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Unpaid wages in Georgia: what the law says

My employer owes me wages

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What the statute says

Small claims limit

$15,000. Georgia's small-claims forum is the magistrate court. O.C.G.A. § 15-10-2(a)(5) gives each magistrate court jurisdiction over 'The trial of civil claims including garnishment and attachment in which exclusive jurisdiction is not vested in the superior court and the amount demanded or the value of the property…

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claimed does not exceed $15,000.00, provided that no prejudgment attachment may be granted.'

A straightforward breach-of-contract claim for unpaid wages of $15,000 or less fits magistrate court, which is the realistic next step to name in a demand letter. But a claim brought specifically under O.C.G.A.

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§ 34-4-6 is directed by that statute to superior court ('may bring a civil action in superior court'), so do not promise a magistrate-court filing for the double-damages theory. Federal FLSA claims may be brought in 'any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction' under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b).

State minimum wage

$7.25 per hour is the FEDERAL floor set by 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1)(C), and it is the operative wage floor for MOST Georgia employees — but not for all of them, and the exceptions have to travel with the number. Georgia's own statute, O.C.G.A.

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§ 34-4-3(a), says $5.15; never quote that figure without the explanation in the two fields below. Three carve-outs mean $7.25 is not the floor for everyone. (1) TIPPED EMPLOYEES — as low as $2.13 in cash. An employer that claims the federal tip credit may pay a cash wage of $2.13 per hour. The statute itself does not print that figure: 29 U.S.C. § 203(m)(2)(A)(i) fixes the cash wage at 'the cash wage paid such employee which for purposes of such determination shall be not less than the cash wage required to be paid such an employee on August 20, 1996'; the $2.13 amount is the Department of Labor's statement of that figure in 29 C.F.R. § 531.59(a). The credit is defeasible, and it fails often. It reaches only a 'tipped employee,' defined by 29 U.S.C. § 203(t) as 'any employee engaged in an occupation in which he customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips.' The employer must pay the difference in cash if tips do not bring the total to $7.25. And the employer loses the tip credit entirely unless the employee 'has been informed by the employer of the provisions of this subsection, and all tips received by such employee have been retained by the employee,' subject only to a lawful tip pool among employees who customarily and regularly receive tips (29 U.S.C. § 203(m)(2)(A)). Separately, 29 U.S.C. § 203(m)(2)(B): 'An employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees' tips, regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip credit.' Georgia gives a tipped worker no state backstop at all, because O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(b)(5) removes from the Georgia Minimum Wage Law 'Any employee whose compensation consists wholly or partially of gratuities.' A Georgia server's minimum-wage claim is therefore purely federal. (2) EMPLOYEES UNDER 20, FIRST 90 DAYS — $4.25. 29 U.S.C. § 206(g)(1): 'In lieu of the rate prescribed by subsection (a)(1), any employer may pay any employee of such employer, during the first 90 consecutive calendar days after such employee is initially employed by such employer, a wage which is not less than $4.25 an hour.' Its limits are in the same subsection: § 206(g)(5) applies it only to 'an employee who has not attained the age of 20 years,' and § 206(g)(3) forbids an employer to 'take any action to displace employees (including partial displacements such as reduction in hours, wages, or employment benefits) for purposes of hiring individuals at the wage authorized in paragraph (1) or (2).' (3) EMPLOYEES INSIDE AN FLSA EXEMPTION — no federal floor at all. An employee exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage provisions — a § 213(a) exemption (for example a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional employee, or an outside salesman, under § 213(a)(1)), NOT a § 213(b) overtime-only exemption such as a motor-carrier driver, dealership salesperson, taxi driver or live-in domestic, who keeps the federal $7.25 — has no federal minimum wage. Establish the exemption before relying on it: for § 213(a)(1) that means the salary-basis test (at least $684 per week, 29 C.F.R. §§ 541.100, 541.600, 541.602) AND the duties test, and job titles are irrelevant (§ 541.2); a 'salaried' worker whose effective rate is below $5.15 per hour almost never meets the salary level and is therefore non-exempt — entitled to the federal $7.25 and § 207 overtime, with no Georgia claim. For that employee Georgia's $5.15 floor is live rather than dead — see the next two fields.

Georgia's statute, O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(a), reads: 'Except as otherwise provided in this Code section, every employer, whether a person, firm, or corporation, shall pay to all covered employees a minimum wage which shall be not less than $5.15 per hour for each hour worked in the employment of such employer.' The $5.15 figure has stood unchanged since 2001 and there has been no later amendment (history line: Ga.

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L. 1970, p. 153, §§ 2, 6-8; Ga. L. 1984, p. 1324, § 1; Ga. L. 2001, p. 201, § 1). The provision that usually turns it off is O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(c): 'This chapter shall not apply to any employer who is subject to the minimum wage provisions of any act of Congress as to employees covered thereby if such act of Congress provides for a minimum wage which is greater than the minimum wage which is provided for in this Code section.' READ THAT SWITCH CORRECTLY — IT IS AN EMPLOYEE-LEVEL TEST, NOT AN EMPLOYER-LEVEL ONE. It is NOT the law that the Georgia Minimum Wage Law shuts off wherever the FLSA reaches the employer. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected exactly that reading in Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175, 780 S.E.2d 339 (2015) (No. S15Q1127, decided Nov. 23, 2015), answering certified questions from the Northern District of Georgia. In Division 2 the Court wrote: 'OCGA § 34-4-3 (c) looks not only to whether the employer is "subject to the minimum wage provisions of any act of Congress" but also to whether the employees in question are "covered thereby" — thereby referring, like "subject to" does for employers, to "the minimum wage provisions of any act of Congress," not to any other part of a federal law.' Two paragraphs later, rejecting the employer's argument, it wrote: 'The Georgia exemption is squarely focused on employees who are exempted from the FLSA's minimum wage provisions, like the Employees in this case, and who thus could benefit from a state minimum wage, albeit one lower than the federal one.' (Those two sentences are separated by intervening text in the opinion; they are quoted here as two separate passages, not as one continuous one.) The Court answered the certified question — whether an FLSA-exempt employee is effectively 'covered' for § 34-4-3(c) purposes, thereby barred from the Georgia minimum wage — 'no.' So an employee who is exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage provisions (a § 213(a) exemption, not a § 213(b) overtime-only exemption) is not 'covered thereby,' and Georgia's $5.15 floor still binds — carrying with it O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6's doubling, costs and attorney's fees — even where the employer is a large multistate enterprise indisputably subject to the FLSA. THREE LIMITS BELONG WITH THAT HOLDING, IN THE SAME BREATH. First, the eight exemptions in O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(b) are independent of Anderson and still apply; if one of them fits, there is no state claim regardless. Second, $5.15 is a very low floor and for most salaried exempt workers the state claim is worth nothing: the Court itself observed that 'even an FLSA-exempt professional working double-time year-round — 80 hours a week for all 52 weeks — would have to make less than $21,424 per year to run afoul of the GMWL and therefore trigger its protection.' Third, the Georgia law has no maximum-hour or overtime component whatever; as the Court put it, 'The Georgia statute addresses only minimum pay.' The Georgia Department of Labor's own page states the general relationship without the Anderson refinement, and should be quoted as the agency's summary rather than as the whole rule: 'Georgia's minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, however, with some limited exceptions, the federal minimum wage rate applies.'

Overtime beyond federal law

Georgia has NO overtime statute. There is no provision anywhere in O.C.G.A. Title 34 requiring premium pay for hours over 40 in a week. Any overtime claim in Georgia rests on FEDERAL law: 29 U.S.C.

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§ 207(a)(1) requires that an employee engaged in commerce or employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce who works 'for a workweek longer than forty hours' receive, for the excess hours, 'compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.' Cite that as federal law, never as Georgia law.

The only hours-of-labor chapter Georgia has is O.C.G.A. Title 34, Chapter 3, and it is useless for a wage demand. It applies exclusively to 'cotton or woolen manufacturing establishments.' O.C.G.A.

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§ 34-3-1 caps hours at ten per day or sixty per week for those mills; § 34-3-2 provides that 'All contracts which require employees of cotton or woolen manufacturing establishments to work more than 40 hours per week shall be null and void'; and § 34-3-4 sets a fine of not less than $20.00 and not more than $500.00 per violation. Critically, § 34-3-3 directs that 'the amount recovered as a fine shall inure to the benefit of the board of education of the county in which the violation shall have occurred' — the money goes to the county school board, not to the worker. This chapter recovers nothing for an employee and should not be cited in a demand letter.

Attorney's fees

Two independent routes. Under Georgia's own wage statute, O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6 allows recovery of 'costs and such reasonable attorney's fees as may be allowed by the court' — but only for the narrow covered class. Under federal law, 29 U.S.C.

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§ 216(b) is mandatory: 'The court in such action shall, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney's fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.' Separately, for any Georgia claim, O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 allows litigation expenses where 'the plaintiff has specially pleaded and has made prayer therefor and where the defendant has acted in bad faith, has been stubbornly litigious, or has caused the plaintiff unnecessary trouble and expense.'

O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 is the provision that gives a Georgia demand letter genuine bite, because it turns the employer's refusal to pay after demand into an additional exposure.

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Note two mechanics: the expenses must be 'specially pleaded' with a prayer for them, so they are not automatic, and the statute commits the award to the jury ('the jury may allow them'). Referencing it in a pre-suit demand is legitimate and is exactly the posture the statute contemplates.

Interest

O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2(a)(1)(A) provides: "The legal rate of interest shall be 7 percent per annum simple interest where the rate percent is not established by written contract." Georgia courts have applied that statutory rate outside the lending context, on debts that are liquidated and undisputed.

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In a case brought by retirees over underpaid retirement benefits, the Court of Appeals held that because no pre- or post-judgment interest rate had been established by the written contract governing those payments, the statutory rates under O.C.G.A. §§ 7-4-2(a)(1)(A) and 7-4-12(a) should have been applied. Awarding 12 percent in a contract dispute instead of "the legal rate of interest of only seven percent per annum pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2(a)" has been held to be error. And in breach-of-contract actions in all cases when an amount ascertained would be the damages at the time of the breach, "it may be increased by the addition of legal interest from that time until the recovery."

Whether an unpaid-wage claim reaches that provision at all is unresolved. The open question is not only the rate; it is the entitlement. Section 7-4-2 is written in the language of loans, advances, forbearances and written contracts. It does not mention wages, it does not mention employment, and it does not say whether an employee's claim for unpaid wages falls inside or outside it. The one decision annotated to the section that involved a wage-type award runs the other way: under the heading "Section inapplicable to lost wages awards," a "Director was properly awarded 12 percent interest on a lost wages award as lost wages were not open accounts under O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2." That decision concerned a lost wages award; whether an employee's ordinary claim for pay already earned is treated the same way is a question the annotated text does not answer in either direction, and no decision annotated to § 7-4-2 addresses it. A letter may raise statutory prejudgment interest in addition to the unpaid wages, but not as an established component of the demand: neither that unpaid wages carry statutory prejudgment interest, nor that the rate for such a claim is 7 percent, is settled by the material relied on here.

The starting date is unsettled in the same way, and for a further reason. Section 7-4-2 fixes a rate; it is not itself the source of the right to prejudgment interest. The Georgia decisions attach that right to other statutes: a debt "was liquidated and subject to prejudgment interest under O.C.G.A. § 7-4-15," and in a contract case a jury was authorized under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-13 to increase breach-of-contract damages by adding prejudgment legal interest at seven percent per annum simple interest from the date of the breach. The accrual points those decisions describe are the date the debt came due — "When the claim was undisputed, the defendant was entitled to prejudgment interest at the rate of seven percent per annum from the date the debt became due" — and the date of the breach. Nothing in § 7-4-2 makes the sending of a demand letter the moment interest starts to run, and the text of § 7-4-15, which those decisions treat as the source of the right, was not among the material read for this page.

Scope. Any statutory prejudgment interest claimed belongs to the Georgia-law sums: breach-of-contract wages at the agreed rate, and arguably the O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6 shortfall. On FLSA minimum-wage and overtime amounts, an employee who recovers § 216(b) liquidated damages is not entitled to prejudgment interest on top (Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697 (1945); Joiner v. City of Macon, 814 F.2d 1537 (11th Cir. 1987)), so interest does not attach to the federal components.

Recordkeeping

O.C.G.A. § 34-4-5 requires that 'Every employer subject to this chapter or any regulation pursuant thereto shall maintain records showing the hours worked by each employee and the wages paid to him and shall furnish to the Commissioner upon demand a sworn statement of the hours worked and wages paid to each person in…

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his or its employment covered by this chapter.' The same section adds that 'The records covering such hours and payments shall be open to inspection by the Commissioner, his deputy, or any authorized agent of the department at any reasonable time' and that 'Each employer subject to this chapter shall post copies of any regulation or order issued pursuant to its provisions in a conspicuous place in an area frequented by his employees.' Two limits must be stated with it. (1) The duty runs to employers 'subject to this chapter,' so it tracks Chapter 4's coverage — which, under Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), is decided employee by employee under § 34-4-3(c), not switched off wholesale because the employer is FLSA-covered. (2) The Supreme Court of Georgia stated in Anderson footnote 9 that § 34-4-5 'does not provide employees a cause of action if employers fail to comply,' so it supports no damages claim of its own. For most Georgia workers the operative recordkeeping obligation is the federal one under the FLSA, and the practical consequence is the same either way — where the employer kept no adequate records, the employee's reasonable reconstruction of hours is the ordinary way the hours are proved.

Cap on damages

Georgia imposes no statutory cap on unpaid-wage damages. There is no maximum in O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6, none in § 34-7-2, and none in § 13-6-11. The only practical ceiling is the forum: a magistrate court claim is limited to $15,000 by O.C.G.A. § 15-10-2(a)(5).

Scope limits flag

FLAG, entity, industry, status and timing limits that change the answer. (1) O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(b)(1)-(2) exclude employers with $40,000.00 per year or less in sales and employers 'having five employees or less' — a very large share of small Georgia businesses.

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(2) § 34-4-3(b)(5) excludes tipped employees outright ('Any employee whose compensation consists wholly or partially of gratuities'), so Georgia's minimum wage law offers a Georgia restaurant server nothing; that worker's claim is purely federal. (3) § 34-4-3(b)(6)-(7) exclude high school and college students and newspaper carriers by status. (4) § 34-4-3(b)(3) excludes 'Any employer of domestic employees,' BUT under Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), a domestic employee 'must work in or about the homes of their employers,' so an agency-, staffing- or cleaning-company worker sent to CLIENTS' homes is not within this exclusion. The Court left open whether a worker hired directly by the household would be. (5) § 34-4-3(c) is an EMPLOYEE-level test, not an employer-level one — see state_minimum_wage_detail. Do not treat the whole chapter as switched off because the employer is large or interstate. (6) O.C.G.A. § 34-7-2 does not apply to the farming, sawmill, or turpentine industries, and does not protect officials, superintendents, or heads or subheads of departments paid a stipulated monthly or annual salary. (7) O.C.G.A. Title 34, Chapter 3 applies only to cotton or woolen manufacturing establishments. (8) There is no county or population threshold anywhere in these provisions. On timing: § 34-4-3 has read $5.15 since the 2001 amendment with no later amendment, and § 34-7-2 was last amended effective May 6, 2019 — but there IS a federal effective-date break that changes Georgia outcomes. Since January 1, 2015, 29 C.F.R. § 552.109(a) has barred third-party employers from claiming the FLSA companionship-services exemption, so agency-employed home care workers are now entitled to the federal minimum wage and are therefore normally outside the Georgia Minimum Wage Law under § 34-4-3(c). Claims arising before that date can look very different from claims arising after it.

Enforcement agency

None at the state level. Georgia has no state wage-claim agency and no administrative process for recovering unpaid wages.

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The Georgia Department of Labor says so on its own official site: 'The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) receives many inquiries for help with various employment issues; however, resolution of most workplace problems is the responsibility of several federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) Wage and Hour Division enforces regulations related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (minimum wage, overtime pay, hours) and the Family Medical Leave Act.' The practical filing route for a Georgia worker is the federal Wage and Hour Division (1-866-487-9243), or a private civil suit. Note the paper anomaly: O.C.G.A. § 34-4-2 does say 'The Commissioner of Labor shall administer and enforce this chapter and may make rules and regulations for such administration,' and § 34-4-5 requires covered employers to keep hour and wage records open to the Commissioner. That authority exists in the code but is not exercised as a wage-claim service, and a letter should not tell a worker to file a wage claim with the Georgia Department of Labor. Georgia Department of Labor, routing wage issues to the federal agency); https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints (U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, the agency that actually takes Georgia wage complaints

Pay frequency rule

O.C.G.A. § 34-7-2(b) requires at least semimonthly pay and requires that each payment be complete. The operative sentence: 'Such payments shall be made on such dates during the month as may be decided upon by such person, firm, or corporation; provided, however, that the dates so selected shall be such that the month…

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will be divided into at least two equal periods; and provided, further, that the payments made on each such date shall in every case correspond to the full net amount of wages or earnings due the employees for the period for which the payment is made.' The second proviso is the useful one for a wage-theft demand: a short paycheck violates the statute even if it arrives on time.

Pay frequency detail

Scope limits on § 34-7-2 are significant and must be checked before citing it. It applies to 'Every person, firm, or corporation, including steam and electric railroads, but not including farming, sawmill, and turpentine industries, employing skilled or unskilled wageworkers in manual, mechanical, or clerical labor.'…

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It then excludes from its protection 'officials, superintendents, or other heads or subheads of departments who may be employed by the month or year at stipulated salaries.' So: farming, sawmill and turpentine employers are outside it entirely, and salaried department heads cannot invoke it. The statute prescribes NO penalty, NO liquidated damages, and NO fee-shifting for its breach — a point the letter must not blur. It has been treated as supporting a private civil action subject to the two-year limitation of O.C.G.A. § 9-3-22 (Milhollin v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc., 272 Ga. App. 267 (2005)).

Penalty or multiplier

Two separate doubling provisions exist, they belong to different bodies of law, and one of them can be defeated by an affirmative defense. Under Georgia's O.C.G.A.

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§ 34-4-6, a covered employee recovers the shortfall below $5.15 'plus an additional amount equal to the original claim, which shall be allowed as liquidated damages.' Under the federal FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) provides that an employer who violates the minimum wage or overtime sections 'shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages.' The federal doubling is NOT automatic: 29 U.S.C. § 260 gives the employer a good-faith defense — 'if the employer shows to the satisfaction of the court that the act or omission giving rise to such action was in good faith and that he had reasonable grounds for believing that his act or omission was not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, the court may, in its sound discretion, award no liquidated damages or award any amount thereof not to exceed the amount specified in section 216 of this title.' A demand letter may state that liquidated damages are available and are the norm, but must not promise them. Georgia itself imposes NO waiting-time penalty, no per-day penalty, and no statutory penalty schedule for late or withheld wages of any kind.

Enforcement agency url

https://dol.georgia.gov/laws-and-rules/obtain-information-about-employment-issue

Statute of limitations

There is an unresolved conflict on the face of the Georgia Code, and the letter should quote the shorter period to be safe while disclosing the longer one. O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6 says the employee may sue 'at any time within three years,' and the Supreme Court of Georgia described it that way in Anderson v.

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Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), citing 'OCGA § 34-4-6 (requiring claims under the GMWL to be brought within three years of the GMWL violation)' — though the limitations period was not the question before the Court and was not decided. Against that, O.C.G.A. § 9-3-22 provides: 'All actions for the enforcement of rights accruing to individuals under statutes or acts of incorporation or by operation of law shall be brought within 20 years after the right of action has accrued; provided, however, that all actions for the recovery of wages, overtime, or damages and penalties accruing under laws respecting the payment of wages and overtime shall be brought within two years after the right of action has accrued.' The official code's own cross-reference under § 34-4-6 points the reader to § 9-3-22 for the time limit on wage actions. Treat two years as the safe outer limit; do not tell a worker that a claim older than two years is definitely alive, and do not tell a worker that a claim between two and three years old is definitely dead.

Practical guidance: treat two years as the safe outer limit for any Georgia statutory wage claim, and say so, while noting that § 34-4-6's own text and the Supreme Court of Georgia's parenthetical description of it in Anderson both say three years for a Georgia Minimum Wage Law claim specifically.

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No Georgia appellate decision I could find squarely decides whether § 9-3-22's two-year proviso shortens § 34-4-6's own three-year term. What Georgia courts have held is narrower: the two-year proviso of § 9-3-22 was applied to a § 34-7-2 wage claim, which was dismissed as time barred (Milhollin v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc., 272 Ga. App. 267 (2005)). Separate and longer periods govern a plain breach-of-contract theory: six years on a written contract under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-24 ('All actions upon simple contracts in writing shall be brought within six years after the same become due and payable'), and four years on an open account, an oral contract, or an implied promise under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-25. A federal FLSA claim has its own clock under 29 U.S.C. § 255(a): an action 'may be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrued... except that a cause of action arising out of a willful violation may be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrued.'

Final paycheck deadline

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Georgia has NO final-paycheck deadline. This is a positive finding, not a gap in research. I read every section of O.C.G.A.

Title 34, Chapter 7, Article 1, Part 1 ('Wages Generally'), which is the only place such a rule could live: § 34-7-1 (term of employment and termination of indefinite hiring), § 34-7-2 (payment by lawful money, checks, or credit transfer; selection of payment dates), § 34-7-3 (requirements where wages paid by written instrument), § 34-7-4 (payment of outstanding wages to a beneficiary of a deceased employee), and § 34-7-5 (redemption of checks for wages). None sets a deadline for paying a departing employee. I also read all of Chapter 4 (§§ 34-4-1 through 34-4-6). Nothing there either. A discharged Georgia worker's timing argument rests on the ordinary § 34-7-2 pay-period rule and on contract, not on any separation-specific statute.

State wage claim remedy

Georgia's one wage-recovery statute is O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6, and it is strong on its face: double the shortfall plus costs and attorney's fees.

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It reads in full: 'If any employer pays any employee a lesser amount than the minimum wage provided in this chapter, the employee, at any time within three years, may bring a civil action in superior court for the recovery of the difference between the amount paid and the minimum wage provided in this chapter, plus an additional amount equal to the original claim, which shall be allowed as liquidated damages, together with costs and such reasonable attorney's fees as may be allowed by the court. No contract or agreement between any employer and his employees nor any acceptance of a lesser wage by any employee shall bar the action.'

Four limits must be stated plainly before this section is used, and a fourth point cuts in the employee's favour. First, it recovers only 'the difference between the amount paid and the minimum wage provided in this chapter' — that is, the gap up to $5.15 per hour, not the employee's full promised or unpaid wages.

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An employee promised $18 an hour and paid nothing does not recover $18 an hour under this section. Second, it reaches only employees the chapter actually covers. Every O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(b) exemption applies, and § 34-4-3(c) applies — but § 34-4-3(c) is an employee-level test under Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), not the employer-level test it is often taken for. The question is whether THIS EMPLOYEE is entitled to the federal minimum wage, not whether the employer is subject to the FLSA. Third, the statute directs the action to superior court ('may bring a civil action in superior court'), which sits awkwardly with routing the same claim to magistrate court. Fourth — and this is the point that makes the section worth checking rather than skipping — where the employee IS exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage provisions, § 34-4-6 may be the only wage statute available, and it is not trivial: $5.15 for every unpaid hour, doubled as liquidated damages, plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees, for violations within the statute's three-year window, and 'No contract or agreement between any employer and his employees nor any acceptance of a lesser wage by any employee shall bar the action.' Anderson was such a claim: unpaid workday travel time between clients, valued at $5.15 per hour. For a worker owed above-minimum wages who is NOT FLSA-exempt, the FLSA and ordinary Georgia contract law will still recover more. TWO OTHER CHAPTER 4 PROVISIONS BELONG IN THE PICTURE, WITH THEIR LIMITS. O.C.G.A. § 34-4-5 imposes an affirmative state recordkeeping and posting duty on every employer subject to the chapter: it must 'maintain records showing the hours worked by each employee and the wages paid to him,' must furnish the Commissioner a sworn statement on demand, must keep the records 'open to inspection by the Commissioner, his deputy, or any authorized agent of the department at any reasonable time,' and 'shall post copies of any regulation or order issued pursuant to its provisions in a conspicuous place in an area frequented by his employees.' The limit, stated by the Supreme Court of Georgia in Anderson footnote 9, is that § 34-4-5 'does not provide employees a cause of action if employers fail to comply' — cite it as an evidentiary and compliance point, never as a damages claim. O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3.1(a)(2) supplies the chapter's definition of 'Employer' as 'any person or entity that employs one or more employees,' which is the definition Anderson relied on to establish that the defendants were subject to the Georgia statute at all.

Local ordinance preemption

There is no Georgia city or county minimum wage, and there never can be one under current law. O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3.1(b)(1) states: 'Any and all wage or employment benefit mandates adopted by any local government entity are hereby preempted.' Subsection (b)(2) adds that no local government entity may 'adopt, maintain, or…

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enforce by charter, ordinance, purchase agreement, contract, regulation, rule, or resolution, either directly or indirectly, a wage or employment benefit mandate,' and subsection (d)(1) extends the preemption to local scheduling and hours rules. A demand letter for an Atlanta, Savannah, or Augusta worker must not invoke a local wage ordinance — none is lawful.

Statute of limitations detail

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State wage claim remedy detail

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Defeasible and waivable rules flag

FLAG, and read this before printing any Georgia rule as absolute. (1) Arbitration may override the Georgia wage statute. O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6 says on its face that no contract and no acceptance of a lesser wage bars the action, but a federal district court has held that the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C.

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§ 2, preempts § 34-4-6, so an employee under an arbitration agreement cannot bring the statutory action (Haluska v. RAF Financial Corp., 875 F. Supp. 825 (N.D. Ga. 1994)). That is a 1994 federal trial-court decision, persuasive rather than binding on any Georgia court, but check for an arbitration clause before promising a court action. (2) The federal tip credit is itself defeasible in the employee's favour: an employer that failed to give the 29 U.S.C. § 203(m)(2)(A) notice, or that let managers or supervisors keep any portion of tips (§ 203(m)(2)(B)), or whose employee's tips did not bring the total to $7.25, owes the full federal minimum wage in cash. (3) FLSA liquidated damages are subject to the employer's good-faith defense under 29 U.S.C. § 260; they are the norm, not a guarantee. (4) Accrued vacation, PTO, severance, bonuses, and commissions are NOT protected by any Georgia statute. Whether they are owed on separation is governed entirely by the employer's own policy, handbook, or contract. Georgia has no statute making them wages and no statute forbidding a forfeiture clause. (5) Georgia employment is at will by default under O.C.G.A. § 34-7-1, so there is no state statutory claim for the discharge itself. (6) Georgia's non-waiver language in § 34-4-6 protects only the minimum-wage claim under Chapter 4; it does not immunize contract-based wage claims from release agreements.

What the letter can actually demand

For a typical Georgia worker of an FLSA-covered employer who is NOT individually FLSA-exempt, a demand letter can properly claim: (1) all unpaid wages at the agreed rate as breach of contract, or at the $7.25 federal minimum and time-and-a-half over 40 hours under 29 U.S.C.

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§§ 206(a)(1)(C) and 207(a)(1) if no rate was agreed, expressly labeled federal law — and if the worker is tipped, at the tip-credit rules of 29 U.S.C. § 203(m)(2), not a flat $7.25 cash floor; (2) an equal additional amount as liquidated damages under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), stated as available and usual rather than certain, because 29 U.S.C. § 260 gives a good-faith defense; (3) reasonable attorney's fees and costs, mandatory under § 216(b) and available under O.C.G.A. § 13-6-11 on a bad-faith or stubbornly-litigious showing; (4) statutory prejudgment interest, raised as an open question rather than as an established component of the demand — whether an unpaid-wage claim carries it at all is unresolved, so no rate and no starting date should be stated, for the reasons set out below; (5) where paychecks were late, short, or off-cycle, the semimonthly and full-net-amount duties of O.C.G.A. § 34-7-2; and (6) a stated deadline referencing the two-year clock of O.C.G.A. § 9-3-22 and the federal limitations period of 29 U.S.C. § 255(a), which is two years, or three years where the violation was willful.

O.C.G.A. § 34-4-6's double damages are available in either of two situations, not one. (a) The employer is outside FLSA coverage entirely (no enterprise coverage under 29 U.S.C. § 203(s)(1) and no individual coverage), and no § 34-4-3(b) exemption fits. (b) The employer IS FLSA-covered, but this employee is exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage provisions — a § 213(a) exemption such as an executive, administrative, professional, teaching or outside-sales employee under § 213(a)(1), NOT a § 213(b) overtime-only exemption (motor-carrier drivers, dealership salespeople, taxi drivers and live-in domestics keep the federal $7.25 and have no § 34-4-6 claim) — and no § 34-4-3(b) exemption fits.

An employer's own classification does not settle situation (b): the employee has to actually meet a § 213(a) exemption, and a job title is not enough. For the executive, administrative and professional exemptions under § 213(a)(1), the required amount of salary is fixed by 29 C.F.R. § 541.600, which has a general rule, two alternatives, and one set of exceptions.

The general rule. To qualify as an exempt executive, administrative or professional employee under section 13(a)(1) of the Act, an employee must be compensated on a salary basis at a rate of not less than $684 per week, exclusive of board, lodging or other facilities (29 C.F.R. § 541.600(a)). Lower weekly figures apply to employees of employers other than the Federal Government in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands ($455) and in American Samoa ($380) (§ 541.600(a)). Administrative and professional employees may also be paid on a fee basis as defined in 29 C.F.R. § 541.605 (§ 541.600(a)). The required amount of compensation per week may be translated into equivalent amounts for periods longer than one week — not less than $1,368 biweekly, $1,482 semimonthly, or $2,964 monthly — but the shortest period of payment that will meet this compensation requirement is one week (§ 541.600(b)). Section 541.600 governs the amount of salary only; the duties an exempt employee must perform are set by other regulations, so clearing $684 a week does not by itself make anyone exempt.

The alternatives. For academic administrative employees, the compensation requirement also may be met by compensation on a salary basis at a rate at least equal to the entrance salary for teachers in the educational establishment by which the employee is employed (§ 541.600(c)). For computer employees, it also may be met by compensation on an hourly basis at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour (§ 541.600(d)).

The exceptions. For professional employees, the compensation requirements do not apply at all to employees engaged as teachers; to employees who hold a valid license or certificate permitting the practice of law or medicine or any of their branches and are actually engaged in the practice thereof; or to employees who hold the requisite academic degree for the general practice of medicine and are engaged in an internship or resident program pursuant to the practice of the profession (§ 541.600(e), which cross-refers to §§ 541.303 and 541.304). That exception is narrower than it looks: in the case of medical occupations it does not apply to pharmacists, nurses, therapists, technologists, sanitarians, dietitians, social workers, psychologists, psychometrists, or other professions which service the medical profession (§ 541.600(e)). A nurse or a therapist on a low salary is therefore still measured against the $684 weekly figure.

The practical effect. Unless one of the alternatives in § 541.600(c)-(d) or one of the exceptions in § 541.600(e) applies, a salaried worker paid less than $684 per week does not meet the salary requirement of § 541.600(a), and the executive, administrative or professional exemption fails on that ground alone. For that worker the claim is $7.25 under 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1)(C), time-and-a-half over 40 under § 207(a)(1), and liquidated damages and fees under § 216(b) — not § 34-4-6. Situation (b) covers any employee who is in fact exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage under § 213(a), and in practice it is reached most often through § 213(a) exemptions that carry no salary requirement at all: outside sales (29 C.F.R. § 541.500(c)); teaching employees, practicing lawyers and physicians, and medical interns and residents (§ 541.600(e)); and non-Part-541 § 213(a) exemptions such as (a)(3) seasonal amusement or recreation, (a)(6) small-farm agriculture and (a)(15) direct-hire companions. An employee who genuinely meets both the salary and the duties tests for an executive, administrative or professional exemption is also in situation (b), but the § 34-4-6 measure is worth very little to such a worker.

Under Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), situation (b) supports the state claim even against a large multistate employer. In situation (b) the recoverable measure is only $5.15 per unpaid hour, doubled, plus costs and fees — real money for an unpaid or grossly underpaid worker, worth nothing for a well-paid salaried one. Section 34-4-6 belongs in a letter only where the facts establish (a) or (b), and an arbitration clause in the employment paperwork can change where the claim has to be brought.

Prejudgment interest. O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2(a)(1)(A) sets a legal rate of 7 percent per annum simple interest where the rate percent is not established by written contract, and Georgia courts have applied that rate as prejudgment interest on debts that are liquidated and undisputed. Whether an unpaid-wage claim reaches the provision at all is unresolved, and the open question is the entitlement and not merely the rate: § 7-4-2 never mentions wages or employment, and the one decision annotated to the section that involved a wage-type award runs the other way, under the heading "Section inapplicable to lost wages awards," upholding 12 percent instead. That decision concerned a lost wages award; whether an employee's ordinary claim for pay already earned is treated the same way is a question the annotated text does not answer in either direction. The statute also does not make a demand letter the starting point — the accrual points the Georgia decisions describe are the date the debt became due and the date of the breach — and those decisions attach the right to prejudgment interest to O.C.G.A. § 7-4-15 or § 13-6-13 rather than to § 7-4-2 itself. A letter can raise statutory prejudgment interest on the Georgia-law sums (breach-of-contract wages at the agreed rate; arguably the § 34-4-6 shortfall) as something that may be owed, without stating a rate or a starting date; a letter that states 7 percent running from the date of the letter as settled overstates the law, and so does a letter that presents statutory interest on unpaid wages as an established entitlement whose rate merely remains to be fixed. On FLSA minimum-wage and overtime amounts, § 216(b) liquidated damages take the place of interest — an employee who recovers liquidated damages is not entitled to prejudgment interest on top (Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 715-16 (1945); Joiner v. City of Macon, 814 F.2d 1537 (11th Cir. 1987)) — and federal-law interest is available only if a court denies liquidated damages under § 260, at a federally determined rate.

Minimum-wage computation. FLSA minimum-wage compliance is measured on a workweek basis, not hour by hour: total straight-time pay divided by total hours worked, including travel time between clients during the workday (29 C.F.R. § 785.38), must be at least $7.25. The federal shortfall is owed only for weeks where that average falls below $7.25; overtime is owed at 1.5x the regular rate for hours over 40 including travel hours (§ 207(a)(1)); any promised travel rate is a breach-of-contract claim; and § 216(b) liquidated damages and fees attach to the federal components only.

State minimum wage 5 15 who it actually reaches

The $5.15 Georgia floor reaches TWO groups, not one. In both, the employee must also be outside every exemption in O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(b). GROUP ONE — employees the FLSA does not reach at all. This requires the absence of BOTH forms of federal coverage. Enterprise coverage attaches under 29 U.S.C.

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§ 203(s)(1)(A)(ii) to an enterprise 'whose annual gross volume of sales made or business done is not less than $500,000 (exclusive of excise taxes at the retail level that are separately stated)' — but that dollar threshold is not the whole test: § 203(s)(1)(B) covers, regardless of dollar volume, any enterprise 'engaged in the operation of a hospital, an institution primarily engaged in the care of the sick, the aged, or the mentally ill or defective who reside on the premises of such institution, a school for mentally or physically handicapped or gifted children, a preschool, elementary or secondary school, or an institution of higher education (regardless of whether or not such hospital, institution, or school is public or private or operated for profit or not for profit)', and § 203(s)(1)(C) covers any 'activity of a public agency.' Individual coverage attaches separately to any employee personally engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, which reaches employees of far smaller businesses. GROUP TWO — and this is the group the row previously got backwards — employees of employers that ARE fully FLSA-covered, including large multistate enterprises, where the individual employee is exempt from the FLSA's minimum wage provisions (a § 213(a) exemption — a § 213(b) exemption removes only overtime and leaves the federal $7.25 in place) and so is not entitled to the federal minimum wage. Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), is that case. The defendants were Res-Care, Inc., described in the opinion as 'a multistate home care company,' and its subsidiary; the opinion records that 'It is undisputed that the Employers, as companies with employees and clients in multiple states, are enterprises engaged in commerce, and thus they are "subject to" the FLSA's minimum wage provisions' — far above the $500,000 line — and the Georgia Minimum Wage Law still applied to their workers, who were exempt under the then-current 'companionship services' exemption, 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(15). The employees' claim was $5.15 per hour for unpaid workday travel time between clients' homes. THE 'DOMESTIC EMPLOYEES' EXEMPTION IS NARROWER THAN IT LOOKS. O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(b)(3) exempts 'Any employer of domestic employees,' but Anderson construed it: 'we hold that "domestic employees" as that term is used in OCGA § 34-4-3 (b) (2) must work in or about the homes of their employers, and the Employers are therefore not exempt from the GMWL under that provision.' (The holding sentence uses an older subsection number; the certified question, the opinion's own footnote 11, and the current Code all place 'Any employer of domestic employees' at § 34-4-3(b)(3).) So a worker employed by a home care agency, staffing company, or cleaning company and dispatched to CLIENTS' homes is not a 'domestic employee' and is not excluded by that provision. Two limits go with this: the Court expressly did not decide whether a worker 'hired directly by the households they serve' would come within the exemption (footnote 13), and it did not decide whether these workers would otherwise qualify as domestic employees on the nature of their duties (footnote 11). AN EFFECTIVE-DATE CARVE-OUT THAT LARGELY CLOSES GROUP TWO FOR HOME CARE. Anderson's plaintiffs won because their claims arose BEFORE January 1, 2015, when a third-party agency could still claim the FLSA companionship exemption. The Department of Labor's amended rule, 29 C.F.R. § 552.109(a), now provides that 'Third party employers of employees engaged in companionship services within the meaning of § 552.6 may not avail themselves of the minimum wage and overtime exemption provided by section 13(a)(15) of the Act.' Anderson's own footnote 8 anticipated the consequence: 'Thus, it appears that, going forward, home health care workers (like the Employees) employed by third-party agencies (like the Employers) will be covered by the minimum wage (and maximum hour) requirements of the FLSA and, if that is correct, exempted from the GMWL under OCGA § 34-4-3 (a).' (The footnote cites subsection (a); the operative switch is subsection (c).) Practical effect for a letter written today: an agency-employed home care worker is normally entitled to the FEDERAL $7.25 minimum wage and to FLSA overtime, and therefore normally has no § 34-4-6 claim. Anderson still controls the reading of § 34-4-3(c) generally, and still keeps the Georgia floor alive for other employees exempt from the FLSA minimum wage under § 213(a).

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Where the law on this page comes from.

The federal salary-level rule quoted here is 29 C.F.R. § 541.600, taken from the Office of the Federal Register's electronic Code of Federal Regulations, which displays Title 29 as up to date as of 9/03/2026 and last amended 8/31/2026; the section itself carries the source line [91 FR 27835, May 15, 2026]. The Georgia legal rate of interest and the case annotations quoted here are O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2 as published in the 2025 Georgia Code. Georgia's official code is published for the Georgia Code Revision Commission through LexisNexis; that portal serves its section documents through a scripted, gated interface with no stable per-section address, so the Georgia statutory text relied on here is the published code text rather than a link into the portal. Federal statutes cited by section number (29 U.S.C. §§ 203, 206, 207, 213, 216(b), 255(a), 260) come from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel's U.S. Code. The Georgia sections cited by number but not quoted here (O.C.G.A. §§ 9-3-22, 13-6-11, 13-6-13, 34-4-3, 34-4-6, 34-7-2) come from two independent published mirrors of the Georgia Code that agree word for word, and from the Supreme Court of Georgia's opinion in Anderson v. Southern Home Care Services, Inc., 298 Ga. 175 (2015), which quotes O.C.G.A. § 34-4-3(a) and (c) in full. No law-firm article, wage-and-hour aggregator, or AI-generated summary was used for any figure on this page. This version was checked on September 6, 2026.

What the statutory text does not settle.

Prejudgment interest on unpaid wages. O.C.G.A. § 7-4-2(a)(1)(A) fixes a legal rate of 7 percent per annum simple interest where no written contract sets one, and Georgia courts have applied that rate as prejudgment interest on debts that are liquidated and undisputed. But § 7-4-2 does not mention wages or employment anywhere in its text, and the one decision annotated to it that involved a wage-type award runs the other way: it appears under the heading "Section inapplicable to lost wages awards" and upheld 12 percent interest on a lost wages award because lost wages were not open accounts under the section. Whether an employee's ordinary claim for unpaid wages is treated the same way as that award is not resolved by the text, and no decision annotated to § 7-4-2 addresses the question. The accrual date is unresolved for the same reason: the decisions attach the right to prejudgment interest to O.C.G.A. § 7-4-15 or § 13-6-13 rather than to § 7-4-2 itself, and they run it from the date the debt became due or from the date of the breach. Nothing in the section makes a demand letter the moment interest starts. This page therefore states the 7 percent rate as available and unsettled for wage claims, not as fixed, and gives no starting date.

The reach of 29 C.F.R. § 541.600. That section fixes the amount of salary required for the executive, administrative and professional exemptions, together with the fee-basis, academic-administrative and computer-employee alternatives and the professional-employee exceptions quoted on this page. It does not contain the duties tests for those exemptions, and it does not contain the salary-basis payment and deduction rules at 29 C.F.R. § 541.602. A worker paid less than $684 per week fails the salary requirement of § 541.600(a) unless one of that section's own alternatives or exceptions applies; whether a worker who clears $684 is in fact exempt turns on regulations that are not quoted here.

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Official sources. If a number below matters to your case, open the statute and read it — laws get amended, and cities often stack stricter local rules on top.

Last checked: 2026-09-07

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