Work Pay Was I Ripped Off?

Question

I was working for an insurance agent setting up appointments. He only paid me for every sale he made, which after the three months of working for him worked out to be 4 dollars an hour. Someone told me that this is illegal, that he owes me at least minimum wage. Is that true?

Answer 1

Whilst laws vary in different states and in different countries, I would say that no, it's not necessarily true.

Minimum wage does not always apply to jobs where you have an opportunity to earn commission like sales jobs (which is technically what this job was) as the commission should take you up to or over minimum wage.

In this case, it just so happens that the commission didn't take you up to minimum wage.  But if you wanted to sue him, you'd have to prove that there is no way you could possibly have made minimum wage no matter how hard you had worked.  Your former boss would probably argue that you could have earned more - you just didn't work hard enough.  So if you were to sue, it really could go either way, and given that it would cost a lot for you to take legal action then it's probably not worth it.

Answer 2

yes

Answer 3

From a legal perspective, it all depends on what your compensation agreement was with this agent when you accepted employment.

Were you told specifically that you would be paid minimum wage? Were you told that you would be paid on each sale only?

Or maybe a combination of both (min wage + bonus for any actual sales)?

This really needs to be determined before you can say that you are being ripped off or not.

Good luck!