Pennsylvania Minimum Wage and Overtime Exemptions Laws

Executive exemption

Pennsylvania exempts bona fide executive employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide executive employee, an employee must:

• perform primary duties consisting of the management of the enterprise in which he or she is employed or of a customarily recognized department or subdivision;
  • management is defined to include, but is not limited to:
    • activities such as interviewing, selecting, and training of employees;
    • setting and adjusting employees’ rates of pay and hours of work;
    • directing the work of employees;
    • maintaining production or sales records for use in supervision or control;
    • appraising employees’ productivity and efficiency for the purpose of recommending promotions or other changes in status; handling employee complaints and grievances;
    • disciplining employees;
    • planning the work;
    • determining the techniques to be used to perform work;
    • apportioning the work among the employees; determining the type of materials, supplies, machinery, equipment or tools to be used or merchandise to be bought, stocked and sold;
    • controlling the flow and distribution of materials or merchandise and supplies;
    • providing for the safety and security of the employees or the property;
    • planning and controlling the budget, and monitoring or implementing legal compliance measures.
• customarily and regularly direct the work of two (2) or more other employees;
• have the authority to hire or fire other employees or whose suggestions and recommendations as to the hiring or firing and as to the advancement and promotion or any other change of status of other employees will be given particular weight;
• be paid on a salary basis at a rate of not less than the amounts listed below:
  • October 3, 2022 – $875 per week exclusive of board, lodging or other facilities
  • Only if regulations are approved (see PA Dept. of Labor: OT and Tipped Worker Rules), beginning October 3, 2023 and each 3rd year thereafter – at a rate equal to the weighted average 10th percentile wages for Pennsylvania workers who work in exempt executive, administrative or professional classifications as determined by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry with advice and consultation by the Minimum Wage Advisory Board and based on an annual wage survey of all worker classifications conducted by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry.
    • At least 90 days prior to the effective date of each 3-year adjustment period, the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry will submit to the Minimum Wage Advisory Board, the adjusted weekly salary rate and the information supporting the adjusted salary rate.
    • Upon review of the information submitted by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry and at a meeting to be held no later than 60 days before the effective date of the adjusted weekly salary rate, the Minimum Wage Advisory Board may provide advice and consultation to the Secretary regarding the adjusted weekly salary rate.
    • At least 30 days prior to the effective date of each 3-year adjustment period, the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry will publish the adjusted weekly salary rate on its web site and in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

In determining whether an employee meets the salary income threshold, 10% of the salary amount may include up to 10% of nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives and commissions that are paid annually or more frequently. When determining an executive employees annual salary, the employer may use any 52-week period as the year, such as a calendar year, fiscal year or anniversary of hire year. If the employer does not identify some other year period in advance, the calendar year applies. If by the last pay period of the year the sum of the employee’s weekly salary plus nondiscretionary bonus, incentive and commission payments received does not equal 52 times the weekly salary amount required under this section, the employer may make one (1) final payment sufficient to achieve the required level no later than the next pay period after the end of the year. If a final payment is made after the end of the year to count only toward the prior year’s salary amount, the payment cannot be included in the salary calculation for the actual year it was paid.

PA Statute 43-333.105(a)(5); PA Admin. Code 34-231.82.

Administrative exemption

Pennsylvania exempts bona fide administrative employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide administrative employee, an employee must:

• perform primary duties consisting of office or nonmanual work directly related to management policies or general operation of his or her employer or the customers of the employer;
  • directly related to management or general business operations includes, but is not limited to;
    • work in functional areas such as tax;
    • finance;
    • accounting;
    • budgeting;
    • auditing;
    • insurance;
    • quality control;
    • purchasing;
    • procurement;
    • advertising;
    • marketing;
    • research;
    • safety and health;
    • personnel management;
    • human resources;
    • employee benefits;
    • labor relations;
    • public relations, government relations; computer network, internet and database administration;
    • legal and regulatory compliance.
• have primary job duty that include the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance;
• be paid on a salary basis at a rate of not less than the amounts listed below:
  • October 3, 2022 – $875 per week exclusive of board, lodging or other facilities
  • Only if regulations are approved (see PA Dept. of Labor: OT and Tipped Worker Rules), beginning October 3, 2023 and each 3rd year thereafter – at a rate equal to the weighted average 10th percentile wages for Pennsylvania workers who work in exempt executive, administrative or professional classifications as determined by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry with advice and consultation by the Minimum Wage Advisory Board and based on an annual wage survey of all worker classifications conducted by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry.
    • At least 90 days prior to the effective date of each 3-year adjustment period, the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry will submit to the Minimum Wage Advisory Board, the adjusted weekly salary rate and the information supporting the adjusted salary rate.
    • Upon review of the information submitted by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry and at a meeting to be held no later than 60 days before the effective date of the adjusted weekly salary rate, the Minimum Wage Advisory Board may provide advice and consultation to the Secretary regarding the adjusted weekly salary rate.
    • At least 30 days prior to the effective date of each 3-year adjustment period, the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry will publish the adjusted weekly salary rate on its web site and in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

In determining whether an employee meets the salary income threshold, 10% of the salary amount may include up to 10% of nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives and commissions that are paid annually or more frequently. When determining an executive employees annual salary, the employer may use any 52-week period as the year, such as a calendar year, fiscal year or anniversary of hire year. If the employer does not identify some other year period in advance, the calendar year applies. If by the last pay period of the year the sum of the employee’s weekly salary plus nondiscretionary bonus, incentive and commission payments received does not equal 52 times the weekly salary amount required under this section, the employer may make one (1) final payment sufficient to achieve the required level no later than the next pay period after the end of the year. If a final payment is made after the end of the year to count only toward the prior year’s salary amount, the payment cannot be included in the salary calculation for the actual year it was paid.

PA Statute 43-333.105(a)(5); PA Admin. Code 34-231.83.

Professional exemption

Pennsylvania exempts bona fide professional employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide professional employee, an employee must:

• perform primary duties consisting of:
  • knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction and study
  • invention, imagination, originality or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.
• be paid on a salary basis at a rate of not less than the amounts listed below:
  • October 3, 2022 – $875 per week exclusive of board, lodging or other facilities
  • Only if regulations are approved (see PA Dept. of Labor: OT and Tipped Worker Rules), beginning October 3, 2023 and each 3rd year thereafter – at a rate equal to the weighted average 10th percentile wages for Pennsylvania workers who work in exempt executive, administrative or professional classifications as determined by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry with advice and consultation by the Minimum Wage Advisory Board and based on an annual wage survey of all worker classifications conducted by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry.
    • At least 90 days prior to the effective date of each 3-year adjustment period, the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry will submit to the Minimum Wage Advisory Board, the adjusted weekly salary rate and the information supporting the adjusted salary rate.
    • Upon review of the information submitted by the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry and at a meeting to be held no later than 60 days before the effective date of the adjusted weekly salary rate, the Minimum Wage Advisory Board may provide advice and consultation to the Secretary regarding the adjusted weekly salary rate.
    • At least 30 days prior to the effective date of each 3-year adjustment period, the PA Dept. of Labor and Industry will publish the adjusted weekly salary rate on its web site and in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.

In determining whether an employee meets the salary income threshold, 10% of the salary amount may include up to 10% of nondiscretionary bonuses, incentives and commissions that are paid annually or more frequently. When determining an executive employees annual salary, the employer may use any 52-week period as the year, such as a calendar year, fiscal year or anniversary of hire year. If the employer does not identify some other year period in advance, the calendar year applies. If by the last pay period of the year the sum of the employee’s weekly salary plus nondiscretionary bonus, incentive and commission payments received does not equal 52 times the weekly salary amount required under this section, the employer may make one (1) final payment sufficient to achieve the required level no later than the next pay period after the end of the year. If a final payment is made after the end of the year to count only toward the prior year’s salary amount, the payment cannot be included in the salary calculation for the actual year it was paid.

PA Statute 43-333.105(a)(5); PA Admin. Code 34-231.84.

Pennsylvania also exempts any employee working in the capacity of academic administrative personnel or teacher in elementary or secondary schools. PA Statute 43-333.105(a)(5)

Outside salesman exemption

Pennsylvania exempts outside salesmen from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide professional employee, an employee must:

• customarily and regularly work more than 80% of his or her time away from the employer’s place of business;
• be employed to:
  • make sales, including any sale, exchange, contract to sell, consignment for sale, or other disposition or selling, and delivering articles or goods; and/or
  • obtain orders or contracts for the use of facilities for which a consideration will be paid by the client or customer;
• spend no more than 20% of his or her time worked in a workweek performing work that is of a nature not directly related to and in conjunction with the making of sales (this does not include work that is performed incidental to and in conjunction with the employee’s outside sales or solicitations, including incidental deliveries and collections).

PA Statute 43-333.105(a)(5); PA Admin. Code 231.85.

Computer employee exemption

Pennsylvania’s laws does not exempt computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, or other similarly skilled workers from its minimum wage or overtime requirements.

Other minimum wage and overtime exemptions

Pennsylvania’s laws also exempt the following employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements:

• farm laborers
• domestic service workers in or about the private home of an employer
• newspaper deliverers to the consumer
• workers connected with the publication of weekly, semiweekly or daily newspaper with a circulation of less than 4,000, when the major portion of circulation is in the county where published or in a bordering county
• employees in an educational, charitable, religious or nonprofit organization where no employer-employee relationship exists and service is rendered gratuitously
• employment by an establishment which is a public amusement or recreational establishment, organized camp, or religious or nonprofit educational conference center, if:
  • it does not operate more than seven (7) months a year, or
  • during the preceding calendar year the average receipts for any six (6) months were not more than 33-1/3 percent for the other six (6) months of the year
• golf caddies
• switchboard operators employed by an independently owned public telephone company which has no more than 750 stations
• employees not subject to civil service laws who hold elective office or are on the personal staff of such an officeholder, are immediate advisers to the officeholder, or are appointed by the officeholder to serve on a policy-making level.

PA Statute 43-333.105(a)

Overtime only exemptions

Pennsylvania’s laws exempts the following from it overtime requirements only. Employers are required to comply with any minimum wage requirements.

• a seaman;
• any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling and servicing automobiles, trailers, trucks, farm implements, or aircraft, if employed by a non-manufacturing establishment primarily engaged (more than 50 percent of the time) in selling to ultimate purchasers;
• taxicab driver;
• any employee of a motor carrier the Federal Secretary of Transportation has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service under 49 U.S.C. Section 3102(b)(1) and (2);
• announcer, news editor, or chief engineer of a radio or television station, the major studio of which is located in:
  • a city or town with 100,000 or fewer people, if not part of a standard metropolitan statistical area having a total population in excess of 100,000 people; or
  • a city or town with 25,000 or fewer people, which is part of a standard metropolitan statistical area having a total population of over 100,000, but is at least 40 airline miles from the principal city in the area;
• any employee engaged in the processing of maple sap into sugar (other than refined sugar) or syrup;
• employment by a motion picture theater;
• the hours of an employe of an air carrier subject to the provisions of Title II of the Railway Labor Act (Public Law 69-257, 44 Stat. 577, 45 U.S.C. § 181 et seq.) when:
  • the hours are voluntarily worked by the employee pursuant to a shift-trading practice under which the employee has the opportunity to reduce hours worked in any workweek by voluntarily offering a shift for trade or reassignment; or
  • the required hours of work, wages and overtime compensation have been agreed to either in a collective bargaining agreement between the employer and labor organization representing employees for purposes of collective bargaining or pursuant to a voluntary agreement or understanding arrived at between the employer and employee.

PA Statute 43-333.105(b)