Punch Clock MathHours, overtime and every state’s rules

Editorial Policy

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Sources and dates

Every rule and number on the site comes from a primary source read for it: the U.S. Code, the eCFR, the Department of Labor and its Wage and Hour Division, the IRS, the Office of Personnel Management, or a state’s own labor department, statutes or administrative code. Each source is listed with its title, publisher, version where it has one, and the date it was read. Quotations are short (25 words at most) and attributed. Competing calculator sites, payroll-vendor blogs, law-firm marketing pages, forums, Wikipedia and AI summaries are never sources.

Every calculator result carries a rule line — the rule in words, “Sources checked” with a date, and a link to how the math works — and every guide lists its sources at the end. The data page lists every dataset with its sources and verification date.

“Not confirmed”

When a rule could not be confirmed on an official source, the site says “not confirmed” (or “partly confirmed”, with what is missing) and never fills the gap with a guess. A calculator then uses only what was confirmed — for overtime, the federal rule — and says so next to the result.

Money and law: how we write

  • Every result and every guide’s short answer has an advice note: an estimate, not legal or tax advice, and who decides.
  • We never tell a reader that they are owed money or that an employer broke the law. We say what the rules as written give for the numbers entered, and which agency can rule on a case.
  • Tools assume a non-exempt employee and say so; they never decide whether a job is exempt.
  • No hype, no urgency, no fear. Plain words, short sentences, the rule named and dated.

Corrections

When we get something wrong, we fix it and say so on the page itself: a dated correction note at the top of the guide (“Correction (date): what was wrong and what it says now”), and a dated row in the public updates log. A value never changes silently: the site will not build if a rule changes without a log entry. Report a mistake to hello@punchclockmath.com.

Re-checking

Each dataset has a freshness class that sets how often its sources are read again: guidance pages that change during the year at least every 45 days, yearly figures at least every 120 days and when the new year’s figures are published, laws and regulations at least every 180 days, calendars at least once a year. The build stops when a dataset is older than its class allows.

How guides are made

Guides are drafted with AI writing tools from the sources listed under them. Every number in a guide is then computed with the same tested engines the calculators use — never by hand — and every statement is checked against its sources by a separate review pass before the guide is published. A guide carries a published date and an updated date, and its byline is the site, Punch Clock Math; no person is presented as its author, and the site claims no legal, accounting or payroll credentials.

Ads are labelled “Advertisements”, kept well away from calculators, inputs, results and navigation, and never placed inside a result, a table or a drawing. Advertisers have no say in what we write. Paid placements, if there ever are any, are labelled “Sponsored” where they appear; the site does not publish sponsored reviews.

The site has no affiliate links today. If any are added, each will be marked next to the link, and they will appear only on pages written for employers, never inside a calculator result or in a guide’s text. Nothing we recommend depends on whether a company pays us.

Independence

Punch Clock Math is an independent website. It is not a law firm, a payroll company, a tax preparer or a government agency, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, the IRS, any state agency or any company named on this site. Names are used only to identify sources.