Eight answers, one verdict: when the check was legally due, what the lateness costs in dollars, and what to do next — with the clock on it.
The verdict tells you the number. The kit turns it into the written demand letter — built to the statute that makes the letter itself start the penalty clock in trigger states — plus the claim walkthrough for all 51 jurisdictions with its filing deadline, the documentation timeline, the PTO fight sheet, and the stall scripts.
The owed-by date is the date your state's statute sets — not the date payroll prefers. The penalty is the statute's maximum math at your rate: where a penalty requires a willful failure, a genuine dispute about the amount is the employer's defense, and the verdict says so rather than promise you the ceiling. The total is wages + penalty-to-date + vacation the law counts — the number that goes in the letter and on the claim.
Business days in these statutes skip weekends; state holidays are not counted either way. If your deadline fell on a day your employer's office was closed, your state's agency is the referee — the method page shows every formula and every source, in the open.
This checker covers employees — people who got (or should get) a W-2. If you were an independent contractor, the money owed to you runs on your contract and invoices, not on wage-payment statutes; that fight is the invoice fight, with its own letters and clocks.