If you re on call and you know that you could start work, but you re not required by your boss to do anything but carry a beeper and be ready to come when he calls, then you don t have to be paid. But if you are told to be at work at 7am and when you get there you can t start until 9am then you have to be paid for that period of waiting. The answer is not much. Minimum wage is pretty much a joke. Like I said it s a joke, it s to bad that it s on us.
Bosses have all kinds of loopholes here.
If you re disabled you can be paid a sub-minimum wage, bosses say this is to make the worker more competitive in the market place, so there are more job opportunities for them. Or if you re young, either under twenty or a student, they can pay you less. Supposedly this is to encourage you to stay in school. In reality it means you get more than one job, making shitty wages. The law also states however that if your tips don t bring you up to that minimum wage level that the boss is supposed to reimburse you that amount.