While overtime is generally supposed to be paid out at time-and-one-half the regular rate of pay, an employer often miscalculates the “regular rate of pay.”

For example, your regular rate of pay is not just your hourly rate of pay. Instead, it is actually supposed to be your “total remuneration” (total pay received), divided by the number of hours you worked.

Therefore, bonuses or commissions must usually be added to your hourly rate of pay and then divided by the number of hours you work in a week to reach a “regular rate” of pay.

Many employers either do not know this about the overtime laws or simply ignore it. This is a very big issue for those employees who receive a sizeable amount of commissions each month.