On January 10, 2024, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an amendment to D.C.’s minimum wage law that expands the coverage of the law to include individuals working 2 or more hours a week in D.C. Prior to the amendment, the law applied to individuals who regularly spend more than 50% of their working time in D.C. or the employee’s employment is based in D.C. and they regularly spend a substantial amount of their working time in D.C. and not more than 50% of their working time in any particular state. D.C.’s minimum wage law requires non-tipped employees to be paid $17.00 per hour, and tipped employees $8.00 per hour. Effective July 1, 2024, these rates will be increased to $17.50 per hour and $10.00 per hour, respectively.
It is important to note that D.C.’s minimum wage law only applies to hours worked in D.C. This may result in an employer having to pay two different hourly rates to an employee who works in both D.C. and another state in the same week. For example, if an employee works in Maryland for 35 hours in a week and earns Maryland’s minimum wage rate of $15.00 per hour, and also works 5 hours in D.C. that same week, the employee would earn $15.00 per hour for 35 hours and $17.00 for 5 hours.
The text of the amendment is available here.
If you have any questions about this Alert, we encourage you to contact your Shulman Rogers contact for solutions and recommendations for addressing these issues.
