Mississippi Labor Laws

In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is a vital federal law that governs time management and worker compensation, ensuring fair labor practices across various sectors, including non-profit, public, and private organizations.

Time management laws in Mississippi adhere closely to the FLSA. A brief overview of minimum wage, overtime, and break laws in the state is as follows:

Employers who contravene federal time management laws can face severe legal ramifications, including fines, back pay, and damages. If workers feel that their employer has violated federal time management laws, they can file complaints with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division for investigation and legal action.

Employment law in Mississippi prohibits employers from discriminating against job applicants based on their current or veteran military status during the hiring process. 

Furthermore, gender-based wage discrimination is not allowed. Employees working in Mississippi must be paid the same wages for the same job regardless of their gender. Exceptions to this policy only exist for employees paid differently due to their seniority, merit, or any reason apart from sex. 

Work contracts in Mississippi are governed by the at-will employment policy. This means an employer or employee can end an employment contract at any time and for any reason, with or without providing notice. 

However, employers cannot terminate an employee in violation of public policies, for reasons that are considered illegal by state or federal law, for refusal to participate in an employer’s illegal activities, for whistleblowing, or if the employee’s contract outlines a specific process of termination the employer must follow.

After termination of employment, an employee must be paid their final paycheck on their next regularly scheduled payday. Under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act), employers with 100 or more workers are required to notify their employees 60 days before a mass layoff or plant closure. 

The following regulations also form a significant part of Mississippi employment law:

• Workplace Safety Laws: The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) mandates employers to examine and improve workplace safety conditions in Mississippi. Employers must offer their employees proper training programs and educational sessions that cover all workplace safety regulations and procedures outlined by OSHA. Furthermore, employers must maintain a workspace free from recognized hazards that could cause harm to workers and conduct regular safety demonstrations. 
• Whistleblower Protection Laws: Mississippi’s Whistleblower Policy ensures that any public employee who reports the misuse or abuse of state funds or authority to relative investigative bodies is protected from employer retaliation or termination. Retaliatory actions include pay deductions, demotion, unnecessary warning letters, suspension, dismissal, or rejection of employment. However, employees are not protected if they intentionally provide false information. In such cases, an employee can be penalized. 
• Health Insurance Continuation Laws: In Mississippi, employees and their dependents can continue their group health insurance benefits with the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) after certain qualifying events, including the voluntary or involuntary loss of a job, divorce, death, reduction of work hours, or job transition. COBRA applies to employers with over 20 employees and allows coverage for up to 18 to 36 months. Note that qualified employees may be required to pay 102% of the plan’s cost as a premium. For employers with fewer than 19 employees, Mississippi’s Mini-COBRA provides 12 months of health insurance continuation coverage.
• Recordkeeping Laws: The FLSA requires employers in Mississippi to maintain employee records for a minimum of three years. These records must include the employee’s full name, social security number, address, sex, occupation, daily work hours, hourly wage rate, daily/weekly regular earnings, total weekly overtime earnings, wage deductions (if any), total wages per pay period, and the date of payment. Additionally, any records that are used for wage computation, such as timesheets, work/time schedules, and pay tables, must be retained for at least two years.

A minimum wage is the lowest amount of remuneration that can be paid to an employee for performing work within a specific time. This amount cannot be further reduced with mutual agreement between an employer and employee or with collective bargaining.

Mississippi does not have its own minimum wage laws. Employers covered by federal laws must pay their employees a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

To qualify as a tipped employee in Mississippi, employees—such as servers, bartenders, delivery drivers, and waiters—must regularly receive more than $30 monthly in gratuities (typically in cash). 

Tipped employees in Mississippi can be paid a reduced minimum wage of $2.13 per hour, with the employer retaining 5.12 as tip credit. However, employers must ensure that a tipped worker’s hourly cash wage and tips combine to equal the state minimum wage, i.e. $7.25 per hour. If not, it’s up to the employer to make up the difference.

In Mississippi, certain occupations are exempt from receiving minimum wage under the FLSA. These occupations commonly include:

• White Collar employees (bona fide executives, administrators, and professionals, provided they earn at least $684 per week)
• Outside salespeople 
• Student learners 
• Full-time student employees
• Babysitters employed on a casual basis
• Employees working in seasonal and recreational establishments
• Farm workers
• Employees working as companions of an elderly or sick
• Employees working in newspaper delivery
• Employees of newspaper agencies with limited distribution
• Employees with disabilities
• Federal criminal investigators
• Domestic workers making wreaths
• Fishermen
• Switchboard operators
• Seamen employed on non-American ships

Employment law in Mississippi requires all employers with 50 or more employees to pay their workers’ wages on a bi-weekly or semi-monthly basis, or the second and fourth Saturday of a month. Each paycheck should cover all wages earned for a maximum of ten days leading up to the payment date. 

However, employees of public service corporations must be paid for labor performed up to 15 days before the payment date. Bonafide executive, administrative, and professional employees are exempt from Mississippi’s wage payment regulations.

Since Mississippi’s overtime laws adhere to the FLSA, employees working in the state are entitled to overtime pay for each hour worked beyond 40 hours in a week. This additional wage is calculated at 1.5 times the employee’s regular wage rate.

Following the FLSA, white-collar employees who earn at least $684 weekly, or $35,568 annually, are exempt from receiving overtime pay in Mississippi, i.e. they do not receive overtime wages even if they work more than 40 hours in a week. This usually includes employees performing administrative, executive, and professional job duties. 

Additional exemptions from overtime pay under federal law include:

• Outside salespeople 
• Highly compensated employees earning $107,432
• Computer employees earning at least $27.63 hourly
• Airline employees
• Casual babysitters
• Workers employed in seasonal and recreational parks
• Boat, aircraft, truck, and trailer salespersons
• Fishermen
• Fruit and vegetable transportation workers
• Local delivery drivers and their helpers
• Forestry and lumber workers employed in businesses with less than 9 employees
• Motion picture theatre workers
• Newspaper delivery workers
• Newspaper employees in agencies with limited circulation
• Railroad workers
• Seamen on American and non-American vessels
• Sugar processing workers
• Switchboard operators
• Taxicab drivers
• Television station employees in small markets
• Farm implement salespeople
• Firefighters employed in public firefighting departments with less than 5 firefighters
• Federal criminal investigators

Learn more in detail about Mississippi Salaried Employees Laws.

Federal and Mississippi break laws do not mandate employers to provide their workers with meal or rest breaks. However, the FLSA provides some guidelines for employers if they provide such breaks at their own discretion.

Under the FLSA, rest periods lasting 20 minutes or less are considered paid and must be included in the employee’s work hours as well as overtime calculations. If a rest period is extended without the authorization of the employer, it does not need to be included in work hour calculations. 

Meal breaks lasting 30 minutes or longer are not compensable.

As of July 1, 2022, employers in Mississippi are required to provide paid or unpaid breaks to nursing employees for breastfeediing or expressing milk at the workplace as per HB 1304. If possible, these breaks must align with the nursing employee’s paid break time. 

Employers must provide a clean, private pumping space that is not a toilet and is free from intrusion to nursing mothers. This space must include an electrical outlet, a comfortable sitting spot, and access to running water. Nursing mothers must also be provided a refrigerator to store pumped milk. 

Employers in Mississippi are prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against nursing mothers who take breaks under this law. Any employer found guilty of violating this law can be fined from $25 to $250 for each offense committed.

The following are the leave types that Mississippi employers must provide to their employees:

• Family and Medical Leave: In Mississippi, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) entitles any employee who has worked for their employer for a year with at least 1,250 work hours to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave per year for qualifying reasons including caring for themselves or an immediate family member with a serious health condition, caring for a newborn child, or placement for adoption/foster care of a child. The FMLA also allows up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave to an employee for taking care of a family member who is severely injured or ill due to military duty. FMLA leave can only be provided by employers with more than 50 employees.
• Jury Duty Leave: Under Mississippi leave laws, employers must allow their employees to take time off from work when summoned for jury duty. Employers cannot require a worker to use their annual, vacation, or sick leave to attend jury duty.
• Voting Leave: Mississippi does not have an explicit law that requires voting leave. However, if an employee is unable to cast their vote on election day due to their work schedule, they are allowed to use any accrued leave—such as vacation or absence leave—to take time to vote. 
• Military Leave: In Mississippi, any private-sector employee who serves in a reserve branch of the US Armed Forces can take time off to report for duty or military training. These employees also retain the right to return to the previous position once training or duty is complete. If their job position is unavailable, they must be employed in a job with similar seniority status, pay, and benefits as their previous job. 
• Crime Victim Leave: As per Mississippi law, an employee who is a victim of a crime can take job-protected leave to respond to a subpoena to testify in court or participate in a criminal proceeding. Employers are prohibited from retaliating against, threatening, or firing an employee using crime victim leave.

The following public holidays will be officially observed in Mississippi for the year 2025: 

Mississippi law defines a minor as any individual under the age of 21. 

Work Permits for Minors in Mississippi

As child labor regulations in Mississippi adhere to the FLSA, federal law does not require minors to obtain a work permit or working papers to secure employment.

Minors aged 16 and 17 in Mississippi do not have any work hour restrictions when working in any occupation except those prohibited by the Secretary of Labor. However, for minors aged 14 and 15:

• Work hours must be scheduled outside school, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. 
• Hours can be extended until 9 p.m. between June 1 and Labor Day.
• They can work a maximum of three hours daily (on school days) and 18 hours weekly when school is in session. 
• On non-school days, they can work up to eight hours. 
• During summer break, they can work a maximum of 40 hours per week.

Generally, no minor in Mississippi is allowed to work in an occupation considered dangerous by the Secretary of Labor. Federal law prohibits all minors under 18 from working in the following jobs: