What Constitutes Full-Time or Part-Time Work in Indiana?

Neither Indiana law nor the United States Department of Labor define the terms "full time" or "part time." However, the length of an employee's work week determines whether that employee is entitled to overtime pay and employer-provided affordable health insurance in Indiana.

Indiana employers are required to pay time and a half whenever an employee works more than 40 hours in a week according to the Indiana Department of Labor. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not define the terms "full time" or "part time," but also requires employers to pay time and a half after 40 hours in a single week. Because overtime is calculated on a weekly basis, employees are not entitled to overtime for staying late on a single day unless required by contract.

Although Indiana doesn't define full time, the Affordable Care Act does. Under the ACA, a full time work week is 30 hours or more and a part time work week is anything less than 30 hours. Employers with 50 or more full time employees under this definition must offer an affordable health insurance option to their full time employees or risk owing an Employer Shared Responsibility Payment to the IRS. This provision only goes into effect if an employee of the company receives a premium tax credit from the IRS to help that employee pay for health insurance.

Some employers with a mix of part time and full time employees can be required to offer affordable health insurance even if they don't employ 50 people full time under the ACA definition. Fifty employees multiplied by exactly 30 hours a week equals 1500 hours, so the ACA treats any combination of full and part time employees working at least 1500 hours to be the equivalent of 50 full time employees. For example, a company with 20 employees working 30 hours a week and 45 employees working 20 hours a week would still reach the 1500 hour full time equivalent threshold and be required to offer health insurance.

The phrase "full time work" means different things to different people. Even though they don't use the phrase "full time," the federal and Indiana definitions of overtime imply that a full work week is 40 hours. Although the Affordable Care Act defines full time as 30 hours, this is not a consistent federal standard. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics defines a full time employee as anyone who works 35 or more hours per week, and a part time employee as anyone who works between 1 and 34 hours a week. The definition changes depending on the context.