For US bedside nurses · RN and LPN
Your paystub is
probably wrong.
One 12-hour shift can carry eight different rates. Federal law says every differential must be folded into your regular rate before overtime is calculated. Hospital payroll gets this wrong systematically, and your stub never shows the arithmetic.
ShiftStack recomputes one pay period shift by shift, tells you what it appears short by, and writes the letter to payroll.
Shift Check opens soon. There is nothing to sign up for on this page.
- 87.5 h
- recomputed in the example below
- 2 years
- of federal lookback, 3 if willful
- 0 fields
- for patient data, now or ever
Eight rates. One Saturday night.
A normal shift: nights, weekend, charge because the unit was short, floated because another unit was shorter, and the lunch you never sat down for, deducted anyway.
- Base rate
- $38.00
- Night differential
- +$4.50
- Weekend differential
- +$3.00
- Charge differential
- +$2.00
- Float differential
- +$1.50
- Holiday rate
- —
- On-call and callback
- —
- Overtime multiplier
- ×1.5
Payroll almost always fails on the last row. It multiplies 1.5 by the base rate of $38.00 instead of the regular rate of $44.375. Every overtime hour in the period is short by the difference, and no line on the stub shows it.
One pay period, recomputed.
Pay period 2026-02-16 → 2026-03-01 · Illustrative figures · Real rules
Rate Table
- Base rate
- $38.00/ h
- Night differential
- +$4.50/ h
- Weekend differential
- +$3.00/ h
- Charge differential
- +$2.00/ h
- Float differential
- +$1.50/ h
Shift Log
7 shifts · 87.5 h
- 2026-02-1719:00–07:3012.5 hnights
- 2026-02-1819:00–07:3012.5 hnightscharge
- 2026-02-2119:00–07:3012.5 hnightsweekendlunch not taken
- 2026-02-2319:00–07:3012.5 hnights
- 2026-02-2419:00–07:3012.5 hnightsfloated
- 2026-02-2819:00–07:3012.5 hnightsweekend
- 2026-03-0119:00–07:3012.5 hnightsweekend
Findings
Overtime computed on the base rate, not the regular rate
29 CFR 778.207(b)
- Week of 2026-02-23, hours worked
- 50.0 h
- Overtime hours in that week
- 10.0 h
- Regular rate, differentials included
- $44.375
- Overtime premium owed
- $221.88
- Overtime premium paid
- $190.00
The differentials were paid. They were left out of the rate the overtime was multiplied against.
Charge differential missing on a shift she ran
Employer pay policy
- Shift
- 2026-02-18
- Hours in charge
- 12.5 h
- Charge differential
- $2.00 / h
- Charge pay on the stub
- $0.00
She was in charge for the whole shift. The stub shows the shift and not the premium.
Meal period auto-deducted and never taken
29 CFR 785.19
- Shift
- 2026-02-21
- Deducted, unworked
- 0.5 h
- Applicable rate, base + night + weekend
- $45.50 / h
- Paid for that half hour
- $0.00
An unpaid meal period has to be a real one. She never left the floor.
Verdict · 3 Findings
This period appears short by
$79.63
If this period is typical, that is about $2,070 across the 26 paydays in a year. Federal law allows two years of lookback, three if the underpayment was willful.
Free in the product: this figure and every Finding named. Paid: each dollar traced to a shift and a rule, plus the Payroll Letter with your dates and figures already in it. Payment comes after the number, never before.
