Mid-year minimum wage changes can catch you by surprise, so it's important to ensure that your payroll system is current. When it comes to compliance, minimum wage is just one of many areas where you'll find differences among states, with…
Compensation
As the One Big Beautiful Bill Act moves forward in Congress, it's looking more likely that overtime pay won't be subject to tax. Of course, nothing has been finalized yet, but legislators have provided some details worth noting. On June…
More employees feel left in the dark about pay than HR leaders might expect: 22% disagree and another 29% strongly disagree that their employer is transparent about compensation, according to Payscale’s 2025 Fair Pay Impact Report. Trust gaps around pay…
What's the maximum you'll pay per employee in Social Security tax next year? The taxable wage base estimate has been released. According to the intermediate projection issued in a June 2025 report, the Social Security taxable wage base next year…
HR professionals have had to increase their vigilance to pay transparency in recent years. Between new laws and professional demands, HR often takes the brunt of pay transparency expectations. And now, researchers have found some unintended consequences of pay transparency…
Should you withhold child support from a bonus or other lump-sum payment you’re about to make to an employee? You’ll be able to get an answer to that question from your state child support agency more quickly than in the…
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) isn’t just legal fine print – it’s the backbone of how you classify jobs, track time and pay employees. Slip up, and it’s more than a paperwork problem. In FY 2024 alone, the Department…
The House has passed federal legislation, the "big, beautiful bill," aimed at providing tax cuts that will have an immediate impact. In the early-morning hours of May 22, 2025, the tax and spending legislation cleared the House with a 215-214…
The rollercoaster ride continues as federal regulators reevaluate the current overtime rule and what it means to meet the salary level test. In 2024, the Biden administration's Dept. of Labor (DOL) finalized a rule that aimed to dramatically increase the…
A Coast Guard reservist who is also a federal employee was entitled to differential pay while on active duty, the Supreme Court has ruled. In a 5-4 decision, the nation’s highest court rejected the Justice Department’s argument that a federal…
After more than a year, the IRS has made changes to Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Information, and Form 1099-NEC, Nonemployee Compensation. While changes used to occur annually, now the forms are “continuous use,” meaning the IRS revises them only when needed.…
Compensation is the top challenge for HR pros in 2025, with nearly half (44%) of employers reporting it as their primary concern, according to a recent study by Payscale. In its 2025 Compensation Best Practices Report, Payscale determined that organizations…
Learning that a Form W-2 contains errors is bad enough, but being assessed a penalty by the IRS is even worse. Errors can show up in many ways. For example, employers might enter incorrect information, such as the amount of…
New Jersey’s highest court has ruled that commissions are always wages under the state’s Wage Payment Law, reviving a sales employee’s chance for a potentially huge payout. The ruling cautions employers to carefully articulate for employees how non-salary compensation will…
In 2025, women still earn just 83 cents for every dollar men make, according to Payscale’s latest annual Gender Pay Gap Report. The report was released just in time for Women’s Equal Pay Day, which falls on March 25 this…
Employees may not understand lifestyle spending accounts (LSAs) as well as you think. That can lead to questions or just confusion. This relatively new, customizable fringe benefit allows companies to give employees a set amount of spending money, with at…
