A wage statement, annotated
Below is a pay stub for a fictional warehouse lead — of the kind issued by real payroll systems every Friday. It contains four violations. Find them, then read the reveal. This is the exercise we run on six months of stubs in every wage case.
SPECIMEN — EARNINGS STATEMENT (fictional)
| Employer | BAYLINE |
| Employee | R. Delgado (ID 4417) |
| Pay period | Mar 1 – Mar 14 · Paid Mar 19 |
| Earnings | Rate | Hours | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | 24.00 | 80.0 | 1,920.00 |
| Overtime | 36.00 | 9.0 | 324.00 |
| Production bonus | — | — | 300.00 |
| Gross | 2,628.00 |
| Deductions | Amount |
|---|---|
| Federal / State / FICA / SDI | 592.14 |
| Net | 2,035.86 |
The reveal
One — the overtime rate is wrong. Overtime was paid at 36.00 — exactly 1.5 × the 24.00 base. But the period includes a 300.00 nondiscretionary production bonus, which must fold into the regular rate before the multiplier. Every overtime hour on this stub is underpaid, and if this is the system’s default, every overtime hour in the building is.
Two — the math does not close. 1,920.00 + 324.00 + 300.00 = 2,544.00. Gross says 2,628.00. The unexplained 84.00 means an earning with no line — a shift differential, a missed-break premium, something — paid without its rate and hours. The statute’s whole purpose is that you can audit pay from the face of the stub; a mystery number defeats it by itself.
Three — who is “BAYLINE”? The statement must show the employer’s full legal name and address. A trade name in caps, with no entity and no address, is a violation — and, as our joint-employment primer explains, often the first clue that the real employer question has an interesting answer.
Four — the missing sick-leave line. California requires available paid sick leave to appear on the stub or an accompanying document. Its absence here is small, routine — and part of a pattern: this stub fails in four independent ways, all in the employer’s favor, which is what distinguishes policy from accident.
What the four are worth. The regular-rate error is unpaid overtime, three years back, plus derivative wage-statement and waiting-time exposure. The mystery 84.00 is whatever it conceals — premiums, most often. The naming defect supports penalties and, more importantly, the right defendant list. None of it required a subpoena: it was all on one Friday’s stub.
The exercise, at home. Pull your last six statements. Run the arithmetic, name every rate, find the sick-leave line, read the employer’s legal name. Ten quiet minutes. If your stubs fail the way this one does — and fail in one direction — send them to us. In this practice area, the evidence mails itself to you every two weeks.
Related writing: Reading your wage statement · Meal periods, rest breaks, and the hour of pay most workers never see · Two companies, one job
Specimen and annotations state California law as of the revision date; the document is fictional.
This article states California law as of its revision date and is analysis, not legal advice. Reading this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.