Nevada Minimum Wage to Remain the Same for 2014

Author: Michael Cardman, XpertHR Legal Editor

April 1, 2014

For the fifth year in a row, Nevada's minimum wage will remain the same, the state labor department announced today.

Nevada's constitution includes a clause that triggers annual adjustments in the minimum wage based on increases in the cost of living. Nev. Const. Art. 15, § 16. The adjustment, if any, is based on the change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers between Dec. 31 of the year before last and Dec. 31 of the previous year, but may not be greater than 3 percent or the cumulative increase in the federal minimum wage from $5.15 per hour in 2004 to present.

"While the cost of living adjustment for this year increased over last year, it is still less than the $2.10 increase in the federal minimum wage that went into effect in 2009," Nevada Labor Commissioner Thoran Towler said in an email press release.

As a result, the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 for employees who receive qualified health benefits from their employers and $8.25 for employees who do not receive health benefits. Nevada is the only state in the nation that has separate minimum wage rates based on health benefits.

Nevada also is one of a few states with a daily overtime requirement in addition to the more common requirement to pay overtime for more than 40 hours in a workweek. In Nevada, nonexempt employees who receive an hourly pay rate that is less than one and one-half times the applicable Nevada minimum wage must be paid one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek and for all hours worked beyond eight in each workday (unless by mutual written agreement the employee works four 10-hour calendar days within any scheduled workweek).

"As the minimum wage goes up, so does the daily overtime requirement," Towler said. "Since the minimum wage is not increasing this year, the daily overtime will remain the same as well."