California Labor Code Section 226 (Itemized Wage Statement Penalty)
I previously discussed California's more common wage and hour penalties and their respective remedies in a previous Labor Code Penalties post. In this post, I will discuss in greater detail what is commonly referred to as an "Itemized Wage Statement Penalty" or IWS penalty.
While working for any employer, every employee must receive wage statements that are properly itemized, which means the pay stub must contain certain specific items of information, consisting of the following nine items:
- gross wages earned,
- total hours worked by the employee,
- the number of piece-rate units earned and any applicable piece rate if the employee is paid on a piece-rate basis,
- all deductions,
- net wages earned,
- the inclusive dates of the period for which the employee is paid,
- the name of the employee and the last four digits of his or her social security number,
- the name and address of the legal entity that is the employer, and
- all applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay period and the corresponding number of hours worked at each hourly rate by the employee.
An employer's failure to provide pay check with stubs containing this information may be liable for an itemized wage statement penalty. Such a penalty results in a penalty of $50 for the first violation, $100 for each subsequent violation - up to $4000 per employee.
