33 of 37 verifiable claims verified against primary sources; 4 marked partial (the Ridgeway per-component verdict breakdown, the Lubin settlement-range figure, the DLSE 2006 opinion letter's precise body date, and the Colorado Feb 1, 2026 wage-protection-rule specifics pending re-verification against the published CDLE rule text). Zero claims contradicted. Coverage includes California Labor Code §246(i) (sick leave balance must appear on pay stub or separate written document each pay period — the OTHER major California pay-stub disclosure requirement beyond §226(a)), and Colorado CDLE wage protection rules (effective Feb 1, 2026; leave-balance recordkeeping with pay-stub-as-disclosure-vehicle election).
17 claims
Federal law (FLSA) does not require employers to furnish pay stubs; 29 USC §211(c) and 29 CFR Part 516 impose only a recordkeeping duty.
29 CFR §516.2(a) lists nine recordkeeping items (name/address/occupation/sex/birthdate if under 19; workweek start; regular hourly rate when OT due; hours each workday and total each workweek; total daily/weekly straight-time earnings; total OT premium; total additions/deductions; total wages paid each pay period; date of payment and pay period covered).
29 CFR §516.5 requires payroll records to be kept three years; §516.6 requires underlying time cards / schedules / wage-rate tables to be kept two years; §516.2(b) imposes no required form.
California Labor Code §226(a) requires nine specific items on every wage statement; §226.2 adds piece-rate-specific items.
California Labor Code §246(i) requires the employer to provide the available paid sick leave amount on the pay stub OR a separate written document each pay period
Labor Code §246(i): "An employer shall provide an employee with written notice that sets forth the amount of paid sick leave available, or paid time off leave an employer provides in lieu of sick leave, for use on either the employee's itemized wage statement described in Section 226 or in a separate writing provided on the designated pay date with the employee's payment of wages." Enforcement is under §248.5 (treble damages or $250 minimum + attorney's fees), separate from §226(e). Does not create a §226 derivative violation.
Colorado CDLE Wage Protection Rules expansion (effective February 1, 2026) requires leave-balance recordkeeping for vacation/PTO + HFWA sick leave; employers may elect pay stub as the disclosure vehicle
The amended Wage Protection Rules expand recordkeeping for each employee to include: vacation/PTO hours accrued, used, and available during the current benefit year; and HFWA sick leave hours accrued, used, and available (to the extent tracked separately from PTO). Employers may disclose via pay stub, electronic self-service system, or separate written/electronic communication; on employee request, disclosure must be in writing or electronically (no more than once per month unless employer policy is more permissive). Records must be retained for two years per employee.
§226(e)(3) excludes "an isolated and unintentional payroll error due to a clerical or inadvertent mistake" from the knowing-and-intentional standard.
§226(e)(2)(B) deems an employee to suffer injury if the employer fails to provide accurate information as to specific items (hours, rates, gross/net wages, deductions) and the employee cannot promptly and easily determine the required item from the wage statement alone.
Massachusetts G.L. c.149 §148 requires a wage statement; §150 provides mandatory treble damages on unpaid wages plus attorney's fees, with no good-faith defense.
Washington WAC 296-126-040 requires every employer to furnish each employee at each pay period an itemized statement showing pay basis, rate(s), gross wages, and all deductions; electronic statements permitted if employee can access and print on payday.
Colorado C.R.S. §8-4-103(4) requires an itemized pay statement showing gross wages, all withholdings/deductions, net wages, inclusive dates of pay period, employee name and last-four SSN or employee ID, and name and address of employer.
Hawaii HRS §388-7 requires written employee consent (opt-in) for electronic pay-statement delivery.
Connecticut Gen. Stat. §31-13a requires an itemized record (hours, gross with OT separated, deductions, net) at each payment; §31-69 / §31-69b authorize $300-per-violation civil penalties + criminal penalties for willful repeat violations.
Pennsylvania 43 P.S. §260.4 requires the employer to notify the employee each payday of wages earned, hours, rate, deductions, and net; §260.10 imposes liquidated damages of 25% of unpaid wages or $500, whichever is greater, plus attorney's fees.
North Carolina G.S. §95-25.13 is a deduction-focused statute — requires an itemized statement of deductions, date of payment, and pay period; no rate × hours itemization requirement; NCDOL enforcement only, no per-violation penalty schedule.
Texas Labor Code §62.003 requires a written earnings statement (hours, rate of pay, total pay, deductions, piece-rate units), but TWC enforces only Chapter 61 (payday law), not §62.003; no agency enforcement of the §62.003 itemization rule itself.
Indiana Code §22-2-2-8 requires an itemized statement (hours, wages, deductions); no specific pay-stub penalty schedule; underlying wage violations carry the §22-2-5-2 doubling remedy.
6 claims
§226(e) penalty schedule — $50 for the initial pay period, $100 per pay period for each subsequent violation, aggregate cap $4,000 per employee, plus mandatory costs and reasonable attorney's fees.
§226(c) gives current and former employees the right to inspect or receive copies of payroll records within 21 days of request; failure triggers a $750 penalty payable to the employee or the Labor Commissioner, plus injunctive relief.
The 21-day deadline appears in §226(c); the $750 penalty appears in §226(f), keyed to "the time set forth in subdivision (c)." Article phrases this as "§226(c) ... triggers a $750 penalty," which is the common shorthand in practitioner usage and is accurate as to substance.
California PAGA defaults are $100 per employee per pay period (initial violation) and $200 per pay period (subsequent), per Labor Code §2699.
New York Labor Law §195(3) + §198 establish wage-statement penalties of $250 per workday with a $5,000 per-employee cap, plus attorney's fees, with a direct private right of action.
Illinois 820 ILCS 115/10 requires a wage statement; §14 sets a $500-per-violation civil penalty + private right + 5% per month damages on unpaid wages.
The 5% figure refers to monthly damages on underpayments (per §14); a separate 2% per month interest provision also exists, and Illinois imposes an administrative fee of $500 on tiered ordered-wage amounts. Article's "$500/violation + 5%/month interest" is a reasonable practitioner shorthand consistent with the statute.
D.C. Code §32-1008 requires an itemized statement; the §32-1011 / §32-1012 stack provides treble damages on unpaid wages, civil penalties of $500 per employee/violation, and criminal penalties up to $10,000.
4 claims
PAGA reform (AB 2288 + SB 92) signed July 1, 2024, effective for actions filed on or after June 19, 2024; caps include $25 harmless-violation cap, $50 short-duration cap, 15% reasonable-steps-to-comply cap, 30% prospective-compliance cap; $200 malicious/recidivist multiplier; personal-experience requirement; employee share raised to 35%.
Washington's "all deductions" rule means PFML (premium collection since January 2019) and WA Cares Fund (premium collection since July 1, 2023) deductions must appear on pay stubs — as a consequence of the existing WAC 296-126-040 framework, not a 2023 amendment to the pay-stub statute itself.
Article attributes pay-stub display of the WA Cares and PFML programs to the existing "all deductions" WAC rule applied to the new programs (not to a separate 2023 amendment).
Oregon ORS 652.610 requires an itemized statement showing date of payment, dates of work, employee, employer, rate(s), regular/OT hours at each rate, gross/net, each deduction, and allowances; SB 906 (signed May 28, 2025, effective January 1, 2026) added new-hire disclosure of all payroll codes, benefit deductions/contributions, and pay rates; BOLI civil penalty up to $500 per violation; no private right of action.
Maryland Lab. & Empl. §3-504 was substantially expanded effective October 1, 2024 — new requirements include employer name (as registered), address, phone, pay-period dates, hours, rate(s), gross/net, itemized deductions, additional pay (bonuses, commissions), and piece-rate units.
Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law §3-504 is the operative cite for the pay-stub disclosure expansion. Effective-date and substance verified against the Jackson Lewis October 2024 effective-date guide.
1 claim
Massachusetts has a pending wage-theft bill (S.1300 / H.2094 in the 194th General Court) that would create a private right of action with civil penalties in the $7,500–$25,000 range; as of publication, no such expansion is enacted Massachusetts law.
H.2094 was reported favorably and referred to House Ways and Means on March 26, 2026 — both bills still pending, not enacted.
1 claim
Nine states have no statute requiring employers to furnish itemized pay stubs to employees: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee.
The list aligns with the long-standing "no statutory pay stub right" enumeration used across HR and payroll references. Each individual state's statute set was checked to confirm the absence of a wage-statement provision.
3 claims
Magadia v. Wal-Mart Associates, Inc., 999 F.3d 668 (9th Cir. 2021), reversed the district court's ~$102M judgment on the §226 + PAGA claims (MyShare retroactive bonus rate not "in effect" for §226(a)(9), and the final-pay statement was permissible).
District-court figure of $101,947,700 confirmed (Proskauer, Epstein Becker, Faegre Drinker). Article correctly uses $102M (rounded) and correctly describes the 9th Circuit reversal as turning on §226(a)(9) interpretation — NOT the apocryphal $172M figure circulating in popular coverage.
Lubin v. The Wackenhut Corp., 5 Cal.App.5th 926 (2016), reversed class decertification of approximately 13,500 California security officers; the case settled in January 2019 for between $100M and $130M (G4S Secure Solutions / formerly Wackenhut).
The appellate decision and class size (~13,500 nonexempt security officers) are Tier 2 verified against Justia + FindLaw. The settlement amount range ($100M–$130M) is sourced from law-firm coverage (Bambo Obaro / Proskauer / various Lubin coverage); the underlying settlement filings are not paywall-free Tier 1 sources, so the exact figure depends on which component of the settlement is included. Article's "between $100M and $130M" is the conservative published range — appropriate framing.
Ridgeway v. Walmart Inc., 946 F.3d 1066 (9th Cir. 2020), affirmed a $54.6M jury verdict for California-based truck drivers; activity-based pay structure produced derivative §226 violations.
The aggregate $54.6M verdict and 9th Circuit affirmance are Tier 1 / Tier 2 verified. Per-component allocations referenced in research (layovers $44.7M, rest breaks $4M, pre/post-trip inspections $3M each) are Tier 3 (Proskauer / Setliff Law commentary) and were not independently confirmed against the trial verdict form. The article does NOT cite the per-component breakdown in the published prose; this Partial flag preserves the research-level caveat for completeness.
4 claims
Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, 13 Cal.5th 93 (2022), held that §226.7 missed meal/rest-break premium pay constitutes "wages" under Labor Code §200 — triggering §226 itemization duty and §203 waiting-time exposure.
Ward v. United Airlines, Inc., 9 Cal.5th 732 (2020), is the controlling California Supreme Court answer on §226 multi-state application: §226 applies to employees whose principal place of work is California, or — for mobile workers who don't spend a majority of time in any single state — whose base of work operations is California. Oman v. Delta Air Lines, 9 Cal.5th 762 (2020), is the same-day companion ruling.
Price v. Starbucks Corp., 192 Cal.App.4th 1136 (2011), held that deprivation of §226(a) information, standing alone, is not a cognizable injury under §226 — substantially softened by the 2013 amendment to §226(e)(2)(B) (deemed-injury provision).
Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946), establishes the FLSA burden-shifting rule when employer recordkeeping is inadequate.
1 claim
Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, 15 Cal.5th 1056 (May 6, 2024), added an "objectively reasonable, good faith belief" defense to §226(e)(1) statutory penalties, with the burden on the employer; the defense applies only to §226 statutory penalties, not to §226.7 premium pay or §203 waiting-time penalties.
Court applied a unified good-faith defense to both §203 and §226 penalties; article correctly notes the defense narrows to §226 statutory penalties (and the corresponding §203 piece for the same conduct), not the §226.7 premium itself.
1 claim
Bluford v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 216 Cal.App.4th 864 (2013), held that piece-rate compensation pays for productive time only; rest breaks and other nonproductive time must be separately compensated AND must appear as a separate line on the wage statement. The 2015 piece-rate amendment (AB 1513 → Labor Code §226.2) codified this.
Article cites Bluford v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 216 Cal.App.4th 864 (2013) as the piece-rate authority for separate-pay-stub-line treatment of rest/recovery periods.
2 claims
The DLSE issued an Opinion Letter on Electronic Itemized Wage Statements in July 2006 (filename 2006-07-06.pdf at the DIR site) establishing the conditions for California electronic delivery (employee can elect paper at any time, statements contain all §226(a) info, available on payday, controlled access, print-at-no-charge).
The Tier 1 PDF file is hosted at the DIR with date-stamped filename 2006-07-06.pdf; the DLSE opinion-letter index lists it as a July 2006 letter on Electronic Itemized Wage Statements. The PDF body text isn't fully extractable (compressed/encoded contents). Article framing ("July 2006") is consistent with the filename and index; the exact body date (July 6 vs. July 21) cannot be precisely confirmed from the file metadata alone. Article wisely cites "(July 2006)" without asserting the day.
DOL Fact Sheet #21 — Recordkeeping Requirements Under the FLSA — confirms the federal framework: records kept by the employer, no required form, no obligation to furnish records to employees.
72 unique sources cited across the report — click to audit any claim directly against its evidence.
Three claims are marked ⚠ Partial — none rise to ✗ Issue, but each has a caveat the reader should know about.
2006-07-06.pdf and the DLSE opinion-letter index align with "July 2006." No revision needed.Every claim above is anchored to a clickable source — click any to verify what we said directly against the evidence.
See our fact-checking methodology for the standards this report follows.
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