Waiting 10 days for PayCheck

[rwstarke]

What is the name of your state? California

I work for a contracting company in the state of California. I get paid twice a month and do not receive my check until ten days after the pay periods. This has caused me and my family a financial hardship. My questions: Is this a federal or state law? Holding the employees pay check for ten days after the pay period. If so, is their any way I could change it? Are their any other employees who have this same problem?

[cbg]

Wage laws of the type you describe are state-regulated. I found nothing in the CA state wage laws to indicate that your employer is breaking any laws.

[rwstarke]

That is precisely my point. This law is unjustified. The employees and I work for the success of the company that hired us and we are responsible to produce results and complete the our projects on time for wages. Now, this law allows the employer to hold our paycheck for 10 days after the pay period without any interest or penalties? It seems to me this company must be depositing the funds into their bank accounts and getting interest on our pay for that 10 day gap. This doesn't benefit us. We have worked for those wages. This law needs to be reviewed or at the very least revised. Do you know if there is a way to change this law?

[cbg]

What makes you think they are holding the paycheck? Have you ever worked in payroll? It takes time to total everyone's hours, figure the taxes, cut the checks, stuff the envelopes; it's not a two hour procedure. I had payroll responsibility a few years ago; it took me nearly a full day just to get everyone's hours loaded into the computer, checked for corrections, and submitted to the payroll service, and that was for only 50 employees. For only 50 employees, if the pay period ended on Friday the employees, including me, would get their paychecks the following Thursday and we could not have gotten them to them one single day earlier, just on what it took to physically produce the checks. You're assuming that your company is deliberately withholding pay for ten days but that is an unjustified assumption; there are logistics involved that you're not taking into consideration.

[rwstarke]

All hours are entered by the employee on their computer, which is networked to the main office. Payroll is done locally. I used to work at other companies and got my check in seven days.

[cbg]

Our payroll was done locally too. The fact that other companies have managed to get it done in seven days does not prove that your current company is deliberately and maliciously holding back your pay.

Just exactly what difference would it make if you got paid seven, or five, or three days after the end of the pay period? You wouldn't get paid any more. You wouldn't get paid any more frequently. Just exactly how would paying you closer to the end of the pay period magically alleviate your problems?

[rwstarke]

It appears to me that the answers you have provided me with are in favor of the employer. When the company is handling the accounting, bookkeeping and payroll distribution that does not make me liable. It is ethical to pay employees when their two week pay period is completed. This time period already gives an employer a grace period of two weeks prior to process any required paper work in any given schedule. Holding paychecks for ten days after the pay period has nothing to do with whether or not I budget. That my friend... would be an entirely different forum.

[cbg]

I didn't ask whether you budgeted. I didn't ask anything about how you managed your personal finances. I asked how you thought that changing the payday would solve your financial problems - I said nothing about how those problems came to be.

You still seem to be operating under the impression that it is logistically possible for the company to provide paychecks immediately upon the end of the pay period. If my answers in this instance appear to be biased towards the employer, it is because I KNOW, having been involved with it, that it is NOT possible. Since it is evident that nothing I can say is going to change your already-made-up mind, I see no point in continuing this discussion.

[twinbridgefarms]

Just FYI, I am also a contractor, and if I fax a timesheet by noon Tuesday I get paid (direct deposit) on Thursday, so it can be done. I work for a very large job shop company.