How this instrument works
Georgia has never written its own overtime statute. Every employer and tipped worker here follows the federal Fair Labor Standards Act directly — time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek, no daily trigger, no state-specific threshold layered on top. Georgia's separate minimum-wage law sets a nominal $5.15 an hour, but that figure only governs employers the FLSA does not already reach, and FLSA coverage is broad enough — any business over $500,000 in yearly revenue, or handling goods that crossed a state line — that it catches almost every restaurant in the state. In practice, the federal $7.25 minimum wage and its $2.13 tipped cash-wage floor control, and that is the floor this instrument assumes.
The complication is not the 40-hour threshold itself; it is what the 1.5x multiplier applies to once an employer pays a reduced cash wage and claims a tip credit toward the rest. The tip credit lets an employer pay as little as $2.13 an hour directly, counting up to $5.12 an hour of a worker's tips toward the remaining minimum wage. Overtime, though, is calculated on the full $7.25 minimum, not the discounted cash figure — so the correct overtime rate is 1.5 times $7.25, minus the same tip credit, applied once. Multiplying 1.5 straight into the $2.13 cash wage skips that step and produces a rate roughly $2.56 an hour too low.
Restaurant payroll clerks building a pay run, servers and bartenders checking a stub against a schedule, and wage-and-hour investigators reviewing a claim all reach for a calculation shaped like this one. It prices a single tipped employee's single week and stops there — it assumes the claimed tip credit was actually earned that week (cash wage plus tips must still clear the full minimum for every hour, overtime included), it does not validate a shared tip pool, and it does not apply to the small slice of Georgia employers genuinely outside FLSA coverage, who use the $5.15 state floor instead.
- Enter the base rate paid directly in Direct cash wage (tipped employee), $/hr — commonly $2.13 under the federal floor.
- Enter the employer's claimed offset in Employer tip credit claimed, $/hr — capped at $5.12 under federal law.
- Enter the week's total in Hours worked in the week.
- Read Overtime rate for a tipped employee, $/hr — the premium rate, built from the full minimum wage, not the cash wage.
- Check Regular pay (up to 40 hrs), Overtime pay (over 40 hrs) and Total weekly pay for the full breakdown.
Worked example — a 45-hour week at the federal tipped minimum
Set Direct cash wage (tipped employee), $/hr to 2.13 and Employer tip credit claimed, $/hr to 5.12 — together they equal the $7.25 federal floor most Georgia restaurants actually operate under. Enter 45 in Hours worked in the week. Overtime rate for a tipped employee, $/hr reads $5.755: 1.5 times the full $7.25 minimum wage ($10.875), minus the unchanged $5.12 tip credit — not 1.5 times the $2.13 cash wage, which would wrongly give only $3.195 an hour.
That $2.56-an-hour gap is the actual money many restaurant payroll runs miss, because the tip credit should offset the overtime rate once, at the full minimum wage, not be baked twice into a shrunken hourly figure. Regular pay (up to 40 hrs) comes to $85.20 for the first 40 hours at the $2.13 cash wage, and Overtime pay (over 40 hrs) comes to $28.775 for the five hours past it. Total weekly pay lands at $113.975 — a figure a $3.195 miscalculation would have understated by nearly $13 over just five overtime hours.
Questions
Why isn't overtime just 1.5 times the $2.13 cash wage?
Because federal law requires the overtime multiplier to apply to the full minimum wage an employee is legally owed, not the reduced cash figure an employer advances directly. The tip credit lowers what the employer must pay out of pocket, but it does not shrink the wage the 1.5x rate is calculated against. Multiplying 1.5 straight into $2.13 and skipping the tip-credit correction is one of the most common tipped-overtime payroll errors, and it underpays every overtime hour by more than two dollars.
Does Georgia have its own overtime law?
No. Georgia has never enacted a state overtime statute, so employers and tipped workers here follow the federal Fair Labor Standards Act directly — time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek, with no separate state threshold, daily trigger, or state-specific multiplier layered on top. The only Georgia-specific wage law in play is the minimum-wage statute, and even that rarely controls once federal coverage applies to a business.
Why doesn't Georgia's own $5.15 minimum wage apply here?
Georgia's state minimum-wage statute, O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3, sets a $5.15 floor, but it only governs employers the Fair Labor Standards Act does not already cover — and FLSA coverage is broad, reaching any business with $500,000 or more in annual revenue or handling goods that crossed a state line, which describes nearly every Georgia restaurant. In practice the federal $7.25 minimum and the $2.13 tipped cash wage control, and this calculator assumes that federal floor applies.
What if my cash wage plus tips doesn't reach minimum wage some weeks?
Then the tip credit the employer claimed was not actually earned that week, and the shortfall is owed directly. The federal tip credit is conditional: cash wage plus tips actually received must equal or exceed the full minimum wage for every hour worked, overtime hours included. This calculator assumes the figure entered in Employer tip credit claimed, $/hr was valid that week; a slow tip week can invalidate a credit that worked fine the week before.
Is $5.12 the most an employer can claim as a tip credit?
Under federal law, yes — the maximum tip credit is the gap between the $7.25 minimum wage and the $2.13 minimum cash wage, exactly $5.12. An employer cannot claim more regardless of how much a server earns in tips; claiming less simply means paying a higher direct cash wage instead. Enter whatever figure a pay stub actually lists in Employer tip credit claimed, $/hr — it should never exceed $5.12 against this federal floor.
Does this handle a shared tip pool?
Only loosely. This instrument prices one employee's cash wage, tip credit and hours — it does not distribute or validate a shared pool. Federal rules restrict who may share in a valid tip pool and forbid managers or supervisors from taking a cut; an invalid pool can void the tip credit entirely and require the full minimum wage paid directly. Confirm the pooling arrangement is compliant before treating this sheet's total as final.
References
- U.S. Department of Labor — Overtime Pay under the FLSA
- U.S. Department of Labor — Tips and the Tip Credit under the FLSA
Read this first: This instrument shows arithmetic, not advice. Real offers add fees, taxes and terms that vary by lender and place — verify the figures against your actual paperwork before deciding anything.