-call time, travel time, training time, and sleep time
• Meal-period and rest-period compensability
• Preliminary and postliminary activities
• Tips, tip credits, tip pools, dual jobs, service charges, and tipped overtime
• Payroll deductions, uniforms, tools, kickbacks, and employer-required costs
• Federal recordkeeping requirements
• FLSA posting requirements
• Child-labor restrictions
• Youth minimum wage rules
• Section 14(c) subminimum-wage issues
• Rehabilitation Act Section 511 requirements affecting subminimum-wage employment
• PUMP Act break-time and private-space requirements
• Federal wage-garnishment limits under the Consumer Credit Protection Act
• Equal Pay Act wage issues
• Retaliation protections
• Public-sector compensatory time
• Police and firefighter Section 7(k) rules
• Healthcare 8-and-80 arrangements
• Commissioned retail or service employee exemptions
• Motor Carrier Act exemption issues
• Agricultural exemptions
• Domestic-service and home-care rules
• Unpaid interns, volunteers, and trainees
• Federal contractor wage requirements, including Davis-Bacon, Service Contract Act, CWHSSA, Copeland Act, and related federal-contract overlays
• Immigration-related wage programs that may require separate H-2A, H-2B, H-1B, or MSPA review

The Skill does not simply search for one rule. It examines the facts, identifies potentially applicable federal rules and exemptions, highlights missing information, and surfaces issues that require additional verification.

It also distinguishes between:

• Verified facts
• User-provided facts
• Missing or unknown information
• Potential compliance concerns
• Rules requiring current-law verification
• Issues that depend on state or local law

Frameworks & tools

The Skill uses a structured federal compliance framework built around:

• U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division guidance
• Fair Labor Standards Act regulations
• Relevant federal statutes
• Current exemption and salary-threshold frameworks
• Federal contractor compliance rules
• Issue-specific Department of Labor guidance
• Court decisions when they materially affect the current rule
• Runtime verification for rules, thresholds, proposals, injunctions, vacated rules, and other time-sensitive legal developments

The analysis is designed to avoid several common compliance mistakes, including:

• Treating a job title as proof of exempt status
• Assuming a salary automatically eliminates overtime
• Assuming an independent-contractor agreement determines worker classification
• Applying outdated salary thresholds
• Treating proposed federal rules as already effective
• Applying vacated or superseded regulations
• Assuming a federal minimum standard satisfies stricter state or local requirements
• Treating every deduction or tip arrangement as permissible
• Assuming an employer is compliant merely because payroll software generated the calculation

Where federal law does not establish the complete rule, the Skill flags the need for a state or local compliance review rather than incorrectly presenting the federal standard as the final answer.

Why this beats prompting it yourself

A general AI prompt may identify one obvious wage-and-hour rule while missing the exemption, exception, calculation method, employee-status issue, federal-contractor overlay, or state-law interaction that changes the result.

This Skill uses a repeatable issue-spotting framework designed specifically for federal wage-and-hour compliance.

Instead of asking only:

“Is this legal?”

the Skill works through questions such as:

• Is the employee and employer covered by the FLSA?
• Is the worker properly classified?
• Is an exemption actually satisfied?
• What compensation belongs in the regular rate?
• Are all compensable hours being counted?
• Are deductions affecting minimum wage or overtime?
• Are special tipped-worker rules involved?
• Is a federal contractor rule applicable?
• Is the rule currently effective, proposed, vacated, enjoined, or otherwise subject to change?
• Does a stricter state or local rule need to be reviewed?

The result is a more systematic compliance review that helps surface hidden issues, identify missing facts, prioritize risk, and determine what should be verified before a payroll, HR, compliance, or business decision is made.

Important: This Skill is an issue-spotting and compliance-support tool. It is not a substitute for legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Material or high-risk matters should be verified against current authoritative sources and, when appropriate, reviewed by qualified legal counsel.