Am I Being Underpaid?

You don't need a lawyer to find out whether your pay is right. You need your latest payslip and these five steps:

1. Find your award. Almost every employee in Australia is covered by a modern award — the legal document that sets your minimum rates. Your award should be named in your employment contract; if not, the Fair Work Ombudsman's Find My Award tool identifies it from your job. Disability, community and home-care workers are almost always on the SCHADS Award (MA000100).
2. Find your classification level. Awards pay by level and pay point, not job title. Your level should appear on your payslip or contract. If it's nowhere to be found, that's the first red flag — see how SCHADS levels work.
3. Look up the current minimum. The Fair Work Ombudsman publishes a pay guide for every award, updated each 1 July. Rates rose 4.75% on 1 July 2026 — if your hourly rate is the same as it was in June, stop here: unless you were already paid above the new minimum, you are being underpaid right now.
4. Compare your payslip line by line. Not just the base rate — weekend hours, evening hours, allowances and loadings all have their own minimums. A single flat rate for every hour you work is legal only if it genuinely covers what the award would have paid for your actual roster.
5. Do the arithmetic — or let a tool do it. If you work in disability, community or home care, our free payslip check reads your payslip and compares every rate on it against the current SCHADS minimums, line by line.

Patterns that show up again and again in payslips with problems underneath:

• One flat rate for every hour. Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays and late shifts carry penalty rates under most awards. A payslip that pays 38 weekday hours and 8 Sunday hours at the same rate needs a very good explanation (usually an enterprise agreement or a genuinely high salary — not "that's just our rate").
• Your rate didn't move on 1 July. Award minimums increase every year. A rate that has been identical for 18 months is either comfortably above the award or quietly below it — and payroll systems don't announce which.
• No allowance lines, ever. Awards pay flat allowances for real events — split shifts, sleepovers, using your own car, first aid duties. If your work includes those events and your payslip never shows an allowance line, the money is likely missing. See what SCHADS allowances exist.
• You're casual but there's no 25% loading. Casual employees receive a 25% loading on the permanent rate for their classification. A casual paid the permanent rate is underpaid on every single hour.
• Short shifts paid to the minute. Most awards set a minimum payment per engagement — under SCHADS it's at least 2 hours even if you worked 45 minutes. Being paid exactly what you worked on short visits is a classic systematic underpayment.
• No classification on your payslip or contract. If your employer can't tell you what level you're on, they can't demonstrate you're being paid that level's minimum.

If you're covered by the SCHADS Award — disability support, community services, home care — you don't have to do the comparison by hand. Upload a payslip (a phone photo is fine) and our free payslip check reads the rates, hours and allowances printed on it and compares each one against the current Fair Work minimums: base rate for your classification, weekend and public-holiday rates, the $62.87 sleepover allowance, vehicle allowance, broken shift allowances. It tells you line by line what looks right, what's worth checking, and what's below the minimum — with the exact dollar figures, so you know precisely what to ask your employer.

It's a guide to help you ask informed questions, not legal advice — and when something can't be verified from the payslip alone (overtime, enterprise agreement rates), it says so instead of guessing.

Finding a gap doesn't automatically mean your employer is acting in bad faith — most underpayment is a misconfigured payroll system, and most employers fix it when shown the numbers. A sensible sequence:

1. Gather your evidence. Payslips, rosters, timesheets, your contract. You're entitled to your own records — and employers must keep employee records for seven years.
2. Put the question in writing. Name the specific gap: "My payslip shows $X for Sunday 6 July; the award minimum for my classification is $Y. Can you explain the difference?" Specific questions get specific answers; vague complaints get form replies.
3. Escalate if you need to. The Fair Work Ombudsman is free, and your union can run the claim for you. Underpayment claims can reach back up to 6 years, so an error that's been running quietly for a long time is still recoverable.
4. Know the stakes have changed. Since 1 January 2025, intentionally underpaying workers is a criminal offence in Australia. Honest mistakes aren't criminal — but the era of underpayment as a cost of doing business is over, and employers know it. You are not making trouble by asking; you're asking a question the law now takes very seriously.