Texas Minimum Wage Law

Effective September 1, 2001, Texas adopted the federal minimum wage rate by reference. This means that, unless otherwise exempt, every employer in Texas must pay each of its employees not less than the current minimum rate to $5.15 an hour as of 9/1/01.

The Texas minimum wage law applies to all employees except: (1) persons subject to federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); (2) any person who is a member of a religious order while performing any service for or at the direction of the order and any duly ordained, commissioned, or licensed minister, priest, rabbi, sexton, or Christian Science reader while performing services as such for a church, synagogue, or religious organization; (3) any person under 18 who is not a high school or vocational training program graduate, and any person under 20 who is a regularly enrolled high school, college, university, or vocational training program student (however, this exemption does not apply to persons employed in agriculture who are paid on a piece-rate basis); (4) bona fide executive, administrative or professional employees and public officials; (5) outside salespersons or collectors paid on a commission basis; (6) any person performing domestic service in or about private homes, including babysitting in or out of the employer's home, and any person while living in or about the home providing personal care for any resident of the home; (7) inmates of the state penitentiary or local jails; (8) any person engaged in activities of an educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit organization in which the employer/employee relationship does not in fact exist or in which the services are rendered to the organization gratuitously; (9) any person employed by an immediate relative or in-law, guardian or person standing in place of an immediate relative, in-law or guardian; (10) handicapped persons under 22 who are clients of a vocational rehabilitation workshop and participating in a cooperative school-work program; (11) any person employed by an amusement or recreational establishment that does not operate for more than seven months of any calendar year, or whose average receipts for any six months of the preceding calendar year do not exceed 33.3 percent of its average receipts for the other six months of the same year; (12) any employee of the Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of America, or affiliated organizations; (13) any person employed by any camp of a religious, educational, charitable or nonprofit organization; (14) any person employed in dairy farming; (15) any person, except those employed in agriculture, whose employer is not subject to liability for payment of contributions to the Unemployment Compensation Fund under the provisions of the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act, as amended and (16) persons employed with their spouses by nonprofit educational institutions to serve as parents of (a) orphans or children with only one living parent or (b) institutionalized children, if the employees live in and receive board and lodging from the institution.