Sponsors (10)
The bill extends federal employee protections and preserves more pay for incarcerated workers while improving legal clarity, but it raises costs and administrative burdens for correctional and court systems and may reduce some local fee revenues.
Incarcerated workers will be treated as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, making them eligible for minimum wage and overtime protections where applicable.
Incarcerated workers will keep more of their earnings because board, lodging, facility costs, and certain court-imposed fees are excluded from how wages are calculated.
State and local agencies and employers get clearer definitions (e.g., incarcerated worker, correctional facility, court-imposed fee), reducing legal ambiguity about rights and obligations.
State and local correctional operators may face higher labor costs and increased litigation risk after incarcerated workers are classified as employees, potentially raising operating costs or taxpayer burdens.
Excluding certain deductions from the wage definition could complicate payroll accounting and enforcement, risking delays in pay or slower resolution of wage claims for incarcerated workers.
Courts and other fee-collecting local entities may lose recoverable revenue streams if fees paid by incarcerated workers are treated differently under the wage rules.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds incarcerated workers to the FLSA employee definition and allows employers to exclude specified board/lodging, facility costs, and enumerated court-imposed fees from wages.
Official title: To require coverage of incarcerated workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 19, 2026 by Emanuel Cleaver · Last progress March 19, 2026
Adds incarcerated workers to the Fair Labor Standards Act definition of “employee,” so people working in public or privately operated correctional facilities count as employees for wage law purposes. It also specifies that costs for board, lodging, certain facility expenses, and enumerated court-imposed fees paid by incarcerated workers are not counted as wages when calculating pay owed to them. The change creates new statutory definitions for “incarcerated worker,” “correctional facility,” and “court-imposed fee,” expands FLSA coverage to include people employed by public agencies and private contractors operating correctional facilities, and clarifies what deductions may be excluded from wage calculations for these workers.