Symmetry Software
Key Terms: Minimum Wage Edition
Federal minimum wage rate is the minimum wage applied by the federal government.
Minimum Wage Finder
The quintessential minimum wage rate tracker.
The Minimum Wage Finder (MWF) tracks the minimum wage rates across the country by state, city, job type, job function, effective date, and more. It also identifies the proper minimum wage rate for employees based on their work address.
How it works
Quickly identify minimum wage requirements.
The Minimum Wage Finder helps companies ensure employees are paid the minimum wage when appropriate, helping to avoid legal issues and fines by remaining compliant. The Minimum Wage Finder uses the same proprietary technology as the Symmetry Tax Engine with leading-edge mapping technology and geospatial boundary maps for jurisdictions.
- Compensation Research
Symmetry Software's compensation research experts identify all new minimum wage and rate rules.
- Geocoding Technology
Our Geocoding technology identifies the exact wage requirements using latitude and longitude coordinates.
- Accurate Wage Rates
The MWF returns all rates associated with the location in question, giving you accurate wages to stay compliant.
Features
Historical and future rates.
Symmetry’s research team keeps track of past, present, and future wage rate changes. Having access to these wage rates allows you to budget the cost of compensation accurately.
Pinpoint accuracy.
Use exact latitude and longitude coordinates for employees’ work addresses to pinpoint the exact minimum wage rates that apply to individual employees. Also returns any exemption thresholds and additional limits.
Strategic resource planning.
Keep up with minimum wage rate increases ahead of time for your strategic compensation forecasting and hiring projection planning purposes.
Who will love it?
Symmetry Software had a very detailed integration guide and a phenomenal technical staff that allowed us to get to market much quicker than if we had tried to tackle this on our own.Will Boudreaux, Founder and CEO
Get started today! Try a free trial of Minimum Wage Finder.
Technical Info
The three versions of the Minimum Wage Finder.
Pro
Ideal for payroll, tax, and human resources professionals to identify minimum wage rates for employees on a one-by-one basis. Allows you to confirm wage rates are in compliance as a position is posted or apply rates precisely rather than on expectation.
How Pro works:
Batch
Allows corporate users to process a large group of addresses — great for audits of your compensation data and data clean-up in your payroll system.
How Batch works:
Web Services
Web services is great for HCM software companies looking for the most accurate minimum wage determination for clients’ employees and for large employers wanting to appropriately set up new employees’ compensation and audit the minimum wage rates of existing employees. Incorporates minimum wage rate data directly into your HR/payroll system or application via XML.
How Web Services works:
* Web Services is a technically-driven experience. Payroll departments would have to work in tandem with developers to enable this solution.
<MinimumWage>
<Authority>State</Authority>
<Rate>12.0</Rate>
<WageType>Regular</WageType>
<EffectiveDate>2020-01-01</EffectiveDate>
<Notes>25 employees or less</Notes>
</MinimumWage>
<MinimumWage>
<Authority>City</Authority>
<Rate>16.63</Rate>
<WageType>Regular-Industry-Specific</WageType>
<EffectiveDate>2019-07-01</EffectiveDate>
<Notes>hotel workers</Notes>
</MinimumWage>The staff at Symmetry Software is professional, thorough, and sincere. Good people that want to do the best for their customer.Rob Hankey, CEO
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FAQ
MWF common questions.
Try our contact form if you don't find your question answered here.
What is the Minimum Wage Finder?
The Minimum Wage Finder is a minimum wage rate lookup tool that provides all associated wage rates for a specific work location or locations.
How does the Minimum Wage Finder work?
Users enter a work address or addresses into Symmetry’s Minimum Wage Finder along with a date, which then normalizes and geocodes the addresses and applies the latitude and longitude to our 35,000 geospatial files. Based on the location(s) and date, the Minimum Wage Finder then returns all of the minimum wage rates associated with that location and date.
What information does the Minimum Wage Finder return?
The Minimum Wage Finder returns the minimum wage rates by effective date for the employees’ work address along with the job type, job function, city, and state. For example, Symmetry’s Minimum Wage Finder might return the federal and state regular minimum wage, the federal and state tipped minimum wage, and the federal specific white-collar exemption thresholds along with what job functions are exempt (such as computer employee.) It also might return any additional information such as any minimums for tips received for tipped employees.
How was the federal minimum wage created?
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 created the minimum wage, after social upheaval about unfair labor and child labor practices across the U.S. at the time. Local minimum wage laws at the county and municipal level have started to gain steam in the last few years, setting their own rates, separate from their states.
How does Symmetry Software identify a change in a minimum wage?
There are several ways in which we identify a change to a minimum wage. 1) Receive information from State Department of Labor and city and county agencies 2) outreach to tax agencies throughout the year, focusing on periods in which changes typically occur based on our experience in working with agencies 3) active engagement in review of industry resources and 4) client partnerships.
What tools or resources does Symmetry use in monitoring and identification of a change?
At Symmetry, we leverage the State Department of Labor website, phone calls, and email communication. City and county agencies. We also monitor and identify changes through active industry memberships with the National Payroll Reporting Consortium and the American Payroll Association.
How far in advance does Symmetry identify a change in a minimum wage?
We typically will identify a change in a minimum wage anywhere from three to six months in advance of the effective date. While not the standard, there are limited situations in which an update could be identified within days or a week of an effective date. Typically, due to timing of agency final determination and communication.
When a minimum wage change is identified, how soon should we expect to see the updated change?
Upon identification, it could be up to four weeks and is based on the timing of the most recent completed release to the next scheduled release.
How is the minimum wage change communicated?
Updates will be communicated through the product release notes that are provided when updates are deployed.
When would Symmetry Software consider an interim release for a minimum wage change?
We would consider an interim release based on the effective date. If the effective date was before the most recent release or the effective date is before our next scheduled release.
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