No federal law requires employers to pay workers during jury duty

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not require employers to pay non-exempt employees for time spent responding to a jury summons or serving on a jury. Only 8 states and DC mandate employer-paid jury duty leave. In the remaining 42 states, hourly and part-time workers — the people least able to absorb income loss — receive zero pay from their employer during service. This creates a two-tier jury system: salaried professionals at large companies often get full pay during service as a corporate benefit, while hourly workers at small businesses, restaurants, and retail get nothing. The downstream effect is that low-income jurors aggressively seek hardship exemptions, skewing jury pools toward wealthier, older, and whiter demographics. This persists because jury duty leave is treated as a state issue, employers lobby against mandatory paid leave, and there is no federal political constituency pushing for change since the burden falls disproportionately on people with the least political power.