Paycheck Feeling a Little Light?

Might be a reason for that. According to NYT stores like Pep Boys, Toys "R" Us, Taco Bell, Kinko's, Family Dollar, and, yes Wal-Mart (surprise!) have been altering employee timecards to cut out their over time to increase profits. Of course, these folks are probably earning about minimum wage to begin with. Nice.

One guy in the article, a father of five, experienced this at three places of employment in a row. The last place he worked was Rentway where he often missed lunch because of the demanding schedule, but this manager inserted half an hour for lunch every day anyway.

Then there's the Walmart one minute lunch hour:

Wal-Mart executives acknowledged that one common practice, the "one-minute clock-out," had cheated employees for years. It involved workers who clocked out for lunch and forgot to clock back in before finishing the day. In such situations, many managers altered records to show such workers clocking out for the day one minute after their lunch breaks began — at 12:01 p.m., for example. That way a worker's day was often three hours and one minute, instead of seven hours.

Walmart has since tried to remedy the situation. But, hey, when are they gonna start throwing some of these managers in jail?