Here is the honest version you will not find on most Indiana overtime pages: the state's own minimum wage and overtime statute excludes almost every employer that matters. If your employer is covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the Indiana Minimum Wage Law steps aside. Federal law is what protects you here — and it is a strong statute. This page is shorter than our other state pages because Indiana's law is genuinely thinner, not because we did less work. Siegel Law Group represents employees, never employers.1
The Indiana Minimum Wage Law says: "No employer shall employ any employee for a work week longer than forty (40) hours unless the employee receives compensation for employment in excess of forty (40) hours at a rate not less than one and one-half (1.5) times the regular rate at which the employee is employed."2 The wage it sets is "not less than the minimum wage payable under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938" — $7.25. Indiana has no higher state rate and no local wage ordinances.3
Now the carve-out. "Employer" means a business with two or more employees in a work week, "However, it shall not include any employer who is subject to the minimum wage provisions of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended (29 U.S.C. 201-219)."4 Federal coverage removes an employer from the state act rather than supplementing it. Hospitals, health plans, manufacturers, warehouses, retail chains — the employers that misclassify people — are almost all federally covered. That is why Indiana overtime cases are federal cases.
Because federal law does the work here, the federal executive, administrative, and professional tests decide whether you are exempt. The salary floor is $684 per week, $35,568 a year: the 2024 increase was vacated in litigation and the Department of Labor restored the earlier figure in May 2026.5 Indiana adds nothing above it. A salary is a payment method and a title is marketing — the exemption turns on your duties, and the employer has to prove them. A salaried production supervisor at $1,000 a week for a 40-hour job who works 55 hours has a regular rate of $25, putting those fifteen hours near $562 a week before liquidated damages.
This is the detail most Indiana pages get wrong. Under the Wage Payment statute an employer that fails to pay wages owes the unpaid wages, and the court "shall order as costs in the case a reasonable fee for the plaintiff's attorney and court costs." Liquidated damages are different: the court orders them only "if the court … determines that the person, firm, corporation, limited liability company, or association that failed to pay the employee … was not acting in good faith," and then "an amount equal to two (2) times the amount of wages due the employee."6
So fees are automatic; liquidated damages are not. They require a bad-faith finding, and when made they are two times the wages due, not one. Anyone telling you Indiana simply "doubles" your recovery is describing a different statute. The Minimum Wage Law is the one that doubles — unpaid minimum wages "and in an equal additional amount as liquidated damages," plus "a reasonable attorney's fee and costs"7 — but see the coverage problem above. Federal law does the heavy lifting: unpaid overtime plus "an additional equal amount as liquidated damages."8
Indiana splits wage collection in two. The Wage Payment statute requires employers to "pay each employee at least semimonthly or biweekly, if requested, the amount due the employee."9 The Wage Claims chapter handles separations, making unpaid wages "due and payable at regular pay day for pay period in which separation occurred."10 That route runs through the state and has a ceiling: the commissioner may take "assignments of wage claims of less than six thousand dollars ($6,000)."11 A misclassified salaried employee with years of unpaid overtime clears that in weeks. The agency is not the venue. Court is.
Federal law allows an action "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."12 A Minimum Wage Law action runs three years; Indiana's general employment statute gives two years for "an action relating to the terms, conditions, and privileges of employment except actions based upon a written contract (including … wages, or salary)."13 Which period governs which claim is a question for a lawyer looking at your facts. See statute of limitations.
And because nearly every Indiana overtime case is federal, opting in is not optional: "no employee shall be a party plaintiff to any such action unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court."8 If a coworker files a case covering your job title and you do nothing, you are not in it while your own clock runs. See collective actions.
Mandatory overtime is generally lawful, and refusing it can get you disciplined. Not paying for it is a different matter. Indiana makes it an infraction for an employer who "discharges or otherwise discriminates in regard to tenure or condition of employment against any employee because the employee has … demanded the payment of wages."14 Because that is an infraction rather than a damages remedy, retaliation for asserting overtime rights is normally pursued under federal law.15
Indiana's violations repeat across manufacturing, the RV plants around Elkhart, logistics, managed care, and agriculture: unpaid early start-up and late shutdown, working through meals, after-hours calls, bonuses left out of the regular rate, trimmed time records. Jack Siegel has filed more than 100 federal overtime lawsuits in 27 federal courts, earned 50 or more class and collective certifications, and recovered more than $100 million for workers, as lead counsel on the firm's cases. We concentrate in misclassification cases for case managers, care coordinators, and utilization review staff. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.1 See our cases.
$7.25. The state law sets its rate by reference to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and Indiana has no higher rate and no local ordinances.
Not automatically. Under the Wage Payment statute fees and costs are ordered, but liquidated damages — two times the wages due — require a finding that the employer was not acting in good faith. Federal law provides an additional equal amount on an overtime claim.
Not for a federal overtime claim. And the agency route has a hard ceiling: the Department will not process a claim over $6,000, and most misclassification claims are worth far more.
Two years under federal law, three if willful. The Minimum Wage Law allows three; Indiana's general employment statute sets two for wage claims not based on a written contract.
Possibly. The exemption depends on what you actually do, not on your salary or title — and it is the employer's burden to prove, not yours to disprove.
Every consultation is free and confidential. We take overtime cases on contingency: we advance the costs of the case, those costs are repaid out of any recovery, and if we do not recover you owe us nothing — no fee and no costs. Request a free case review or call (214) 790-4454. Siegel Law Group PLLC, 11341 W US Hwy 290, Bldg 2, Austin, TX 78737.
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