§ 25-1558.Wages; subject to garnishment; amount; exceptions.

Section 25-1558 answers the question people search for most often in this area: how much of a paycheck can be garnished. Except for the debts listed in subsection (2), the maximum part of a worker’s aggregate disposable earnings for any workweek subject to garnishment is the lesser of three figures: twenty-five percent of disposable earnings for that week; the amount by which disposable earnings for that week exceed thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage in effect when the earnings are payable; or fifteen percent of disposable earnings, instead of twenty-five percent, if the worker is a head of a family. “Disposable earnings” means what is left after subtracting the amounts the law requires to be withheld, such as taxes — not take-home pay after voluntary deductions like health insurance or retirement contributions.

Using the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, thirty times that comes to $217.50. A worker whose disposable earnings for the week do not exceed $217.50 owes nothing under that part of the formula, regardless of what twenty-five percent of those earnings would come to, because the smaller of the applicable figures controls. Above that floor, garnishment is capped at whichever is smaller: twenty-five percent (or fifteen percent for a head of family) of disposable earnings, or the amount by which earnings exceed $217.50. If the federal minimum wage changes, this dollar floor moves with it.

Three categories of debt fall outside these limits entirely: any court order for the support of a person, payments required under a bankruptcy Chapter 13 plan, and any debt for state or federal tax. For everything else covered by the section, no court may enter or enforce an order that violates these limits, and the exemption applies without the worker having to request it through any further proceeding.

The statute defines “head of a family” as someone who supports and maintains one or more people closely connected by blood, marriage, adoption, or guardianship, where that support rests on a moral or legal obligation. It voids any assignment, sale, transfer, pledge, or mortgage of wages to the extent it would defeat the exemption this section provides, and it bars an employer from firing a worker because the worker’s earnings were garnished for a single debt. For pay periods other than weekly, the Commissioner of Labor sets an equivalent multiple of the federal minimum wage by regulation.