What the phrase means in law and on your stub, how to compute it for any wage, and when employers actually owe it.
“Time and a half” is plain language for a pay rate of 1.5 times your regular hourly rate: your normal rate, plus a half-rate premium on top. If you earn $20 an hour, time and a half is $30 an hour — $20 of ordinary pay and $10 of premium. It is the standard overtime rate in the United States: federal law requires it for every hour a non-exempt employee works beyond 40 in a workweek.
The phrase is much older than the law — it comes from early union contracts — but since the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 it has had a precise legal meaning, calculated on the regular rate: all of your remuneration for the week divided by the hours worked, including shift differentials and non-discretionary bonuses. Time and a half of your base wage, when you also earn a differential, is actually less than the law requires.
Time-and-a-half rate = regular rate × 1.5. Overtime pay = overtime hours × that rate. Weekly gross for a week with overtime = (40 × regular rate) + (overtime hours × regular rate × 1.5).
Our time and a half for $20 an hour page (and its siblings for $15–$40) pre-compute these tables for every common US wage point; the time and a half calculator handles any rate and any hours.
Gross for the 45-hour week assumes 40 regular hours plus 5 overtime hours, all at the stated rate:
| Regular rate | Time and a half (1.5×) | Double time (2×) | 45-hour week gross |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10.00 | $15.00 | $20.00 | $475.00 |
| $12.00 | $18.00 | $24.00 | $570.00 |
| $14.00 | $21.00 | $28.00 | $665.00 |
| $15.00 | $22.50 | $30.00 | $712.50 |
| $16.00 | $24.00 | $32.00 | $760.00 |
| $18.00 | $27.00 | $36.00 | $855.00 |
| $20.00 | $30.00 | $40.00 | $950.00 |
| $22.00 | $33.00 | $44.00 | $1,045.00 |
| $25.00 | $37.50 | $50.00 | $1,187.50 |
| $30.00 | $45.00 | $60.00 | $1,425.00 |
Reading the table: the premium is the difference between the time-and-a-half column and your regular rate — half your rate, per overtime hour. Over a month of weekly 5-hour overtimes, that premium alone is about 10 hours of straight pay.
Many workers hold two rates in the same week — host on weekdays at $16, bartender on weekends at $18. Overtime law handles this with the weighted-average regular rate: add all straight-time earnings for the week, divide by all hours worked, and that average becomes the rate the 1.5× is built on.
Worked example: 30 hours at $16 ($480) plus 15 hours at $18 ($270) is $750 over 45 hours — a regular rate of $16.67. The 5 overtime hours have already been paid at straight time inside the $750, so the law adds the premium half: 5 × $8.33 = $41.67, for a legal gross of $791.67. (If the employer instead pays 1.5× the rate of the job being worked during the overtime hours, that is allowed only under a written agreement made before the work is performed.)
This is also why “time and a half of what?” is the right first question about any overtime line: the answer is a blend of everything you earned that week, not necessarily the rate printed next to the overtime row.
Double time (2×) is time and a half's bigger sibling. Federally it is never required — it appears in California's daily rules (after 12 hours in a day, and after 8 on a seventh consecutive day), in some union contracts, and in many employers' holiday policies. When people say “I get double time on Sundays,” that is almost always a company policy or contract term, not a statute — which also means it can be renegotiated in a way statutory overtime cannot.
One more distinction worth knowing: some employers pay the premium half only on top of a salary that already covers straight time for all hours (the “fluctuating workweek” and fixed-salary arrangements). The visible rate then looks like 0.5× for overtime hours — legal only under specific conditions, and a frequent source of disputes.
Any rate, any hours: time-and-a-half pay with or without regular pay combined.
Free — try itThe same math at 2× — for California double time and holiday policies.
Free — try itThe pre-computed table and mini calculator for the most common US wage point.
Free — try itThe full workweek framework behind the 1.5× rate.
Free — try itMultiply your regular hourly rate by 1.5. At $18/hour, time and a half is $27/hour. Then multiply by the number of overtime hours to get the overtime pay for those hours.
No. Overtime earnings are ordinary income taxed at the same rates. A large overtime week may be withheld more heavily in that paycheck, but your annual tax calculation evens it out.
Not under federal law by itself. Weekend hours pay time and a half only when they push the workweek past 40 hours — or when your employer's policy, a contract, or a state daily-overtime rule grants it.
$30.00 an hour. A 45-hour week at $20 therefore pays $800 regular + $150 overtime = $950 gross.
Private employers generally cannot substitute time off for overtime pay. Government employers may offer comp time at 1.5 hours per overtime hour under the FLSA's public-sector rules.
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