What to Do if Your Pay Stub Is Wrong

Start With the Line That Looks Wrong

A wrong pay stub is easier to fix when you can name the exact problem. "My check is wrong" is hard for payroll to investigate. "My stub shows 80 regular hours, but my approved timecard shows 86 hours including 6 overtime hours" is actionable.

Most errors fall into one of six buckets:

• Wrong hours
• Wrong rate
• Missing overtime
• Wrong tax withholding
• Wrong deduction
• Wrong YTD total

Pull the pay stub, the prior stub, your timecard, your offer letter or pay-rate notice, and any benefit-election records before contacting payroll.

Check Hours and Pay Rate First

For hourly workers, hours and rate drive everything else. If regular hours are wrong, gross pay, overtime, taxes, deductions, and net pay all flow from the wrong starting point.

Compare the stub to your timecard. Look for missed shifts, unpaid training, rounded meal breaks, PTO hours that were not applied, or a rate change that did not make it into payroll.

For salaried non-exempt employees, confirm that hours are still being tracked. Salary does not automatically erase overtime rights. The FLSA overtime rules apply unless the employee is exempt.

Check Overtime

Under federal law, non-exempt employees generally must receive one and one-half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. The key phrase is workweek. Hours cannot be averaged across two weeks to avoid overtime.

If you worked 46 hours in week one and 34 hours in week two of a biweekly pay period, federal overtime is based on the 46-hour week, not the 80-hour total. Some states add daily overtime or other rules on top of the federal baseline.

The overtime pay-stub guide walks through the math.

Check Tax Withholding

Federal withholding is not supposed to be a flat percentage. It depends on your Form W-4, pay frequency, taxable wages, pre-tax deductions, and IRS Publication 15-T tables.

If federal withholding is much lower or higher than expected, ask payroll which W-4 is on file and whether the current check includes a bonus, commission, correction, supplemental wage payment, or taxable fringe benefit. A wrong W-4 setting is one of the most common causes of a surprising tax line.

Use the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator before submitting a new W-4, since a bad estimate can carry a withholding shortfall or excess across every remaining paycheck of the year.

Check Deductions

Deductions should be specific. "Misc deduction" is a flag because it does not tell you whether the deduction is health insurance, 401(k), garnishment, repayment, or something else.

Check:

• Did a benefit start or end this pay period?
• Did a 401(k) election change?
• Was a garnishment order added?
• Was an advance or overpayment repayment deducted?
• Is the deduction pre-tax or post-tax?

If the deduction was not authorized, ask payroll for the document that supports it. State law often limits what employers can deduct from wages and how the authorization must be documented.

Check YTD Totals

YTD totals should equal the prior stub's YTD plus the current stub's amount, line by line. Exceptions happen when payroll issues a correction, reverses a check, or adjusts prior-period wages.

If the current federal tax line is $180, federal tax YTD should increase by $180 from the last stub unless there was an adjustment. The same logic applies to Social Security, Medicare, gross pay, deductions, and net pay.

Wrong YTD totals matter because the final stub feeds into W-2 reconciliation. A small error in June can become a tax-season problem in January.

How to Ask Payroll for a Correction

Keep the message short and factual:

My Jun 19 pay stub appears to omit 6 overtime hours from the Jun 1 to Jun 14 pay period. The stub shows 80 regular hours and 0 overtime hours. My approved timecard shows 80 regular hours and 6 overtime hours. Can payroll review and confirm whether this will be corrected on the next check or reissued?

Attach the timecard or other source record. Ask for the correction path and date. If payroll says the stub is correct, ask them to show the calculation.

When to Escalate

Escalate if the issue involves unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, unauthorized deductions, repeated late corrections, or a refusal to provide wage records where state law requires them.

Start with the state labor department for state wage-statement issues. For federal minimum wage, overtime, and FLSA recordkeeping issues, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division accepts complaints and keeps complainant information confidential in many investigations.

Keep copies of every stub, timecard, bank deposit, and message; that documentation is what wage complaints are built on.