50-State Surveys › Wage Garnishment Limits by State
Wage Garnishment Limits by State
How much of an employee's paycheck can an ordinary judgment creditor garnish in this state, and what income is protected?
51 of 51 jurisdictions verified
every entry statute-checked, oldest 2026-07-05
What this survey covers
When a creditor wins a lawsuit and gets a money judgment, the next step is often garnishing the debtor's paycheck: a court order requiring the employer to hold back part of each check and send it to the creditor instead. Federal law sets a floor on how much any judgment creditor can take, but states are free to protect more of a paycheck than federal law requires, and many do. A handful go further and bar wage garnishment for ordinary debt almost entirely.
Every state answers this differently, and the differences matter to real paychecks. Some states simply adopt the federal formula. Others cut the percentage, raise the protected minimum-wage floor, or add an entirely separate exemption for anyone supporting a family. This survey answers one question, state by state: how much can an ordinary judgment creditor actually take, and what protects the rest? Each state's page states the rule in plain English, quotes the statute it comes from, and shows the date we last verified the statutory text.
How to read the table
Each column is one feature of the state's wage garnishment rule, answered the same way for every state, with the statutory citation compressed into the cell. Where a state bars ordinary wage garnishment outright, the cell says so directly rather than leaving the percentage columns blank. Click a state for the full plain-English page: the rule dimension by dimension, the practical traps people actually hit, and the verbatim statutory text with official source links.
The patterns across the states
With all 51 jurisdictions built, four real patterns emerge on the central question — how much of an ordinary paycheck a judgment creditor can take.
The federal formula is the floor almost everyone starts from, but a sizable minority beats it. Federal law (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)) caps ordinary garnishment at the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above 30 times the federal minimum wage. Plain adopters of that exact formula — no state-specific cut, no higher wage floor — include KY, MT, ID, KS, MS, AR, NM (on the percentage prong; NM widens the wage-floor prong instead), VT (for non-consumer debt), and WY (which restates the identical rule twice, once in its ordinary civil procedure code and again in its Consumer Credit Code). A larger group beats the federal floor on one or both prongs: CA and CO cut the percentage to 20% and raise the multiplier to 40-48x; CT, IA (for consumer debt), and DC use a 40x floor; NV uses an income-tiered percentage (18%/25%) with a 50x floor; WV and SD cut the percentage below 25% (20%) while also raising the wage multiplier; DE exempts 85% of wages outright (only 15% garnishable); ME funnels everything through a court-set installment order with its own composite cap. A few states don't fit the two-prong shape at all: HI uses a tiered dollar formula (5%/10%/20% of successive $100 bands); AK uses a CPI-escalated flat-dollar exemption tied to no minimum wage multiplier at all; DC's 2018 reform ties its 25% multiplier only to the excess above a 40x floor rather than to gross earnings, making it more protective than federal law at every income level without using the familiar "lesser of" structure.
A confirmed cluster of bar-or-near-bar states protects ordinary wages almost completely, reached through different legal mechanisms. TX (state constitution), PA, NC, and SC bar or nearly bar ordinary wage garnishment by an express list or a practical judicial gloss on a broad exemption. NH reaches the same result through a structural trick: it exempts all wages earned after the writ is served, so an ordinary creditor can only reach wages already earned but unpaid, never a continuing stream. These five are the standing exceptions to "everyone allows some ordinary garnishment" — verify independently rather than assuming a sixth state works the same way before calling it a bar state.
A head-of-household or family-support exemption is the exception, not the rule, but where it exists it varies from a modest add-on to a near-total shield. Most federal-formula and moderately-more-protective states (KY, MT, ID, WY, VA, and others) have none at all. Florida's § 222.11 is the standout: a full exemption of ALL disposable earnings for a "head of family" at or under $750/week. A second, more common shape is a COURT-DISCRETION, need-based add-on rather than a fixed dependent count: CA (§ 706.051), VT (§ 3170(b)(3)), and ME (§ 3126-A) all let a court protect more than the standard formula on a showing of actual necessity. A third shape bakes a per-dependent dollar reduction directly into the wage-floor formula instead of a separate exemption: SD and ND both reduce their minimum-wage floor by a flat amount per dependent. NE and OK instead cut the base PERCENTAGE (not the floor) for a head of family or consumer debt. Confirm which shape (if any) a state uses — "no head-of-household exemption" is common enough to be a real, correctly-reported answer, not a sign of incomplete research.
Multiple-garnishment priority splits three ways, and this is often the practical question a reader with an existing garnishment actually has. Most states use strict first-in-time priority among ordinary creditors (MT, KS, AR, and many others), sometimes formalized into a stricter "only one at a time" rule that goes further than simple ordering — WY, IA, DE, and DC all bar a second ordinary garnishment from even being served or satisfied while a first is in effect, and WY additionally caps how often a creditor can re-serve a writ (no more than one every 90 days). A second group lets courts, not filing order, divide competing claims (NV). Universally, though, a child/spousal support withholding order outranks an ordinary judgment creditor's garnishment regardless of when it was filed — this is the one point of near-total agreement across all 51 jurisdictions; some states (ND, DE, HI) go further and exclude support entirely from the ordinary chapter's mechanics rather than merely prioritizing it within them.
Anti-discharge protection for a garnished employee is close to universal, but its scope varies more than it first appears. The federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674) only bars firing someone over a SINGLE garnishment for one debt. Several states go further with no such limit in their own text (ND, ME, MT, DC, WY, VT), and a few pair that with real remedies beyond reinstatement: ND gives a private right of action for double back wages; VT's presumption of wrongful motive applies to any discharge within 60 days of service; WY caps recoverable back wages at 30 working days but adds attorney's fees. A handful of states (WV) narrow their own anti-discharge statute to a specific debt category (there, consumer credit) rather than garnishment generally — read the statute's own scope language rather than assuming "anti-discharge" always means "for any debt."
A structural outlier worth flagging on its own: Vermont requires a creditor to win a court hearing BEFORE any garnishment order can issue at all, rather than the self-executing writ-then-claim-of-exemption process used almost everywhere else — the single biggest procedural departure found in this survey.
Get this answered for your state
This survey compares every state side by side. Ezel applies your state's law to your specific situation and answers with citations to the statutes.
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| State | Governing law | Maximum that can be garnished | State rule vs. federal floor | Minimum-wage protected floor | Support, tax & student loan debts | Head-of-household/family exemption | Multiple garnishments at once | Protection from being fired |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama verified 2026-07-05 | Ala. Code § 5-19-15 (consumer credit transactions, directly restates the federal formula); § 6-10-7 (general/non-consumer debts and tort judgments, 75% wage exemption); § 30-3-67, § 30-3-70 (child support withholding priority and anti-discharge, Title 30) |
For consumer credit debt: the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above 30 times the federal minimum wage, stated directly in § 5-19-15. For non-consumer debt and tort judgments: § 6-10-7 exempts 75% of wages (leaving 25% reachable), with the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act's 30x-minimum-wage floor applying independently as a nationwide baseline on top, so both tracks produce the same practical number even though only one track's own text mentions the wage floor |
Effectively identical to the federal CCPA formula on both tracks, not more protective. Section 5-19-15 restates the federal 25%/30x-minimum-wage rule directly for consumer debt; § 6-10-7's 75%-exemption for other debts matches the federal 25% prong exactly, and the federal minimum-wage floor (15 U.S.C. § 1673, which applies nationwide regardless of state law) supplies the second prong Alabama's own non-consumer-debt statute doesn't separately state |
30 times the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage ($7.25), the same figure used nationwide: $217.50/week. Section 5-19-15 states this floor directly for consumer debt; for non-consumer debt under § 6-10-7, the same floor still applies, but through the independently-operating federal Consumer Credit Protection Act rather than through Alabama's own statutory text |
Child/spousal support: withholding under Title 30, Ch. 3, Art. 3 may exceed § 6-10-7's ordinary statutory maximum, capped instead at 'the maximum statutory amounts prescribed under federal law for garnishments issued to enforce support obligations': the familiar 50-65% CCPA support tiers (§ 30-3-67). Federal tax and student-loan collection proceed under independent federal authority (IRS administrative levy; 15% of disposable pay under 20 U.S.C. § 1095a for defaulted federal student loans), outside Alabama's court-garnishment statutes entirely |
None. Neither § 5-19-15 nor § 6-10-7 gives a debtor supporting dependents any additional wage protection beyond the standard formula. Alabama's separate $7,750 personal-property exemption (§ 6-10-6) is a different fund entirely and doesn't apply to wages |
Child/spousal support withholding automatically outranks an ordinary garnishment: § 30-3-67 gives a support withholding order priority over any writ of garnishment or other state legal process against the same income 'whether the writ of garnishment or other process was served prior or subsequent to the order,' and if a debtor faces both a support order and an ordinary garnishment or more than one support order, 'the current month's support payments shall be satisfied before any arrearages are satisfied.' For competing ordinary (non-support) garnishments, Alabama runs continuing garnishments, effectively a first-in-time queue rather than a shared-percentage split among simultaneous creditors |
Matches the federal one-debt floor for ordinary garnishment (15 U.S.C. § 1674) with no independent state-law extension found for consumer or non-consumer creditor garnishment. Child support withholding gets its own, separate state anti-discharge rule: § 30-3-70 bars firing an employee or refusing to hire someone 'because of the entry of an order of withholding or service of the same,' backed by contempt-of-court liability for a violating employer: broader than the federal one-debt limit and specific to support withholding |
| Alaska verified 2026-07-05 | AS 09.38.030 (the earnings exemption, including the nonresident carve-out); AS 09.38.050 (the increased, sole-support exemption); AS 09.38.115 (the CPI escalator that raises the dollar figures every two years); AS 09.38.035, § 09.38.040 (continuing lien on wages and priority between liens) |
An individual debtor is exempt for the GREATER of two protections: (1) a flat weekly dollar exemption, set in the statute at $350 but automatically increased under the AS 09.38.115 cost-of-living escalator — the Alaska Court System's own current garnishment notice form states the operative figure is $473/week (or $743/week if the debtor submits a sworn affidavit that their earnings alone support the household, per AS 09.38.050(b), itself escalated from a $550 base); or (2) 75% of the debtor's weekly disposable earnings (equivalent to a 25% garnishable share, matching the federal CCPA percentage). A creditor may levy on otherwise-exempt earnings only if the underlying claim is a support/tax-type debt enforceable under AS 09.38.065(a)(1) or (3), or a Chapter 13 bankruptcy order (AS 09.38.030(c)) |
More protective than the federal floor via the flat-dollar exemption, which Alaska adjusts for inflation every two years — a mechanism no other state built in this topic uses. The percentage prong (75% exempt / 25% garnishable) simply restates the federal share rather than cutting it further. Alaska is not a bar state. Notably, Alaska's OWN flat-dollar floor doesn't apply to a nonresident debtor at all: for a nonresident, the plain federal 25%/30x-minimum-wage formula governs instead (AS 09.38.030(d)) — a genuine two-tier system based on residency not seen elsewhere in this topic |
Alaska doesn't use a minimum-wage multiplier at all for residents; instead it uses the CPI-escalated flat dollar amount described above ($473/week, or $743/week with the sole-support affidavit) as the low-income floor. Only a NONRESIDENT debtor falls back to the federal 30x-federal-minimum-wage floor, per AS 09.38.030(d)'s cross-reference to 15 U.S.C. § 1673 |
The ordinary exemptions in AS 09.38.030(a)-(b) don't apply to a creditor whose claim is enforceable against exempt property under AS 09.38.065(a)(1) or (3) (these cover support and certain other statutorily-preferred claims) or to a Chapter 13 bankruptcy order (AS 09.38.030(c)). Separately, the state may execute a restitution or civil judgment against money held for an INCARCERATED debtor in a correctional-facility account, in a set statutory priority order: dependents' support first, then court-ordered restitution or fines, then civil judgments from the debtor's criminal conduct, then other state litigation judgments (AS 09.38.030(f)). Federal student loan wage garnishment and ordinary tax levies proceed through their own separate channels |
Alaska's sole-support affidavit under AS 09.38.050(b) functions as its head-of-household protection: an individual who swears, under penalty of perjury, that their earnings alone support their household gets the flat weekly exemption raised from $473 to $743 (base figures $350 and $550, both CPI-escalated). This is a genuine, real exemption bump tied to being the sole earner for a household, distinct from a percentage cut |
Alaska uses a continuing-lien-plus-priority system: once a garnishee's answer shows the debtor is employed there, the judgment becomes a continuing lien on the debtor's future nonexempt earnings until the writ amount is satisfied (AS 09.38.035(a)). That lien 'has priority over any subsequent garnishment lien or wage assignment' (AS 09.38.040) — a second garnishment on a DIFFERENT debt must wait until the first lien terminates, and a second writ in the SAME cause of action served while a lien from an earlier writ in that same case is still pending has no effect at all |
No Alaska statute specific to wage garnishment protecting against discharge was found in the Alaska Exemptions Act (AS 09.38) or Title 23 (Labor and Workers' Compensation); only the federal floor applies (15 U.S.C. § 1674, barring discharge for a first garnishment on one debt) |
| Arizona verified 2026-07-05 | Wage-exemption cap in Title 33 (Property), A.R.S. § 33-1131; garnishment procedure in Title 12, §§ 12-1598 to 12-1598.17. Both rewritten by voter-approved Proposition 209 (Predatory Debt Collection Protection Act), effective December 5, 2022 |
Lesser of 10% of disposable earnings for the week, or the amount disposable earnings exceed 60x the applicable minimum hourly wage (§ 33-1131(B)) — down from a pre-2022 25%/30x formula. A court may reduce the 10% to not less than 5% on clear and convincing evidence of extreme economic hardship (§ 12-1598.10(F)) |
Dramatically more protective than the federal 25%/30x formula on both prongs: a 10% ceiling instead of 25%, and a 60x multiplier (versus federal law's 30x) applied to whichever of the federal, state, or local minimum wage is highest, not just the federal rate. Since Proposition 209, Arizona is one of the most protective states in the country on this dimension |
60x the highest of the federal minimum hourly wage ($7.25), Arizona's own state minimum wage ($15.15/hour in 2026), or an applicable local minimum wage where the debtor works (Flagstaff and Tucson both set their own, higher local minimum wage). At the statewide rate that floor is $909.00/week; it's higher for a debtor working in Flagstaff or Tucson |
A support order isn't subject to the ordinary cap at all — instead, 50% of disposable earnings is exempt, so up to 50% can be garnished (§ 33-1131(C)). A bankruptcy-court order and any state or federal tax debt are also carved out of the cap entirely, with no percentage limit under this section (§ 33-1131(D)). Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment (15%, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) proceeds independently of this chapter |
None tied specifically to the wage-garnishment percentage. Proposition 209 substantially raised Arizona's separate personal-property and bank-account exemption amounts (e.g., the single-account bank exemption rose from $300 to $5,000), but those are general asset exemptions a debtor claims independently, not an add-on to the § 33-1131 wage formula, and are outside this survey's scope |
Generally first-in-time: conflicting garnishments and levies rank by priority in time of service (§ 12-1598.14(A)) — but a wage assignment, garnishment, or levy for the support of a person always outranks one that isn't for support, regardless of timing (§ 12-1598.14(B)). If a junior garnishment recovers nothing for two consecutive paydays because of these priority rules, that junior lien becomes invalid (§ 12-1598.14(C)) |
No independent Arizona statute was found specific to discharge over an ordinary wage garnishment — several consumer-facing summaries describe an anti-discharge rule as 'Arizona law,' but none point to a distinct state provision beyond the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674), which bars discharge for a single garnishment only |
| Arkansas verified 2026-07-05 | No independent state percentage cap for ordinary garnishment — the federal formula, 15 U.S.C. § 1673, applies directly; laborer/mechanic wage exemption, Ark. Code § 16-66-208; garnishment procedure chapter, Ark. Code §§ 16-110-401 et seq., with a first-in-time priority rule at § 16-110-109 |
The plain federal cap applies (Arkansas hasn't enacted a lower one): lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which earnings exceed 30x the federal minimum hourly wage. Laborers and mechanics may instead claim the first $25/week of net wages as absolutely exempt, plus up to 60 days' wages if that total doesn't exceed Arkansas's $500 (married/head of family) or $200 (single) constitutional exemption (Ark. Code § 16-66-208) |
Adopts the federal formula by default — Arkansas has no separate, stricter state percentage for ordinary judgment creditors. Laborers and mechanics have an alternative state-law exemption (§ 16-66-208) they can invoke instead of the federal test if it protects more of their pay, though most debtors still do better under the federal formula |
30x the federal minimum hourly wage — $217.50/week at $7.25/hour — the plain federal multiplier; Arkansas has not adopted its own higher multiplier or its own minimum wage for this calculation |
Child and spousal support income withholding is capped at the federal support tiers (50-65% of disposable earnings depending on arrears and other dependents) and by statute outranks every other legal process against the same income (Ark. Code § 9-14-219); state or federal tax debt and bankruptcy proceedings are collected through their own separate processes outside this chapter |
No wage-specific head-of-household exemption. 'Head of family' status instead raises the constitutional PERSONAL PROPERTY exemption used to cap the § 16-66-208 laborer/mechanic wage exemption — $500 for a married person or head of family versus $200 for a single person (Ark. Code § 16-66-218(b)) |
Strict first-in-time: competing orders of attachment or garnishment against the same debtor are executed in the order the sheriff or other officer received them (Ark. Code § 16-110-109), except that a child-support income-withholding order always takes priority over every other legal process regardless of when it arrived (§ 9-14-219) |
No independent Arkansas statute protects an employee from discharge over an ordinary judgment garnishment — only the federal rule applies (bars discharge for a single garnishment, 15 U.S.C. § 1674). Arkansas separately fines an employer up to $50/day for firing a parent because of a child-support income-withholding order (Ark. Code § 9-14-222(d)(6)), but that specific protection doesn't extend to ordinary creditor garnishments |
| California verified 2026-07-05 | Wage Garnishment Law, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. §§ 706.010–706.154 (cap: § 706.050); anti-retaliation rule in Cal. Lab. Code § 2929 |
Lesser of 20% of weekly disposable earnings, or 40% of the amount disposable earnings exceed 48x the applicable minimum wage (CCP § 706.050) |
More protective on both prongs than the federal 25%/30x formula (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)) |
48x the state minimum hourly wage, or the local minimum wage if higher where the debtor works (CCP § 706.050(a)(2)) |
Support orders (CCP § 706.030) outrank all others and can reach 50-65% under federal law; state tax orders run on a separate track (CCP § 706.070 et seq.); federal tax levies and federal student loan garnishment bypass this chapter entirely |
No fixed dollar threshold; instead a discretionary, need-based exemption for earnings proven necessary to support the debtor or family (CCP § 706.051), unavailable against a support or state tax order |
Strict first-in-time priority — the employer honors the first order served and a later ordinary order is ineffective until it's satisfied (CCP § 706.023), except a support order or elder/dependent-adult financial abuse order, which jump the queue |
Cal. Lab. Code § 2929 bars discharge for a single garnishment (matching federal law) and goes further: voids any weaker contract clause and awards up to 30 days' back wages for a wrongful discharge |
| Colorado verified 2026-07-05 | C.R.S. § 13-54-104 (the exemption formula, disposable-earnings definitions, and the carve-outs for support, bankruptcy, and tax debt) works together with Article 54.5 (§§ 13-54.5-101 to -111), which creates the continuing-garnishment writ itself, its 182-day duration, notice and hearing procedures, priority among competing writs (§ 13-54.5-104), and the anti-discharge rule (§ 13-54.5-110) |
Under § 13-54-104(2)(a)(I), for an ordinary debt the reachable amount is the LEAST of: (A) 20% of disposable earnings for the week; (B) the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 40 times the federal minimum hourly wage; or (C) the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 40 times the Colorado state minimum hourly wage. Because Colorado's own minimum wage is higher than the federal rate, option (C) is the smallest number and effectively controls, locking the exemption to the state's higher wage floor. A debtor can also petition under § 13-54-104(2)(a)(I)(D) for an even larger exemption by proving actual necessary living expenses make the standard cut insufficient |
More protective than federal law on both axes at once, the product of a 2020 reform (HB 19-1189, effective October 1, 2020): the reachable percentage dropped from the federal 25% to 20%, and the minimum-wage multiplier rose from the federal 30x to 40x, and because that 40x multiplier is applied against whichever of the state or federal minimum wage produces the smaller garnishable amount, Colorado's own (currently higher) minimum wage effectively sets the real-dollar floor rather than the lower federal rate |
40 times the minimum hourly wage: the statute lists both the federal rate (29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1)) and Colorado's own constitutional minimum wage (Colo. Const. art. XVIII, § 15) as alternative multiplier bases, and because the whole formula is a 'lesser of' test, the higher of the two rates ends up controlling in practice. Colorado's current minimum wage is $15.16/hour (adjusted annually), well above the $7.25 federal rate, so the 40x-state floor is the one that actually protects a low-wage Colorado worker's paycheck |
Section 13-54-104(3) excludes support orders, debts under a federal chapter 13 bankruptcy plan, and any state or federal tax debt from the ordinary 20%/40x cap entirely. Support garnishment instead follows its own tiers written directly into the same statute, § 13-54-104(3)(b): 50% of disposable earnings if supporting another spouse or child, 60% if not, rising to 55%/65% if arrears predate the current 12-week period: the federal CCPA support percentages, codified into Colorado's own text rather than left to a cross-reference. A debtor who is totally and permanently disabled, with at least 75% of income from disability benefits, can separately petition to reduce even that support percentage. A THIRD, distinct category exists for debts for fraudulently obtained public assistance: the lesser of 35% of disposable earnings or the amount over 30 times the federal or state minimum wage (§ 13-54-104(2)(a)(II)). Federal student loan administrative garnishment (15% of disposable pay, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) proceeds under independent federal authority |
Not a fixed per-dependent dollar figure, but a hardship-hearing process aimed at the same goal: under § 13-54-104(2)(a)(I)(D), a debtor can file a written objection and get a hearing where the court must determine whether post-garnishment earnings, combined with any other family income, are insufficient to cover actual necessary living expenses from the 60 days before the hearing: the statute lists rent or mortgage, utilities, food and household supplies, medical and dental expenses, child care, clothing, education, transportation, and maintenance, alimony, or child support as the expenses the court must weigh. If the court finds insufficiency, it must order MORE of the debtor's earnings exempt than the standard 20%/40x formula would otherwise protect |
Only one continuing garnishment writ is satisfied at a time. Section 13-54.5-104(1)(a): when more than one writ has been issued against the same debtor's earnings, they are satisfied strictly in the order they were served on the garnishee, and a lien from an earlier-served writ outranks any later one. If a garnishment is paused by written agreement between creditor and debtor, it keeps its priority over any writ served during that pause. Two categories cut ahead of this ordinary queue regardless of service date: a child-support continuing garnishment always has top priority, and a garnishment for fraudulently obtained public assistance outranks every other garnishment except child support |
Colorado's rule, like a handful of other states surveyed, is broader than the federal one-debt limit: § 13-54.5-110 bars an employer from discharging an employee because a creditor 'subjected or attempted to subject' the employee's earnings to garnishment, with no limitation to a first or single garnishment. A violation gives the employee a private right to sue within 91 days for reinstatement plus lost wages (capped at six weeks), costs, and reasonable attorney fees: a civil remedy, not a criminal penalty |
| Connecticut verified 2026-07-05 | Wage execution: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-361a (cap and priority: subsection (f); anti-discharge: subsection (j)); support income withholding: § 52-362; Connecticut minimum wage definition: § 31-58(i) |
Lesser of 25% of disposable earnings for the week, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 40x the higher of the federal minimum hourly wage or Connecticut's own minimum fair wage (§ 52-361a(f)) |
Matches the federal 25% ceiling, but is more protective on the second prong: a 40x-minimum-wage cushion instead of the federal 30x, using whichever of the federal or Connecticut minimum wage is higher (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)) |
40x the higher of the federal minimum hourly wage or Connecticut's own minimum fair wage under § 31-58(i), which is adjusted periodically and typically exceeds the federal rate — a bigger protected floor than most states' 30x-federal formula |
Child support and alimony income withholding under § 52-362 follows the federal CCPA percentages (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings, § 52-362(c)(1)(F)), but guarantees an extra floor: 85% of the first $145 of weekly disposable income is exempt even from a support withholding (§ 52-362(c)(1)(E)); federal tax levies and federal student loans use their own separate federal process |
No dedicated head-of-household or family-size exemption; a debtor can move under § 52-361a(h) for a court-ordered modification of the execution 'as is reasonable,' a general discretionary route rather than a defined family-support standard |
Strict first-in-time — 'Only one execution under this section shall be satisfied at one time,' with priority set by the order the executions were presented to the employer (§ 52-361a(f)) |
Unusually protective: § 52-361a(j) bars discipline, suspension, or discharge over a wage execution unless the employer is served with MORE THAN SEVEN wage executions against the employee in a calendar year — far beyond the federal single-garnishment rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| Delaware verified 2026-07-05 | 10 Del. C. § 4913 (the 85%/15% wage exemption, the one-attachment-at-a-time rule, and the definition of wages); 13 Del. C. § 513(a)(7) (child/spousal support attachments excluded from § 4913's limits) |
85% of wages is exempt from attachment or execution process, meaning an ordinary judgment creditor can reach at most 15% of a debtor's wages (10 Del. C. § 4913(a)). In practice, Delaware's Justice of the Peace Courts apply a further check on top of the bare 15% figure: the court's own official wage-attachment worksheet directs computing BOTH 15% of disposable earnings AND the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times Delaware's minimum hourly wage, then attaching whichever of the two figures is smaller — the same two-part shape as the federal test, but substituting Delaware's own 15% and its own (higher) minimum wage for the federal 25%/30x-federal-minimum-wage numbers. Only one wage attachment may run against a debtor's wages at a time (§ 4913(b)) |
More protective than the federal floor on the percentage prong (15% vs. the federal 25%), and Delaware's practice of also checking earnings against 30 times its OWN (higher) minimum wage — rather than only the lower federal minimum wage — makes the low-income floor more protective too. Delaware is not a bar state; a creditor can still reach 15% of earnings above the protected floor |
30 times Delaware's own minimum hourly wage, applied through the state courts' own two-part wage-attachment calculation (grounded in 10 Del. C. § 4913(a) together with 15 U.S.C. §§ 1673, 1677 and 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)) rather than a standalone number written into § 4913 itself. Because Delaware's minimum wage runs higher than the federal minimum wage, this floor protects more of a low-wage debtor's paycheck than the plain federal 30x-federal-minimum-wage test would |
Child support, medical support, and unallocated alimony/child support attachments are excluded from § 4913's exemptions and limitations entirely (13 Del. C. § 513(a)(7)) — they are capped instead only by the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act support ceilings (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b): 50-65% depending on other dependents and arrears), and a support attachment has priority over any other attachment except a federal tax lien, regardless of which was perfected first. Section 4913(a) also expressly excludes process for the collection of a fine, costs, or taxes owed to the State from its 85% wage exemption. Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment runs through its own separate channel outside this chapter |
None specific to the wage-attachment percentage itself. Delaware's separate head-of-family exemption (10 Del. C. § 4903) protects an ADDITIONAL $500 of other personal property selected by the debtor, on top of the general exemptions in § 4902 — but it doesn't add any extra cut to the 15%-of-wages figure in § 4913 |
Only one wage attachment may be made on a debtor's wages at a time (10 Del. C. § 4913(b)) — a genuinely stricter rule than a simple first-in-time priority list, since a second ordinary creditor cannot even attach wages while a first attachment is pending. The creditor who obtained the existing attachment 'shall have the benefit of priority until the judgment with costs for which the attachment was made has been paid in full.' Child and spousal support attachments are the one exception: they outrank any other attachment (except a federal tax lien) regardless of which was perfected first (13 Del. C. § 513(a)(7)) |
No Delaware statute specific to ordinary wage attachment protecting against discharge was found — only the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674, barring discharge for a first garnishment on one debt) applies |
| District of Columbia verified 2026-07-06 | D.C. Code § 16-572 (cap and priority); § 16-572.01 (hardship exemption motion); § 16-573 (employer withholding duty); § 16-584 (anti-discharge) |
25% of the amount by which weekly disposable wages exceed 40 times the applicable minimum hourly wage (D.C. Code § 16-572(1)(A)); no withholding at all if disposable wages don't exceed that 40x floor (§ 16-573(d)) |
More protective than the federal 25%/30x formula (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)) — D.C. only takes 25% of the excess above a bigger, 40x floor, rather than up to the full excess above 30x |
40 times the D.C. minimum hourly wage set under D.C. Code § 32-1003, in effect when wages are payable |
Support judgments are exempt from § 16-572's percentage cap and instead limited to 50% of gross wages, with IV-D child support withholding orders (Title 46, Ch. 2) taking priority over other process and following the federal CCPA support cap, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b) (D.C. Code § 16-577); federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative wage garnishment operate under separate federal authority outside this chapter |
No automatic head-of-household dollar exemption; instead a judgment debtor may file a motion claiming undue financial hardship (D.C. Code § 16-572.01), with a presumption of hardship if the debtor receives listed public-assistance benefits |
Only one attachment on a debtor's wages may be satisfied at a time; where more than one is issued, the one first delivered to the marshal has priority and the rest wait in that order (D.C. Code §§ 16-572(3)-(4), 16-507(b)) |
D.C. Code § 16-584 bars firing an employee because a creditor has garnished or attempted to garnish wages for a judgment, with no cap limiting the protection to a single garnishment — broader than the federal rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| Florida verified 2026-07-05 | Wage garnishment exemption: Fla. Stat. § 222.11; support income-deduction system: Fla. Stat. §§ 61.12, 61.1301 |
For most earners: the federal cap adopted by reference (lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount over 30x federal minimum wage, Fla. Stat. § 222.11(2)(c)); a head of family is fully exempt up to $750/week and needs a written waiver to be garnished above that |
Adopts the federal cap as-is for most earners, but layers a far more protective head-of-family exemption on top for anyone supporting a dependent |
Same as the federal formula it adopts: 30x the federal minimum hourly wage, with no separate Florida multiplier |
Alimony and child support run through a separate income-deduction-order system (Fla. Stat. §§ 61.12, 61.1301) capped at the higher federal support percentages (50-65% under 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)), plus an extra 20% of current support toward any arrearage |
One of the most protective in the country: all disposable earnings of a head of family at or under $750/week are fully exempt, and even above that threshold garnishment is barred unless the person signed a specific, strictly formatted written waiver (Fla. Stat. § 222.11(2)); exempt earnings stay protected for 6 months after deposit if traceable (§ 222.11(3)) |
For support garnishments specifically, Fla. Stat. § 61.1301(4) prorates available income among multiple obligee families by each family's share of total current support owed once combined demands exceed the cap, giving current support priority over arrears; ordinary creditor garnishments have no separate statutory stacking rule in this chapter |
Beyond the federal single-garnishment rule, Florida makes disciplining an employee over a continuing alimony/child-support garnishment a contempt of court (Fla. Stat. § 61.12(2)) and separately imposes a $250-$500 civil penalty plus a private right to sue for reinstatement and lost wages for firing over a support income deduction order (§ 61.1301(2)(j)) — protections not limited to a single garnishment |
| Georgia verified 2026-07-05 | O.C.G.A. § 18-4-5 sets the substantive cap and the anti-discharge rule; § 18-4-6 covers exempt property (including retirement funds); § 18-4-4 sets the garnishment periods (179 days for a continuing wage garnishment); § 18-4-18 resolves competing claims to the same garnished fund; support garnishment runs through a separate track, Article 3 of the same chapter (§§ 18-4-50 et seq.) |
The lesser of 25% of the defendant's disposable earnings for the week (15% if the underlying judgment arose from a private student loan) or the amount by which disposable earnings for the week exceed $217.50 (O.C.G.A. § 18-4-5(a)) |
Essentially matches the federal floor rather than exceeding it — same 25%/30x-minimum-wage shape as 15 U.S.C. § 1673 — with one added protection the federal statute doesn't have: a separate, lower 15% cap specifically for judgments arising from private (non-federally-guaranteed) student loans |
A fixed $217.50 per week, written directly into the statute rather than as 'thirty times the current federal minimum hourly wage' the way many other states phrase it; § 18-4-5(a)(3) confirms this figure is calculated at 30 hours per week at $7.25 per hour and prorated for other pay periods, but the dollar amount itself doesn't move automatically if the federal minimum wage changes — it would take a further amendment to this statute to update it |
Support garnishments run through a separate procedural track (continuing garnishment for support, Article 3) and can reach up to 50% of disposable earnings under the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act's support tiers (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)), well above the ordinary 25%/$217.50 cap; retirement and pension funds are exempt from garnishment until actually distributed to the member, and even then are only exempt to the same extent as ordinary disposable earnings (O.C.G.A. § 18-4-6(a)(2)); federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative garnishment reach Georgia wages under separate federal authority |
None as a distinct dimension — Georgia's ordinary cap in § 18-4-5 applies the same way regardless of dependents or household status, with no additional family-support exemption layered on top of it |
The ordinary 25%/$217.50 cap applies in the aggregate even if the garnishee is served with more than one ordinary garnishment naming the same defendant — it isn't multiplied per creditor (O.C.G.A. § 18-4-5(b)) — but that combined-cap rule doesn't apply to a continuing garnishment for support, which runs on its own track; where competing garnishment claims reach the same deposited money or property, the claimant with the OLDEST ENTERED JUDGMENT has priority to it, not whoever filed the garnishment first (O.C.G.A. § 18-4-18) |
O.C.G.A. § 18-4-5(c) bars discharging an employee because earnings were garnished 'for any one obligation, even though more than one summons of garnishment may be served upon such employer with respect to the obligation' — protecting against firing over repeated summonses tied to the SAME debt, though still limited to a single underlying obligation like the federal rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| Hawaii verified 2026-07-05 | Haw. Rev. Stat. § 652-1(a)(4) (tiered wage-garnishment formula); § 378-32(a)(1) (anti-discharge); § 576E-16(c) (support withholding priority, overriding chapter 652) |
A tiered formula on wages remaining after legally required deductions: 5% of the first $100 per month, 10% of the next $100 per month, and 20% of everything over $200 per month, or an equivalent weekly portion (§ 652-1(a)(4)). The employer must also compute the federal CCPA test (lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount over 30x the federal minimum wage) and apply whichever calculation results in a smaller amount withheld — confirmed by the Hawaii Judiciary's own official Garnishee Information form |
Hawaii's tiered percentages (topping out at 20%) are generally more protective than the federal 25% cap for typical incomes, since the statute requires using whichever formula is more favorable to the employee. Because Hawaii's dollar tiers ($100/$200 per month) are small and don't scale with the minimum wage, the federal 30x-minimum-wage floor can occasionally protect more at the low end of earnings, which is exactly why employers must run both calculations rather than assuming the state formula always wins |
Hawaii's own formula doesn't use a minimum-wage multiplier at all — it exempts the first $200 of monthly wages outright (graduated at 5%/10%) before the 20% tier applies. The federal 30x-minimum-wage floor ($217.50/week at $7.25/hour) still applies as the alternative test an employer must compare against |
Support withholding is a wholly separate mechanism, not limited by the ordinary § 652-1 cap at all: an income withholding or notice-to-withhold-child-support order 'shall have priority as against any garnishment, attachment, execution, or other income withholding order, or any other order, and shall not be subject to the exemptions or restrictions contained in part III of chapter 651 and in chapters 652 and 653' (§ 576E-16(c)), and can reach the higher federal CCPA support percentages (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings, capped by § 303(b) of the CCPA). Tax debt and federal student loans are collected through their own separate administrative channels outside this ordinary-creditor process |
No head-of-household or family-support add-on to the ordinary tiered cap anywhere in chapter 652. Hawaii's separate homestead exemption (§ 651-91) does give a bigger $30,000 exemption to a 'head of family' or someone 65 or older versus $20,000 for others, but that's a property/homestead exemption, unrelated to the wage-garnishment formula itself |
Priority between competing garnishments on the same wages runs by time of receipt by the garnishee, not a combined-cap or support-style override: the Hawaii Supreme Court has held that a successive garnishment served on a debtor's new employer under § 652-5 'has equal legal standing with an original garnishee summons; priority being determined according to time of receipt by garnishee' (City Collectors, Ltd. v. Maldonado, 50 Haw. 223, 437 P.2d 95 (1968)). Support withholding overrides this ordinary priority scheme entirely under § 576E-16(c) |
Broader than the federal rule: Hawaii bars an employer from suspending, discharging, or discriminating against an employee 'solely because the employer was summoned as a garnishee in a cause where the employee is the debtor' (§ 378-32(a)(1)) — the protection isn't limited to a first garnishment for one debt the way the federal 15 U.S.C. § 1674 rule is. A separate, narrower anti-discharge rule specific to child support withholding lives in § 576E-16(e) |
| Idaho verified 2026-07-05 | Idaho Code § 11-712 (2017 Garnishments chapter) and § 11-207 (older execution-exemptions chapter) — near-identical restatements of the wage cap; § 11-704 (continuing-garnishment priority) |
Lesser of 25% of disposable earnings for the workweek, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (§ 11-712(1)) — the plain federal CCPA formula, restated verbatim rather than cut further |
Adopts the federal 25%/30x-federal-min-wage test exactly, with no lower percentage or higher floor of its own; the support-order percentages (50/55/60/65%) also match the federal CCPA support tiers verbatim |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage prescribed by 29 U.S.C.A. § 206(a)(1) — $217.50/week at $7.25/hour — not raised or tied to Idaho's own state minimum wage |
Support orders, bankruptcy Chapter XIII orders, and state or federal tax debt are all excepted from the ordinary cap entirely (§ 11-712(2)(a)); a support order instead caps at 50% of disposable earnings (55% with 12+ weeks of arrears) if supporting another spouse or child, or 60% (65% with arrears) if not (§ 11-712(2)(b)) |
None. Idaho's wage-garnishment statutes apply the same 25%/30x-min-wage formula regardless of whether the debtor supports a family |
First-in-time, enforced through a continuing-garnishment mechanism: an employer-garnishee pays a continuing garnishment until it's satisfied; if it's already withholding the statutory maximum, any additional garnishment can't be served until the continuing one is satisfied or drops below the cap, and additional garnishments are served in the order presented (§ 11-704) |
No independent Idaho statute bars firing an employee over an ordinary wage garnishment; only the federal rule applies, barring discharge for a single garnishment for one debt (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| Illinois verified 2026-07-05 | 735 ILCS 5/12-801 et seq. (Code of Civil Procedure, Article XII, Part 8, 'Wage Deductions') sets the cap, employer duties, and multi-order priority (§§ 12-803, 12-804, 12-808, 12-818); child/spousal support withholding runs through a separate statute, the Income Withholding for Support Act, 750 ILCS 28/20(c)(6) |
The lesser of (1) 15% of the debtor's gross wages for the work week, or (2) the amount by which disposable earnings for that week exceed 45 times the greater of the federal minimum hourly wage or the Illinois minimum hourly wage (735 ILCS 5/12-803) |
More protective than the federal floor on both prongs of the formula: Illinois caps at 15% of gross wages instead of 25% of disposable earnings, and protects earnings up to 45 times the applicable minimum wage instead of 30 times, while also using whichever of the federal or Illinois minimum wage is higher rather than the federal wage alone |
45 times the greater of the federal minimum hourly wage or the Illinois minimum hourly wage set under the Minimum Wage Law § 4, for a wage deduction summons served on or after January 1, 2006 (735 ILCS 5/12-803) |
Support withholding runs through the separate Income Withholding for Support Act and is capped at 'the maximum amount permitted under the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act' rather than any independent Illinois percentage (750 ILCS 28/20(c)(6)) — the same 50-65% federal support tiers depending on the obligor's other dependents and arrears; pension and retirement benefits, refunds, and required contributions are exempt from an ordinary wage deduction order regardless of the 15%/45x cap (735 ILCS 5/12-804); federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative garnishment reach Illinois wages under separate federal authority |
None on top of the general cap — Illinois's wage-deduction chapter has no separate head-of-household or family-support exemption; the retirement-benefit exemption in § 12-804 is a real additional protection but doesn't depend on dependents or household status, and no dependent-based dollar add-on exists elsewhere in the chapter |
A wage-deduction lien obtained under a summons has priority over any subsequent wage-deduction lien, except that a lien for the support of a spouse or dependent children outranks all other liens obtained under this chapter; where more than one summons is served on the same employer, they take effect and are satisfied in the order served (735 ILCS 5/12-808(b)) |
Matches the federal floor's limitation exactly rather than exceeding it: § 12-818 bars discharging or suspending an employee because earnings were subjected to a deduction order 'for any one indebtedness' — the same one-debt limitation as 15 U.S.C. § 1674, so Illinois doesn't extend its own protection to a second or subsequent deduction order; violating § 12-818 is a Class A misdemeanor |
| Indiana verified 2026-07-05 | IC 24-4.5-5-104 (garnishment requires a prior judgment) and IC 24-4.5-5-105 (the cap itself, plus the employer-fee and priority rules), both in the Uniform Consumer Credit Code, Title 24. Anti-discharge protection: IC 24-4.5-5-106 |
Under IC 24-4.5-5-105(2), the lesser of: (a) 25% of disposable earnings for the week, or, on a showing of good cause by the debtor, a court may cut that percentage to as low as 10%, or (b) the amount disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. The statute expressly caps garnishment 'to enforce the payment of one (1) or more judgments,' so multiple ordinary garnishments share this single combined ceiling rather than each getting their own |
Indiana restates the federal CCPA's own 25%/30x numbers as the starting point, but adds one genuine debtor-protective feature federal law doesn't have: a court may reduce the 25% figure to as low as 10% of disposable earnings on a showing of good cause (IC 24-4.5-5-105(2)(a)). A 2026 bill, SB 197, would have raised the minimum-wage multiplier from 30x to 83x, roughly quintupling the protected floor to about $600/week, and passed the Senate 32-13, but died in the House Judiciary Committee without a hearing before the session ended; current law is unchanged |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($7.25) = $217.50 of weekly disposable earnings protected. Indiana's own state minimum wage law (IC 22-2-2) has matched the federal $7.25 rate since 2009 and does not set a separate, higher figure, so the multiplier lands on the same $217.50 either way |
Child support (support withholding) doesn't compete on equal footing with an ordinary garnishment: 'A support withholding order takes priority over a garnishment order irrespective of their dates of entry or activation,' and an ordinary garnishment 'shall be honored only to the extent that' the support withholding hasn't already used up the statutory maximum (IC 24-4.5-5-105(8)). Support withholding itself is capped at the same federal CCPA support tiers, 50%/60% of disposable earnings, rising to 55%/65% if more than 12 weeks in arrears (IC 24-4.5-5-105(3)). This chapter doesn't address tax debt or federal student loans, which proceed through their own separate mechanisms, administrative wage garnishment for defaulted federal student loans caps at 15% of disposable pay without a court order (20 U.S.C. § 1095a(a)(1)) |
No exemption tied specifically to dependents or head-of-household status. Indiana's one significant extra protection, the good-cause reduction down to as low as 10% under IC 24-4.5-5-105(2)(a), is available to any debtor who can show good cause, not specifically tied to supporting a family, and is already covered under this survey's maximum-garnishment dimension rather than as a separate family add-on |
Indiana takes a genuinely different approach from states that rank garnishments strictly by filing date: IC 24-4.5-5-105(2)'s cap applies to enforce 'one (1) or more judgments' together, meaning multiple ordinary judgment creditors share a single combined ceiling rather than each competing for priority in time. (A related but separate provision, subsection (5), lets an employer charge one collection fee per judgment debt when deductions arise from a garnishment order or series of orders on that same debt.) Support withholding orders sit outside and above this combined pool entirely, automatically outranking any ordinary garnishment regardless of when each was entered (IC 24-4.5-5-105(8)) |
Broader than the federal floor on its face: IC 24-4.5-5-106 bars discharging an employee because 'a creditor OR CREDITORS' has subjected the employee's earnings to garnishment: language that, unlike the federal one-indebtedness limit (15 U.S.C. § 1674), is not expressly limited to a single garnishment. No Indiana appellate decision interpreting this specific 'creditor or creditors' phrase was found in this research, so this reading is based on the statute's plain text rather than case law construing it |
| Iowa verified 2026-07-05 | Iowa Code § 642.21 (weekly exemption, annual per-creditor cap, anti-discharge); § 537.5105 (Consumer Credit Code, consumer-debt weekly floor); § 626.3 (one execution at a time); § 642.24 (support payment priority) |
For non-consumer debt: lesser of 25% of weekly disposable earnings or the amount over 30x the federal minimum wage (§ 642.21(1)). For consumer debt: lesser of 25% or the amount over 40x the federal minimum wage (§ 537.5105(2)(a)). Either way, ALSO capped at a per-creditor ANNUAL dollar limit tied to the debtor's expected yearly earnings: $250/year under $12,000; $400 at $12,000-$15,999; $800 at $16,000-$23,999; $1,500 at $24,000-$34,999; $2,000 at $35,000-$49,999; 10% of expected earnings at $50,000+ (§ 642.21(1)) |
Matches the federal weekly formula for non-consumer debt, but is meaningfully more protective for consumer debt (40x vs. 30x minimum wage) and, uniquely in this survey, adds a hard annual dollar ceiling per creditor that can cut a high earner's effective garnishment far below 25% of a full year's disposable pay |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($217.50/week at $7.25/hour) for ordinary debt (§ 642.21(1)(b)); 40 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($290/week) for consumer-credit-transaction debt specifically (§ 537.5105(2)(a)) |
Support obligations under Iowa Code ch. 252D are entirely outside § 642.21's annual dollar cap and instead can reach the higher federal support percentages (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings under 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)); within any garnished funds, an amount owed for support must be paid first, before other garnishments, regardless of when each was filed (§ 642.24). State/federal tax debt and federal student loans follow their own separate administrative processes outside this ordinary-creditor cap |
No automatic head-of-household or family-support add-on to the ordinary cap. Instead, a debtor in a CONSUMER debt case may file a verified application asking the court for a bigger, individualized exemption, showing the additional amount is necessary for the maintenance of the consumer or a family the consumer supports; the court holds a hearing and grants or denies it case by case rather than applying a fixed statutory percentage or dollar add-on (§ 537.5105(4)) |
Only one execution may be in existence against a debtor at the same time (§ 626.3) — a second ordinary judgment creditor cannot even obtain a garnishment until the first execution is resolved, a stricter mechanism than a simple first-in-time priority rule. Support withholding operates outside this one-execution limit and is paid first from whatever is garnished (§ 642.24) |
An employer may not discharge an employee because the employee's earnings were subjected to garnishment for indebtedness (§ 642.21(2)(c)) — Iowa's text does not repeat the federal law's limit to a single indebtedness, so it reads as protection against discharge for garnishment generally, not just a first garnishment |
| Kansas verified 2026-07-07 | K.S.A. § 60-2310(b) (ordinary cap), § 60-2310(g) (support-order cap), § 60-2311 (anti-discharge) |
Lesser of 25% of the individual's aggregate disposable earnings for the workweek, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (§ 60-2310(b)) — the plain federal CCPA formula, with no state-specific reduction |
Adopts the federal 25%/30x-federal-minimum-wage test exactly, with no lower percentage or higher floor of its own; the support-order percentages in § 60-2310(g) also restate the federal CCPA support tiers (50/55/60/65%) verbatim |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (defined in § 60-2310(a)(4) by reference to FLSA § 6(a)(1)) — $217.50/week at $7.25/hour; the statute uses the federal wage, not any Kansas state minimum wage |
Support orders, bankruptcy Chapter XIII orders, and state or federal tax debt are excepted from the ordinary 25%/30x cap entirely (§ 60-2310(e)); a support order instead caps at 50% of disposable earnings (55% with 12+ weeks of arrears) if the debtor supports another spouse or child, or 60% (65% with arrears) if not (§ 60-2310(g)). Federal student-loan administrative wage garnishment (15% under 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) operates outside this statute entirely |
None. The only extra protection tied to a debtor's household is a temporary full suspension of garnishment — not a percentage exemption — while the debtor or a family member is too ill to work for more than two weeks, lasting until two months after recovery (§ 60-2310(c)) |
First-in-time. A single creditor can't issue more than one earnings garnishment against the same debtor within a 30-day period (§ 60-2310(b)); where an earlier garnishment or other wage lien already has priority, the garnishee withholds nothing on a later garnishment until the earlier one is released or satisfied (§ 60-737(c)) |
K.S.A. § 60-2311 bars an employer from discharging an employee because the employee's earnings were subjected to wage garnishment, with no limit to a single garnishment written into the state text — broader on its face than the federal floor, which only bars discharge for one garnishment for one debt (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| Kentucky verified 2026-07-05 | KRS § 427.010(2)-(3) (the garnishment cap and its carve-outs); § 427.140 (anti-discharge for a single garnishment); § 425.506 (priority among successive garnishment orders served on the same employer) |
The lesser of 25% of disposable earnings for the week, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (§ 427.010(2)): a direct restatement of the federal CCPA formula, applied uniformly to every kind of ordinary debt with no separate track for consumer credit transactions |
Matches the federal CCPA formula exactly; Kentucky is one of the states that simply adopts the federal rule as its own rather than imposing anything stricter or more protective |
30 times the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage ($7.25), so $217.50 for a weekly pay period, scaled up for longer pay periods by federal regulation: the same figure used nationwide, with no state minimum wage above the federal rate to substitute in |
Section 427.010(3) expressly exempts three categories from the ordinary 25%/30x-minimum-wage cap: any court order for support of any person, any Chapter 13 bankruptcy court order, and any debt due for state or federal tax: meaning support garnishment instead follows the federal CCPA's own higher tiers (50-65% of disposable earnings, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)), and tax debt is collected through the taxing authority's own separate levy process. Federal student loans follow their own independent federal mechanism (15% of disposable pay, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a), outside this statute entirely |
None. Section 427.010's cap applies the same way regardless of how many dependents a debtor supports; no per-dependent add-on or family-support exemption layers on top of the standard formula |
Strict first-in-time priority by date of SERVICE on the employer, not filing or judgment date: § 425.506(2) gives orders of attachment or garnishment of earnings priority 'according to the date of service on the employer, each inferior order taking effect as if served at the commencement of the next succeeding pay period not subject to a prior order': a fully sequential system where an earlier garnishment is paid off completely before a later one starts, not a shared percentage split. The same section bars a creditor from having two of its own orders served on the employer against the same employee in the same pay period |
Matches the federal floor exactly with no independent state extension: § 427.140 bars discharging an employee 'by reason of the fact that his earnings have been subjected to garnishment for any one (1) indebtedness': the same single-debt limit as 15 U.S.C. § 1674, not broadened to cover a second or third garnishment the way some states' statutes do |
| Louisiana verified 2026-07-05 | La. R.S. 13:3881(A)(1) (general wage-exemption formula, applies to all ordinary debt); La. R.S. 23:731 (anti-discharge/termination protection for ordinary garnishments, Title 23 Labor); La. R.S. 46:236.3 (child/spousal support income assignment, priority, and its own anti-discharge rule) |
R.S. 13:3881(A)(1)(a) exempts 75% of disposable earnings for any week, 'but in no case shall this exemption be less than' 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage: meaning a creditor can reach at most the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above 30x the federal minimum wage. One uniform rule for all ordinary private debt; Louisiana doesn't distinguish consumer credit debt from other debt types the way Alabama or Iowa do |
Matches the federal CCPA formula exactly rather than exceeding it: Louisiana's own statute states the identical lesser-of-25%-or-30x-federal-minimum-wage rule directly, rather than relying on the independently-operating federal floor to fill a gap. Not more protective than federal law for an ordinary judgment creditor |
30 times the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage ($7.25), so $217.50/week for a weekly pay period: the same figure used nationwide, stated directly in R.S. 13:3881(A)(1)(a) rather than left to state minimum wage (Louisiana has no state minimum wage above the federal rate) |
Child and spousal support use Louisiana's own percentages, written directly into R.S. 13:3881(A)(1)(a) rather than a cross-reference to federal law: the exemption for a current or past-due CHILD support obligation is 50% of disposable earnings (so 50% reachable), and for a SPOUSAL or former-spousal support obligation it's 60% exempt (so 40% reachable): split by the TYPE of support obligation, not by whether the obligor supports a second family the way the federal CCPA tiers work, and with no additional arrears-based bump written into the state formula. Federal tax debt and defaulted federal student loans proceed under independent federal authority outside this framework; student-loan administrative garnishment is capped at 15% of disposable pay under 20 U.S.C. § 1095a |
None. The 75%/30x-federal-minimum-wage formula applies uniformly regardless of how many dependents a debtor supports; Louisiana's separate personal-property exemptions (household goods, one vehicle up to $7,500 in equity, firearms up to $2,500, etc., also in R.S. 13:3881) are a different pool of assets and don't add anything to the wage exemption itself |
Ordinary garnishments run as a single continuing seizure (R.S. 13:3923: one writ suffices 'until the indebtedness is paid'), and R.S. 13:3925 treats an employer's own prior, liquidated debt owed BY the employee as functioning like a prior garnishment that must be paid off before a later garnishment can attach, but that ranking rule expressly 'shall not grant a preference over the enforcement of child support.' Support withholding is different: R.S. 46:236.3(H) gives a support order 'preference to any other garnishment proceeding' outright, and when a debtor faces more than one support withholding order at once, R.S. 46:236.3(E)(5) prorates them rather than fully satisfying one before the next, giving current support priority over arrears on a pro-rata basis if funds run short |
R.S. 23:731(C) bars firing (or refusing to hire) someone over a single garnishment or voluntary earnings assignment, and gives a wrongfully-discharged employee a right to REINSTATEMENT AND BACK PAY, broader than the federal remedy, but the same statute explicitly allows an employer to discharge an employee once earnings are 'subjected to three or more garnishments for unrelated debts in a two year period' (excluding any garnishment tied to an accident or illness causing 10+ consecutive missed workdays), a codified numeric threshold most states leave unaddressed. Child support withholding gets its own, separate, unconditional protection instead: R.S. 46:236.3(J) bars discharging, disciplining, or penalizing an employee over a support withholding duty with no 'three garnishments' exception, backed by a court-ordered fine of up to $50/day and mandatory reinstatement or restitution (§ 46:236.3(K)) |
| Maine verified 2026-07-05 | 14 M.R.S. § 3126-A (installment payment order and its earnings cap); § 3127-B (order to employer or payor of earnings); § 3121 (definitions) |
Maine has no direct wage-garnishment order for ordinary debt; instead a court sets a periodic installment payment after a disclosure hearing. Under § 3126-A(3), the maximum any workweek's installment order can reach is the LEAST of: (A) 25% of the sum of the debtor's disposable earnings and certain exempt income (Social Security, unemployment, veterans' and disability benefits, support received, and some retirement-plan payments); (B) the amount by which that same sum exceeds 40 times the higher of the federal or Maine minimum hourly wage; or (C) the debtor's total disposable earnings. An employer then withholds under § 3127-B the lesser of the court-ordered installment amount or the maximum the formula allows |
More protective than the federal CCPA floor. Maine still uses a 25%-of-earnings prong like the federal test, but its minimum-wage-protected floor is 40 times the applicable minimum wage rather than the federal 30x, and it lets an order reach only certain exempt income sources counted toward the percentage cap rather than exempt earnings directly. It is not a bar state: an ordinary creditor can still reach disposable earnings above the protected floor |
40 times the minimum hourly wage prescribed by 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) (federal) or by 26 M.R.S. § 664 (Maine's own minimum wage), whichever is higher at the time the earnings are payable (§ 3126-A(3)(B)) — a bigger protected floor than the federal 30x multiplier whenever Maine's minimum wage (higher than the federal minimum) applies |
Child and spousal support orders are excluded from the ordinary § 3126-A(3) cap entirely (§ 3126-A(6)(A)) and instead follow their own, higher ceiling in § 3126-A(7): 50% of disposable earnings if the debtor is supporting another spouse or child, or 60% if not, rising to 55%/65% if the support arrears predate the current 12-week period — matching the federal CCPA support ceilings exactly. Bankruptcy Chapter 13 trustee orders and state or federal tax debts are also excluded from the ordinary cap (§ 3126-A(6)(B)-(C)) and proceed under their own separate mechanisms. Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment likewise runs outside this chapter |
No separate formula-based head-of-household exemption on top of the ordinary cap. Instead, § 3126-A(4)(A) lets the court, when actually setting the dollar amount of an installment order (which can be anywhere up to the § 3126-A(3) ceiling), take into account 'the reasonable requirements of the judgment debtor and the judgment debtor's dependents' as one discretionary factor among several — a case-by-case reduction, not a guaranteed dollar or percentage exemption for supporting a family |
No fixed first-in-time statute for installment orders. Because every order is individually set by a court after a hearing, § 3126-A(4)(B)-(C) directs the court to take into account, as factors, 'any payments the judgment debtor is required to make to satisfy other judgment orders or wage assignments' and 'other judgment orders or wage assignments that have priority' when deciding how much a new order should require — meaning competing claims on the same paycheck are resolved by judicial discretion at each hearing rather than an automatic rule. Support orders under § 3126-A(7) are excluded from the ordinary cap and are not limited by an earlier ordinary order |
Maine's own statute protects an employee whose earnings are withheld under a § 3127-B order: 'No employer may discharge any employee because his earnings are subject to an order under this section' (§ 3127-B(6)), with no stated limit to a single garnishment the way the federal rule has. This is on top of, and broader than, the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674, which only bars discharge for a first garnishment on one debt) |
| Maryland verified 2026-07-05 | Md. Code, Com. Law §§ 15-601 to 15-607 (definitions, the exemption formula, lien effect, priority among writs, and anti-discharge); child/spousal support withholding runs through Family Law §§ 10-120 to 10-128 instead; a state income-tax wage lien runs through Tax-Gen. § 13-811, which borrows the same § 15-601.1 exemption |
Com. Law § 15-601.1 exempts the GREATER of: 75% of disposable wages due, or 30 times Maryland's State minimum hourly wage ($15.00, so $450) multiplied by the number of weeks the wages were earned: plus any medical-insurance payment the employer deducts. That leaves the LESSER of 25% of disposable wages or the amount over the 30x-state-minimum-wage floor actually reachable. One uniform statewide rule applies; an older version that gave most of the state only a fixed $145/week floor while four Eastern Shore counties used 30x the FEDERAL minimum wage no longer appears in the current text |
The 75%-exempt/25%-reachable split is numerically the same as the federal CCPA's 25% prong, but Maryland ties its wage-floor prong to the STATE minimum hourly wage ($15.00) instead of the federal rate ($7.25), so the protected floor, 30 x $15.00 = $450/week, is more than double the federal $217.50/week floor. Maryland is uniformly more protective than federal law here without cutting the percentage itself the way California or Colorado did |
30 times Maryland's own STATE minimum hourly wage, currently $15.00 under Lab. & Empl. § 3-413(c)(1)(ii), multiplied by the number of weeks in which the wages were earned: $450 for a weekly pay period, doubling for biweekly pay. The multiplier is tied to the statewide rate specifically, not the federal rate and not any higher COUNTY minimum wage; several Maryland counties (Montgomery, Howard, Prince George's) set higher local minimums, but unlike California's local-minimum-wage rule, a Maryland debtor's protected floor doesn't rise just because they work in one of those counties |
Child and spousal support withholding follows the federal CCPA's own higher tiers, Family Law § 10-122(c) directs the withholding agency to allocate available amounts 'giving priority to current support, up to the limits imposed by the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act', so support garnishment can reach 50-65% of disposable earnings depending on arrears and second-family status, with no separate Maryland percentage. A Comptroller income-tax wage lien (Tax-Gen. § 13-811) is a notable exception to the usual pattern where tax debt cuts deeper: it excludes only 'the amount exempt from attachment provided in § 15-601.1', the SAME formula as an ordinary judgment creditor, not a bigger bite. Federal IRS levies and federal student-loan administrative wage garnishment (15% of disposable pay, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) proceed under independent federal authority, unconstrained by Maryland's cap |
None. Section 15-601.1's exemption formula applies uniformly no matter how many dependents a debtor supports: there's no per-dependent add-on or deeper cut like Missouri's 10% head-of-family rule or Florida's near-total exemption. Maryland's general personal-property exemptions, including the $6,000 'wildcard' (Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 11-504(b)(6)), don't fill the gap either: § 11-504(e) expressly provides that 'the exemptions in this section do not apply to wage attachments,' so a debtor supporting a family gets no extra wage-specific protection beyond the same formula everyone else gets |
Strictly first-in-time by the date of SERVICE on the employer, not the filing or judgment date: Com. Law § 15-603(b) requires that attachments 'be satisfied in the order in which they were served,' and 'each prior attachment must be satisfied before any effect can be given to a subsequent attachment': a fully sequential system, not a combined-percentage split among simultaneous creditors |
Matches the federal floor, no discharge over garnishment for a single indebtedness, under Com. Law § 15-606(a), which tracks 15 U.S.C. § 1674's one-debt limit rather than extending it. Maryland backs this with its own criminal penalty: a willful violator 'is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction is subject to a fine not exceeding $1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both' (§ 15-606(b)), a real state enforcement layer federal law doesn't add on its own |
| Massachusetts verified 2026-07-05 | Wage/pension exemption: M.G.L. c. 246, § 28. Trustee-process procedure: M.G.L. c. 246 generally and Mass. R. Civ. P. 4.2 (wages may only be trusteed on a claim already reduced to judgment, c. 246 § 32 Eighth). Support-order trustee process is separate: M.G.L. c. 208, § 36A |
Under c. 246 § 28, the amount exempt (protected) from attachment each week is the GREATER of 85% of the debtor's gross wages, or 50 times the higher of the federal or Massachusetts minimum hourly wage. Equivalently, a creditor can take only the lesser of 15% of gross wages, or the amount gross wages exceed that 50x floor. This is one of only a few state formulas that measures GROSS wages rather than disposable earnings |
More protective than the federal CCPA formula on both prongs in practice, though the mechanics differ: Massachusetts caps take at 15% of GROSS wages (not 25% of disposable earnings, which is a smaller base), and its 50x-minimum-wage floor uses whichever of the federal or Massachusetts minimum wage is higher — currently Massachusetts's own $15.00/hour — versus federal law's flat 30x the $7.25 federal rate |
50 times the higher of the federal minimum hourly wage ($7.25) or the Massachusetts minimum hourly wage ($15.00 under M.G.L. c. 151, § 1). Since Massachusetts's rate is higher, the floor is currently $750.00 of gross weekly wages fully protected before any garnishment can reach the rest |
Support orders (alimony, separate maintenance, child support) are carved out of § 28 entirely; instead, the amount trusteed is capped by federal law's own support limits (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(2)) under a separate mechanism, M.G.L. c. 208, § 36A. Massachusetts tax debt is collected through the Department of Revenue's own administrative levy (M.G.L. c. 62C, § 53), not through this ordinary judgment-creditor process, and that levy carries its own, much smaller weekly wage exemption ($75 plus $25 per dependent, c. 62C § 55A) rather than the 85%/50x formula. Federal student loan default collection proceeds independently at 15% of disposable pay without a court order (20 U.S.C. § 1095a(a)(1)) |
None built into the ordinary c. 246 § 28 formula itself — the 85%-of-gross/50x-minimum-wage exemption applies the same way regardless of dependents. (The separate state-tax administrative levy under c. 62C § 55A does add $25 per dependent to its own, much smaller weekly exemption, but that is a different collection mechanism, not an add-on to the ordinary wage-garnishment cap this survey covers) |
C. 246 has no wage-garnishment-specific priority statute (unlike some states). Massachusetts's general civil-attachment rule is first-in-time: successive attachments on the same property are ranked, and disbursed, 'in the order in which they were made' (M.G.L. c. 223, § 125). Support-order trustee process under c. 208, § 36A runs on its own track, separate from an ordinary creditor's trustee process, and federal law independently bars a state or court from enforcing any garnishment order that would violate the CCPA's caps |
No Massachusetts statute was found barring discharge over an ORDINARY creditor's trustee process specifically, leaving the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674, barring discharge for a single garnishment only) as the applicable rule. Massachusetts does have its own, broader anti-discharge protection, but only for SUPPORT-order trustee process: 'No employer may discharge, suspend, or discipline an employee by reason of his having been trusteed pursuant to this section' (M.G.L. c. 208, § 36A(5)), with no one-garnishment limit |
| Michigan verified 2026-07-05 | Garnishment authorization, priority, and procedure: Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 600.4011-600.4012 (Revised Judicature Act) and Michigan Court Rule 3.101; child support and alimony withholding: the Support and Parenting Time Enforcement Act, MCL 552.601 et seq. (cap in § 552.608, priority in § 552.611) |
No independent Michigan percentage — MCR 3.101(B)(1)(c) applies the federal ceiling directly: the lesser of 25% of weekly disposable earnings, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (15 U.S.C. § 1673) |
Adopts the federal floor as-is for an ordinary garnishment, rather than raising or lowering it (MCR 3.101(B)(1)(c) cites 15 U.S.C. § 1673 by name as the governing ceiling); Michigan's OWN independent cap for child support, 50% flat (MCL 552.608), is more protective than the federal support ceiling, which allows up to 60% (or 65% if 12+ weeks in arrears) |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage — the same multiplier and wage floor as the federal formula, with no separate Michigan multiplier or state-minimum-wage substitute |
Child support and alimony withholding is capped at a flat 50% of disposable earnings under MCL 552.608, regardless of arrears or other dependents — narrower than the federal ceiling, which would let support withholding reach 60% (or 65% with 12+ weeks of arrears); an income-withholding order for support and a state or governmental-unit tax levy both outrank an ordinary garnishment 'regardless of the order in which they are received' (MCL 600.4012(2)); federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative wage garnishment (up to 15%) reach Michigan wages independently of state law |
None — Michigan's ordinary cap is exactly the federal 25%/30x formula with no additional state-law exemption layered on top for dependents or head-of-household status |
MCL 600.4012(2) sets it directly: a support income-withholding order and a state/governmental-unit tax levy both outrank an ordinary garnishment no matter which was received first; among garnishments of the same priority tier, the one received earliest controls, and a garnishee owes nothing on a later-received, same-or-lower-priority garnishment until the earlier one stops being effective — except that, per MCR 3.101(B)(1)(c), a garnishee must still withhold under a lower-priority earnings garnishment to the extent a higher-priority order takes less than the full federal ceiling |
No Michigan-specific anti-discharge statute was found in the garnishment statutes (MCL 600.4011-600.4012), Michigan Court Rule 3.101, or the state's wage-payment law; Michigan relies on the federal floor alone, 15 U.S.C. § 1674, which bars discharge over garnishment of a single debt |
| Minnesota verified 2026-07-05 | Minn. Stat. §§ 571.921 to 571.927 (definitions, the graduated exemption formula, priority among multiple garnishments, notice requirements, and the anti-retaliation rule), together with § 550.37, subd. 13-14 (the general execution-exemption statute, which separately confirms the earnings exemption and adds the need-based-assistance/former-inmate total exemption) |
Minn. Stat. § 571.922(a) sets a GRADUATED scale rather than one flat percentage. Unless the judgment is for child support, the reachable amount is the LESSER of the applicable tier and the amount by which disposable earnings exceed the wage floor in paragraph (b): (1) 25% of disposable earnings, but only once weekly income exceeds 80 times the wage floor; (2) 15%, if weekly income is over 60 times but at or under 80 times the floor; or (3) 10%, if weekly income is over 40 times but at or under 60 times the floor. Earnings at or below 40 times the floor aren't reached by any tier at all. This step-up structure, protection shrinking in stages as income rises, rather than one percentage for everyone above the floor, is distinctive; most states in this survey use a single flat rate |
More protective than the federal 25%/30x formula at every income level except the very top: Minnesota's reachable percentage is 0% at or below the wage floor, 10% in the next bracket, 15% above that, and only reaches the federal-equivalent 25% once weekly income exceeds 80 times the wage floor. The floor itself is also bigger, 40 times the applicable minimum wage rather than the federal 30x, and that minimum wage is whichever of the state's own rate or the federal rate protects more, which in Minnesota's case is its own higher rate |
40 times the GREATER of Minnesota's own minimum hourly wage (Minn. Stat. § 177.24, subd. 1(a)) or the federal minimum hourly wage (29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1)). Minnesota's own statewide minimum wage is currently $11.41/hour (adjusted annually for inflation), well above the $7.25 federal rate, so the state rate controls: 40 x $11.41 = $456.40 of weekly disposable earnings protected outright. The statute cross-references only the STATEWIDE rate in § 177.24, not the higher local minimum wages set by Minneapolis ($16.37/hour) or St. Paul: those city ordinances don't raise the wage-garnishment floor |
Child support is excluded from the graduated ordinary-debt scale entirely; § 571.922(c) instead writes the federal CCPA's own support percentages directly into Minnesota's text: 50% of disposable income if supporting a spouse or dependent child and the judgment is 12 weeks old or less, 55% if over 12 weeks old; 60% if not supporting a spouse or dependent child and 12 weeks old or less, 65% if older. A child-support garnishment where the creditor is a county continues until the judgment is satisfied, rather than the usual 90-day limit on other garnishments. Federal student loan collection (15% of disposable pay, administratively, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) and unpaid-tax debt (collected under separate state and federal administrative authority) proceed independently of this ordinary-creditor scale |
Not a per-dependent dollar figure, but a means-based total exemption: Minn. Stat. § 550.37, subd. 14 exempts all earnings of a debtor who currently receives, has received in the past six months, or is otherwise an eligible recipient of need-based government assistance (a lengthy enumerated list, Minnesota Family Investment Program, SNAP, SSI, Medical Assistance, energy assistance, and several others, plus federal/state low-income tax credits), or who has been an inmate of a correctional institution within the preceding six months. The exemption lasts for six months after the debtor's return to private employment, once all qualifying assistance has ended. This exemption is not automatic, the debtor must file a signed exemption statement after receiving the required notice |
Strict first-in-time priority by date of service. Minn. Stat. § 571.923: multiple earnings garnishments are paid in the order the garnishment summonses were served on the employer; if two are served the same day, the one issued on the earlier-entered judgment wins; if both the service date and judgment date tie, the EMPLOYER chooses the order. Section 550.37, subd. 13 confirms the mechanics: a later garnishment only reaches disposable earnings not already claimed by an earlier one, and in no case can more than the total nonexempt disposable earnings for that pay period be taken across all garnishments combined. Child support withholding runs on its own separate priority track under chapter 518A rather than through this ordinary-creditor queue |
Broader than the federal one-debt rule: Minn. Stat. § 571.927 bars an employer from discharging OR otherwise disciplining an employee (or independent contractor) because of an earnings garnishment authorized by this chapter, with no limit to a first or single garnishment. A violation lets the aggrieved worker sue within 90 days for reinstatement and other relief, and if an employment relationship existed before the violation, DOUBLE the earnings lost as a result: a more generous multiplier than the simple lost-wages remedy most other states in this survey provide |
| Mississippi verified 2026-07-05 | Wage garnishment cap and 30-day grace period, Miss. Code § 85-3-4; multiple-garnishment priority, § 11-35-24; garnishment procedure chapter, §§ 11-35-1 et seq. |
After an initial 30-day period in which wages are fully exempt from the date of service (§ 85-3-4(1)), the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which earnings exceed 30x the federal minimum hourly wage (§ 85-3-4(2)) — the plain federal formula, restated directly in Mississippi's own statute |
Restates the federal 25%/30x formula as state law rather than cutting it further; Mississippi's real addition isn't a lower percentage but a procedural one — no wages at all can be taken for the first 30 days after service of the writ (§ 85-3-4(1)) |
30x the federal minimum hourly wage — $217.50/week at $7.25/hour — the plain federal multiplier, written directly into § 85-3-4(2)(a)(ii) rather than cross-referenced |
Support orders and state or local tax debt fall entirely outside the ordinary cap and the 30-day grace period (§ 85-3-4(3)(a)); support garnishments instead follow the federal support tiers — 50% (55% with 12+ weeks of arrears) if supporting another spouse or child, 60% (65% with arrears) if not |
No wage-specific head-of-household exemption. Mississippi's separate $10,000 aggregate personal-property exemption (Miss. Code § 85-3-1(a)) covers tangible property like vehicles and household goods, not earnings, and doesn't turn on head-of-household status |
First-in-time, with two refinements: a garnishee served with more than one garnishment on the same employee satisfies them in the order served; if two arrive the same day, the smaller amount is paid first; a child-support garnishment always has first priority regardless of when it arrived or whether an earlier garnishment is already in effect (Miss. Code § 11-35-24) |
No independent Mississippi statute protects an employee from discharge over an ordinary judgment garnishment — only the federal rule applies (bars discharge for a single garnishment, 15 U.S.C. § 1674). Mississippi separately bars firing, disciplining, or refusing to hire an obligor because of a child-support income-withholding duty, backed by a court fine of up to $50 (Miss. Code § 93-11-111(9), penalty at § 93-11-117(2)), but that protection is limited to child support and doesn't extend to ordinary creditor garnishments |
| Missouri verified 2026-07-05 | RSMo § 525.030 (the cap itself, the head-of-family reduction, the support/tax/bankruptcy carve-out, and the anti-discharge rule) and § 525.040 (priority among multiple writs by date of service). The head-of-family reduction cross-references the personal-property exemption statute, § 513.440 |
Under § 525.030.2(1), the lesser of: (a) 25% of aggregate earnings after required withholding; (b) the amount by which earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage; or (c) if the employee is the head of a family and a Missouri resident, 10% of disposable earnings: whichever of the three is least. For a head-of-family debtor this effectively becomes a straight 10% cap, since 10% is always less than 25% |
For a non-head-of-family debtor, Missouri's cap is identical to the federal CCPA formula: 25% and 30x the federal minimum wage, no independent state change. But for a head-of-family Missouri resident, the state cuts the ordinary-debt cap to 10% of disposable earnings, dramatically more protective than the federal floor and one of the lowest ordinary-garnishment percentages found in this survey so far |
30 times the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage ($7.25) = $217.50 of weekly earnings protected: the statute ties this multiplier specifically to the federal rate under the Fair Labor Standards Act, not to Missouri's own (currently higher, voter-approved) state minimum wage, so the $217.50 floor doesn't move even though Missouri workers must legally be paid more per hour |
Support orders, bankruptcy-court orders under Chapter XIII, and any debt for state or federal tax are excluded from these caps entirely: 'The restrictions on the maximum earnings subjected to garnishment do not apply' to any of the three (§ 525.030.2(2)). Missouri's statute doesn't set its own separate percentage for support garnishment, so federal law's own support tiers (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings, 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(2)) control by default. Federal student loan default collection proceeds independently at 15% of disposable pay without a court order (20 U.S.C. § 1095a(a)(1)) |
The defining feature of Missouri's rule: a debtor who is the head of a family (contributing substantial support to a spouse, a dependent child under 21, or a disabled dependent) and a Missouri resident can cut the ordinary-debt cap to just 10% of disposable earnings (§ 525.030.2(1)(c)), but only for debts that are NOT for the support of another person, and only after filing a sworn affidavit with the court and serving it on the employer; it is not automatic. A separate, general property exemption in § 513.440 (currently $1,250 plus $350 per qualifying dependent) explicitly excludes wages already covered by the 10% wage rule, to avoid stacking both exemptions on the same earnings |
Strict first-in-time by date of SERVICE on the employer, not date of filing or judgment: 'Writs of garnishment which would otherwise have equal priority shall have priority according to the date of service on the garnishee' (§ 525.040.2). If more than one writ has attached the same wages, the employer must tell each later ('inferior') garnisher about the existence and case number of every earlier ('senior') garnishment |
Matches the federal floor exactly, then adds a criminal penalty on top: 'No employer may discharge any employee by reason of the fact that his earnings have been subjected to garnishment or sequestration for any one indebtedness' (§ 525.030.5), the same single-indebtedness limit as federal law (15 U.S.C. § 1674), but Missouri separately makes a willful violation a criminal misdemeanor (§ 525.030.6), a real enforcement mechanism federal law doesn't provide on its own |
| Montana verified 2026-07-05 | Mont. Code Ann. § 25-13-614 (the substantive earnings-garnishment cap); § 25-13-402(6) (mechanics and priority of a levy on earnings); § 39-2-302 (anti-discharge) |
The lesser of: (1) the amount by which the debtor's disposable earnings for the week exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage, or (2) 25% of the debtor's disposable earnings for that week (§ 25-13-614(1)-(2)) — the plain federal Consumer Credit Protection Act formula, adopted without any state-specific reduction or extension |
Simply adopts the federal CCPA formula as its own state rule, with identical numbers (25% / 30x federal minimum wage) and no independent state cut or extension. Montana is not more protective, less protective, or a bar state — it restates the federal floor directly in its own code |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage under 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) (§ 25-13-614(2)(a)) — the same multiplier as federal law, and tied specifically to the FEDERAL minimum wage rather than Montana's own (higher) state minimum wage, unlike states that use whichever minimum wage is higher |
Child and spousal support orders are excluded from the ordinary 25%/30x cap entirely (§ 25-13-614(3)) and instead follow their own ceiling under § 25-13-614(4): 50% of disposable earnings if the debtor is supporting another spouse or child, or 60% if not, rising to 55%/65% for arrears predating the current 12-week period — matching the federal CCPA support percentages exactly. A levy on a state tax refund or other state-agency funds is separately subordinate to the Department of Revenue's own right of offset for delinquent taxes (§ 25-13-402(7)(d)). Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment runs outside this chapter |
None. Montana's property-exemption list (Mont. Code Ann. § 25-13-601 to -617) has no head-of-family or dependent-based add-on to the ordinary earnings cap in § 25-13-614 — the 25%/30x formula applies the same way regardless of the debtor's dependents |
Strict first-in-time priority: 'multiple levies served under this subsection have priority according to the date and time of service upon the employer' (§ 25-13-402(6)(c)), so an earlier-served levy is paid first out of the capped amount before a later one, subject to any superior state or federal priority rule for a specific type of levy (§ 25-13-402(8)) — support orders, for instance, are not limited by an earlier ordinary garnishment |
Montana has its own state statute, broader than the federal floor: 'No employer shall discharge or lay off an employee because of attachment or garnishment served on the employer against the wages of the employee' (§ 39-2-302), with no limit to a first garnishment on a single debt — unlike the federal rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674), which only protects against discharge for one garnishment on one debt |
| Nebraska verified 2026-07-05 | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1558 (wage exemption and anti-discharge rule); § 25-1056(4)-(5) (multiple-garnishment priority and continuing-lien procedure) |
Lesser of 25% of disposable earnings for the workweek, the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage, or 15% of disposable earnings if the debtor is a head of a family (§ 25-1558(1)) — the head-of-family cut is Nebraska's real addition on top of the federal formula |
Matches the federal 25%/30x-federal-min-wage test for a debtor who isn't a head of family, but cuts the cap to 15% for anyone who is — one of the lower head-of-household percentages found in this survey, since it replaces rather than adds to the ordinary cap |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage prescribed by 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) — $217.50/week at $7.25/hour — the plain federal multiplier, not increased by Nebraska's own statute |
Court support orders, bankruptcy Chapter XIII orders, and state or federal tax debt are all excepted from the ordinary cap entirely (§ 25-1558(2)); wage assignments and garnishments for support of a person outrank ordinary (non-support) garnishments and liens regardless of filing order (§ 25-1056(4)(b)) |
A debtor who qualifies as "head of a family" — someone who actually supports and maintains a dependent connected by blood, marriage, adoption, or guardianship, based on a moral or legal obligation (§ 25-1558(4)(d)) — has the ordinary cap cut from 25% to 15% of disposable earnings (§ 25-1558(1)(c)), rather than gaining a separate add-on exemption |
Time-of-service priority, with support outranking non-support claims regardless of order (§ 25-1056(4)). Only one continuing lien against a debtor's earnings can be in effect at a time; a continuing lien, once obtained, outranks any later garnishment or wage assignment except a support order (§ 25-1056(5)) |
Matches the federal rule exactly: no employer may discharge an employee because the employee's earnings have been subjected to garnishment for any ONE indebtedness (§ 25-1558(6)) — a second garnishment for a different debt isn't protected by Nebraska or federal law |
| Nevada verified 2026-07-05 | Garnishment earnings cap, Nev. Rev. Stat. § 31.295(2); parallel wage exemption, NRS § 21.090(1)(g); anti-discharge rule, NRS § 31.298 |
Least of: 18% of disposable earnings (gross weekly wage $770 or less), 25% of disposable earnings (gross weekly wage over $770), or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 50x the federal minimum hourly wage (NRS § 31.295(2)) |
More protective than the federal 25%/30x formula on both ends: the low-income tier caps garnishment at 18% instead of 25%, and the earnings floor uses 50x the federal minimum wage instead of 30x |
50x the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage (not Nevada's own higher state minimum wage) — $362.50/week at the $7.25 federal rate (NRS § 31.295(2)(c)) |
The ordinary cap doesn't apply to court support orders, bankruptcy court orders, or state/federal tax debt (NRS § 31.295(3)); support garnishments can reach 50-60% of disposable earnings, or 55-65% if the arrears are 12+ weeks old (NRS § 31.295(4)); federal tax levies and federal student loan wage garnishment bypass this chapter entirely |
None beyond the ordinary tiered-percentage cap; Nevada has no separate head-of-household or family-support earnings exemption |
Not first-in-time: when a garnishee is subject to more than one writ of garnishment against the same defendant, the court decides priority and how to split the payments, except a child-support garnishment must always be given first priority (NRS § 31.260(5)) |
NRS § 31.298 makes it unlawful to discharge or discipline an employee because the employer must withhold earnings under a writ of garnishment — broader than federal law, which protects against discharge only for a single garnishment |
| New Hampshire verified 2026-07-05 | N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 512:21 (trustee-process wage exemptions — the operative limit on ordinary garnishment); § 458-B:4, § 458-B:6 (child support income assignment — separate mechanism, cap, and priority) |
Effectively barred for ongoing wage garnishment. RSA 512:21(I) exempts ALL wages for labor performed after the garnishment writ is served on the employer — the exact reach a continuing garnishment order needs — so an ordinary creditor cannot obtain one at all. The narrow exception (§ 512:21(II)) reaches only wages already earned but unpaid BEFORE service, and only in an action founded on an existing New Hampshire court judgment (not an original contract or tort claim); even then, up to 50 times the federal minimum hourly wage per week stays exempt. A separate, smaller carve-out (§ 512:21(IX)-(X)) applies only to certain licensed-lender loan contracts under RSA 399-A, exempting a flat $50/week instead |
Far more protective than the federal 25%/30x test — New Hampshire doesn't just lower the percentage, it structurally removes the ability to garnish future wages on an ongoing basis for an ordinary private-creditor debt. This puts New Hampshire alongside Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina as a genuine bar-or-near-bar state for ordinary judgment creditors, though New Hampshire reaches that result through an exemption on FUTURE wages rather than naming excluded debt categories |
50 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($362.50/week at $7.25/hour) protects the narrow one-time reach into already-earned, unpaid wages in a judgment-on-judgment action (§ 512:21(II)) — well above the federal 30x floor, though the floor matters only because ongoing wages are exempt outright |
Child support and spousal support income assignment runs on an entirely separate statute, RSA chapter 458-B, not limited by RSA 512:21 at all: the amount withheld is capped only by the federal CCPA ceilings in 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b) (§ 458-B:4(IV)), and that withholding 'shall have priority over any other legal process under state law against the same income' (§ 458-B:6(VI)). Tax debt and federal student loans are collected through their own separate administrative channels outside RSA 512 entirely |
None on top of the (already near-nonexistent) ordinary wage-garnishment reach. New Hampshire's real family-protective exemptions live elsewhere and aren't wage-specific: a $100,000 homestead exemption (doubled for a married couple) under RSA 480:1, and the general personal-property exemption list in RSA 511:2 |
Because ordinary creditors can't reach future wages at all, there's little practical scenario of competing ongoing garnishments to prioritize — RSA 512's general trustee-process rules (service-order priority, like any other attached property) would govern the narrow one-time reach into already-earned wages that does exist. Child support income assignment overrides any of this regardless of service order (§ 458-B:6(VI)), and when MULTIPLE support obligations compete for the same withholding, § 458-B:4(VI) sets its own priority: current support first, then health insurance or medical support, then arrearages, then other child support obligations |
No New Hampshire statute specific to ordinary trustee-process garnishment was found protecting against discharge — only the federal 15 U.S.C. § 1674 rule (barring discharge for a first garnishment on one debt) applies to that narrow mechanism. Child support income assignment has its own, separate anti-discharge protection: an employer who discharges, refuses to employ, or disciplines an obligor because of income-assignment withholding is guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of up to $1,000 (§ 458-B:6(VIII)) |
| New Jersey verified 2026-07-05 | Wage execution authorization, priority, and cap: N.J.S.A. 2A:17-50 (authorization), 2A:17-52 (priority among multiple executions), 2A:17-54 (employer liability), 2A:17-56 (percentage cap); child support and alimony income withholding runs on a separate statute, the Support Enforcement Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.7 to 2A:17-56.15 (cap in § 56.9, anti-discharge protection in § 56.12); a bill introduced in the Legislature would replace the cap formula — see pending legislation |
The least of three figures, per N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56(a) and the New Jersey Courts' own wage-execution form (Appendix XI-J): (a) 10% of gross weekly pay; (b) 25% of disposable earnings; or (c) the amount disposable earnings exceed $217.50/week (30x the federal minimum hourly wage) — and in no event may more than 10% of gross salary be withheld, unless the debtor's income exceeds 250% of the federal poverty level for their family size, in which case a court may order a larger percentage |
More protective than the federal 25%/30x-minimum-wage floor in the ordinary case: New Jersey layers its own flat 10%-of-gross-pay ceiling (N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56(a)) on top of the two federal tests, and since the smallest of the three numbers controls, the 10%-of-gross figure is almost always the one that actually limits the garnishment |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($217.50/week) — the same multiplier and wage floor the federal formula itself uses; this test mainly matters for very low earners, since New Jersey's separate 10%-of-gross cap otherwise controls for most debtors |
Child support and alimony income withholding is capped at whatever the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act allows (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)) — 50-65% of disposable earnings depending on arrears and whether the obligor supports another family — because N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.9 adopts that federal ceiling directly rather than setting its own lower number; a wage execution the State files for its own debts (taxes, agency debts) can reach up to 25% of gross earnings under N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56(b), well above the ordinary 10% cap, so long as the debtor's income stays above 250% of the poverty level; federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative wage garnishment (up to 15%) reach New Jersey wages independently of state law |
No separate percentage add-on for dependents or head-of-household status; instead, N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56(a) works in the opposite direction from most states' exemptions — a court can order MORE than the ordinary 10% cap if the debtor's income exceeds 250% of the federal poverty level for their family size, rather than protecting additional income for family support |
Strict first-in-time priority under N.J.S.A. 2A:17-52(a): only one wage execution may be satisfied at a time, and multiple executions against the same debtor are paid in the order presented to the employer, regardless of which court issued them — except that a support execution presented on the same day as another execution is paid first. Since a 2005 amendment, a wage execution the State files for its own debts (N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56(b)) outranks any other wage execution filed on or after that amendment's effective date, but still yields to a support execution (§ 2A:17-52(b)) |
For a child-support income-withholding obligor, New Jersey's own statute (N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.12, as referenced in § 56.11) bars an employer from discharging, refusing to employ, or disciplining the obligor because of the withholding, backed by a court-ordered fine and civil damages. No comparably specific New Jersey statute for an ORDINARY wage execution turned up in this research, though the state's own official wage-execution court form states as a matter of law that no employer may terminate an employee because of a garnishment; absent a distinct statute for that category, ordinary wage executions fall back on the federal floor, 15 U.S.C. § 1674, which bars discharge over garnishment of a single debt |
| New Mexico verified 2026-07-05 | NMSA 1978 § 35-12-7 (wage exemption formula and support cap), § 35-12-9(B) (multiple-garnishment priority) |
Exempt from garnishment is the GREATER of (1) 75% of the debtor's disposable earnings for the pay period, or (2) an amount each week equal to 40 times the highest applicable minimum hourly wage rate where the wages were earned (§ 35-12-7(A)) — so at most 25% of disposable earnings can ever be taken, and often less |
Matches the federal 25% ordinary cap in percentage terms (75% exempt = 25% garnishable, the same fraction as federal law), but is more protective on the minimum-wage floor: 40 times the HIGHEST applicable federal, state, or local minimum hourly wage, versus federal law's 30 times the federal minimum wage alone. A 2023 amendment also added bank-deposit traceability protection for exempt wages, closing a gap federal law doesn't address |
40 times the highest applicable minimum hourly wage rate — federal, state, or local, whichever is highest at the place the wages were earned (§ 35-12-7(A)(2), (B)(2)) — a bigger multiplier than the federal 30x, and one that can rise further in a city with its own higher minimum wage |
Support orders are capped separately and more simply than federal law: a flat 50% of the debtor's disposable earnings for any pay period, with no higher tier for arrears or fewer dependents (§ 35-12-7(A), (C)) — actually lower than the federal support ceiling, which can reach 65%. State or federal tax debt and federal student loan collection operate through their own separate administrative processes outside this statute entirely |
None built into the wage-garnishment formula itself — the flat 75%/40x-wage-floor test already applies to every debtor regardless of household status. (New Mexico's separate personal-property exemption statutes have their own head-of-family provisions, but those protect property, not wages, and are outside this survey's scope) |
First-in-time. If a debtor's wages are subject to more than one judgment lien, the liens are satisfied in the order the garnishment was served on the garnishee (§ 35-12-9(B)) |
No independent New Mexico statute bars firing an employee over an ordinary wage garnishment; only the federal rule applies, barring discharge for a single garnishment for one debt (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| New York verified 2026-07-23 | Income execution: N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 5231; priority among execution creditors: § 5234; anti-retaliation: § 5252; child/spousal support income executions: §§ 5241-5242 |
An income execution itself may only demand up to 10% of what the debtor is receiving; the amount an employer can actually be ordered to withhold is capped at the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount over 30x the greater of the federal or state minimum wage (CPLR § 5231(b)); barred entirely for a judgment arising from a medical debt lawsuit |
More protective than the federal floor on the minimum-wage prong: New York uses 30x the GREATER of the state or federal minimum wage, and New York's minimum wage is well above the federal one, so more of a lower-paid worker's earnings are shielded; the percentage prong matches the federal 25% |
30x the greater of the federal minimum hourly wage or the applicable New York State minimum hourly wage under Labor Law § 652 (CPLR § 5231(b)(i)). New York's § 652 minimum wage is REGIONAL, as of Jan. 1, 2026 it is $17.00/hour in New York City and in Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, and $16.00/hour in the rest of the state, so the shielded floor (30x that rate) is higher for a debtor working downstate than upstate |
Support runs through separate income executions/deduction orders (CPLR §§ 5241, 5242) reaching the higher federal support percentages; when an ordinary execution and a support deduction both apply, the ordinary execution is capped at whatever room is left under the 25% ceiling after the support deduction (CPLR § 5231(b)(iii)); a judgment from a medical debt lawsuit brought by a hospital or licensed health care professional cannot be enforced by wage garnishment at all, a 2022 carve-out (CPLR § 5231(b)(iv)) |
None — New York has no separate head-of-family/head-of-household wage exemption; its main protective feature (the greater-of-state-or-federal minimum wage floor) applies uniformly regardless of dependents |
Strict first-in-time priority among ordinary execution creditors delivered to the same enforcement officer, but a child-support execution automatically outranks 'any other assignment, levy or process' no matter when it was delivered, and multiple past-due child support orders share proceeds proportionally to their claims (CPLR § 5234(b)) |
Broader than the federal floor: CPLR § 5252 bars discharging, laying off, refusing to promote, disciplining, or refusing to hire someone because ONE OR MORE wage assignments or income executions have been served — not limited to a single debt. For an ordinary judgment garnishment the remedy is the employee's own civil action for up to six weeks' lost wages plus reinstatement (§ 5252(2)), and the violation may also be punished as contempt (Judiciary Law § 753). The extra $500/$1,000 civil penalty applies ONLY where the discrimination is because of a SUPPORT income execution or income deduction order under §§ 5241/5242, and that penalty is paid to the creditor, not the employee |
| North Carolina verified 2026-07-05 | No dedicated ordinary-garnishment statute; G.S. § 1-362 (supplemental-proceedings property/earnings exemption) is the closest general provision. Separate statutes authorize withholding only for child support (G.S. § 110-136, cap in § 110-136.6), alimony/postseparation support (G.S. § 50-16.7(e)), state tax debt (G.S. § 105-242(b), procedure in § 105-368), defaulted state student loans (G.S. Ch. 105B), and certain counties' ambulance debt (G.S. § 44-51.4) |
Effectively zero for an ordinary private judgment creditor — North Carolina has no procedure directing an employer to make ongoing wage withholdings for a private debt. G.S. § 1-362 lets a court apply a debtor's non-exempt property, including money an employer owes, toward a judgment in supplemental proceedings, but expressly exempts earnings for personal services in the 60 days before the order when shown to be necessary for the support of a family |
More protective than the federal 25%/30x-minimum-wage floor for the debts most people owe: rather than lowering the percentage, North Carolina has no mechanism to garnish wages for an ordinary private debt in the first place |
Not applicable to ordinary debt — there's no percentage/minimum-wage formula because there's no wage garnishment to calculate. The debts NC does allow use their own fixed caps instead of a minimum-wage multiple: 40%/45%/50% of disposable income for child support and alimony (G.S. § 110-136.6), 10% of wages per pay period for state tax and covered-county ambulance debt (G.S. §§ 105-242(b), 105-368), and 10% of monthly disposable earnings (with an income floor at 200% of the federal poverty guidelines) for defaulted state student loans (G.S. Ch. 105B) |
Child support and alimony/postseparation support withholding is capped at 40% of disposable income for one order, rising to 45% (supporting another spouse or child) or 50% (not supporting one) for multiple orders (G.S. § 110-136.6); state tax debt and certain counties' ambulance debt are each capped at 10% of wages per pay period (G.S. §§ 105-242(b), 105-368); a defaulted state student loan is capped at 10% of monthly disposable earnings and can't be ordered at all if it would drop family income to or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines (G.S. Ch. 105B); federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative wage garnishment (up to 15%) reach North Carolina wages regardless, because federal law preempts state limits |
Not a separate add-on the way it is in other states — it's built into the general rule itself. G.S. § 1-362 only exempts a debtor's earnings from being applied to a judgment when it appears, by affidavit or otherwise, that they're necessary for the support of a family the debtor supports wholly or partly; there's no additional numeric threshold layered on top, and (unlike Texas or Pennsylvania's blanket, status-blind bar) the protection is expressly conditioned on supporting a family rather than automatic for every debtor |
No general North Carolina statute ranks priority across the different categories (child support vs. state tax vs. ambulance debt) when they compete for the same paycheck, since there's no ordinary-creditor garnishment to prioritize against in the first place. Within the child support/alimony category specifically, multiple withholding orders share one combined percentage cap (45% or 50% of disposable income, depending on other dependents) rather than a first-in-time rule (G.S. § 110-136.6(b)) |
No general North Carolina statute bars firing an employee over a wage garnishment. The one NC-specific rule is narrow: G.S. § 105B-4(b) bars an employer from discharging, refusing to employ, or disciplining a debtor because of a defaulted-state-student-loan withholding, with escalating civil penalties of $100, $500, and $1,000 for repeat violations. Everything else relies on the federal floor alone: 15 U.S.C. § 1674 bars discharge over garnishment of a single debt |
| North Dakota verified 2026-07-05 | N.D.C.C. § 32-09.1-03 (the ordinary garnishment cap, per-dependent reduction, and support/bankruptcy/tax exceptions); § 32-09.1-18 (anti-discharge, with a private right of action); § 32-09.1-21 (continuing lien on wages); § 32-09.1-01 (definitions) |
The lesser of: (1) 25% of disposable earnings for the week, or (2) the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 40 times the federal minimum hourly wage (or an equivalent multiple for a longer pay period), reduced by $20 per week for each dependent family member residing with the debtor (§ 32-09.1-03(1)-(2)). A plaintiff may instead obtain a continuing 270-day lien on wages (§ 32-09.1-21), under which the garnishee keeps withholding the nonexempt portion of earnings as they accrue rather than a one-time attachment. Any wage assignment or debt to the garnishee that the debtor incurs within 10 days before the first garnishment notice is void, closing an obvious evasion route |
More protective than the federal floor on the minimum-wage-multiplier prong (40x instead of 30x) and adds a genuine extra feature the federal test lacks: a $20-per-week reduction for each dependent living with the debtor. The base percentage (25%) matches the federal rate exactly rather than cutting it further. North Dakota is not a bar state; a creditor can still reach 25% of earnings above the protected floor |
40 times the federal minimum hourly wage prescribed by 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) (or the Secretary of Labor's equivalent multiple for a pay period other than a week) — a bigger multiplier than the federal 30x, though tied only to the federal minimum wage, not to North Dakota's own state minimum wage |
Support orders, bankruptcy court orders, and any debt for state or federal tax are all excluded from the ordinary § 32-09.1-03(1) cap (§ 32-09.1-03(3)) — North Dakota's exception list explicitly names tax debt, unlike some neighboring states' versions of this same statute. Support garnishment instead follows its own ceiling (§ 32-09.1-03(4)): 50% of disposable earnings if the debtor is supporting another spouse or child, 60% if not, rising to 55%/65% for older arrears — matching the federal CCPA support percentages exactly. Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment runs through its own separate channel |
North Dakota builds a per-dependent dollar reduction directly into the ordinary cap's minimum-wage-floor prong rather than using a separate head-of-household statute: § 32-09.1-03(2) reduces the maximum garnishable amount by $20 per week for each dependent family member residing with the debtor, once the debtor files a sworn list of dependents with the employer within 10 days of the garnishee summons. Failure to timely provide the list is treated as a conclusive claim of no dependents, though the debtor can still submit the list later for garnishments going forward |
No statute in this chapter sets a first-in-time or combined-cap rule for multiple ordinary garnishments running at the same time; the chapter's only related anti-evasion rule voids any wage assignment or debt the debtor incurs to the garnishee within 10 days before the first garnishment notice (§ 32-09.1-07(1)(f)). A plaintiff may secure a continuing 270-day lien (§ 32-09.1-21), but the statute doesn't address how a second creditor's garnishment interacts with an existing continuing lien |
North Dakota has its own explicit anti-discharge statute with a real remedy, broader than the federal floor: 'No employer may discharge any employee by reason of the fact that earnings have been subjected to garnishment or execution' (§ 32-09.1-18), with no stated limit to a single garnishment. An employee fired in violation may sue within 90 days of discharge to recover TWICE the wages lost and for an order requiring reinstatement — one of the more concrete anti-discharge remedies found in this topic, going beyond simply barring the discharge |
| Ohio verified 2026-07-05 | Ohio Rev. Code § 2329.66(A)(13) sets the actual exemption amount (framed as what's protected, not what's takeable); §§ 2716.041 and 2716.05 govern the continuous garnishment order, multi-order stacking, and anti-discharge rule; support withholding runs through § 3121.03, which caps withholding at the federal CCPA support percentages, and § 3121.39 is a separate, support-specific anti-discharge statute |
The amount NOT exempt — and therefore takeable — is the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed a minimum-wage-based floor, expressed in Ohio's statute as an exemption equal to the GREATER of that floor or 75% of disposable earnings (Ohio Rev. Code § 2329.66(A)(13)) |
Essentially identical to the federal floor rather than more protective: Ohio's exemption formula in § 2329.66(A)(13) restates the same 25%-of-disposable/30x-minimum-wage two-part test as 15 U.S.C. § 1673, just phrased as what's exempt instead of what's collectible, and it uses only the federal minimum hourly wage as the reference point rather than the higher of the federal or Ohio wage |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage per week (scaled up for other pay periods: 60x biweekly, 65x semimonthly, 130x monthly), using the federal minimum wage specifically — not Ohio's own, higher state minimum wage — as the reference point (Ohio Rev. Code § 2329.66(A)(13)(a)) |
Support orders and IRS levies automatically qualify as a 'higher priority order' that displaces a pending ordinary garnishment (Ohio Rev. Code § 2716.041(C)(1)(e)); support withholding itself is capped at 'the maximum amount permitted' under 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b) — the federal 50-65% support tiers — by direct cross-reference rather than an independent Ohio percentage (§ 3121.03(A)(1)); most pension and retirement benefits are separately exempt from garnishment regardless of the ordinary cap (§ 2329.66(A)(10)) |
None — Ohio's § 2329.66(A)(13) exemption formula applies uniformly regardless of dependents or household status, with no additional family-support test layered on top of it |
Two tiers: a support order or IRS levy automatically outranks a pending ordinary garnishment and can displace it (§ 2716.041(C)(1)(e)); among ordinary judgment-creditor garnishments, courts must issue orders in the same sequence the clerk received the affidavits, and a garnishee processes them one at a time — each order runs for up to 182 days before the next one in line begins — rather than splitting the capped percentage across multiple creditors at once (§ 2716.05; § 2716.041(D)) |
Ohio Rev. Code § 2716.05 bars discharging an employee 'solely because of the successful garnishment of the employee's personal earnings by only one judgment creditor in any twelve-month period' — the same one-creditor limitation as 15 U.S.C. § 1674, but codified with an explicit rolling twelve-month window; a separate statute, § 3121.39, gives child/spousal support withholding its own broader protection barring discharge, discipline, or refusal to hire, with no one-creditor limit |
| Oklahoma verified 2026-07-05 | General wage exemption: 31 O.S. § 1(A)(18) (also restated in 12 O.S. § 1171.1(B)); garnishment procedure: 12 O.S. §§ 1170–1180; child-support formula: 12 O.S. § 1171.2; consumer-credit-specific cap: 14A O.S. § 5-105; anti-discharge: 14A O.S. § 5-106 |
25% of disposable earnings (75% exempt) for an ordinary judgment, 31 O.S. § 1(A)(18); for a judgment on a consumer credit sale, lease, or loan specifically, 14A O.S. § 5-105 caps it at the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which they exceed 30x the federal minimum wage |
Matches the federal 25% ceiling (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)); the 30x-federal-minimum-wage alternative prong is stated only in the Consumer Credit Code's § 5-105, for consumer-credit debt — the general 31 O.S. § 1(A)(18) exemption states just the 75%/25% split |
30x the federal minimum hourly wage ($7.25, which Oklahoma also uses as its own minimum wage), per 14A O.S. § 5-105(2)(b), for consumer-credit debt; the general 31 O.S. § 1(A)(18) wage exemption has no separate minimum-wage-floor language of its own |
Child support: 50% of disposable earnings (55% if 12+ weeks in arrears) if also supporting a spouse or other child, 60% (65% if in arrears) if not, 12 O.S. § 1171.2(B); unemployment-tax debt collects by administrative levy outside this chapter; federal taxes and federal student loans bypass it entirely |
No fixed head-of-household category or percentage; a debtor supporting a family or other dependents can ask a court for an added 'undue hardship' exemption under 31 O.S. § 1.1, judged against minimal-subsistence need — unavailable to a debtor with no dependents or against a support order |
Strict first-in-time priority — a garnishment lien outranks any later garnishment lien or summons served on the same employer while it remains in effect, 12 O.S. § 1173.4(H)(1); a child-support income assignment is folded in by reducing the ordinary 25% ceiling by whatever percentage is already withheld for support, § 1173.4(I)(1) |
14A O.S. § 5-106 bars firing an employee over garnishment tied to a consumer-credit-sale/lease/loan judgment unless the employer is served with such garnishments on more than two occasions in one year — more protective than the federal single-garnishment rule, but limited to consumer-credit debt; other debts rely on the federal floor alone |
| Oregon verified 2026-07-05 | ORS § 18.385 (the wage exemption formula, its exceptions, and the anti-discharge rule); ORS § 18.375 (definitions); ORS § 18.627 (priority among multiple writs of garnishment) |
A creditor can reach at most the LESSER of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount above the applicable statutory dollar floor for the pay period (§ 18.385(1)-(2)), for wages payable between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027, that floor is $400/week, $832/two-week period, $912/half-month, or $1,792/month. The floor is on a legislated step-up schedule from 2024's SB 1595 and rises again each July 1 through 2027, after which it converts permanently to 30 times Oregon's own state minimum wage |
Substantially more protective than the federal CCPA floor and getting more so on a legislated schedule: Oregon's current $400/week floor is nearly double the federal $217.50 figure, and from July 1, 2027 onward the floor switches entirely to a multiple of Oregon's own state minimum wage rather than the federal rate, permanently widening the gap as Oregon's minimum wage rises |
Not simply 30 times the federal minimum wage: Oregon replaced that model with a legislatively scheduled DOLLAR AMOUNT that steps up on set dates (2024 SB 1595): $400/week for wages payable July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 (having already risen from $254 pre-2025 through $305 and $338 in earlier steps). Starting July 1, 2027, the floor converts to 30 times the Oregon state minimum hourly wage under ORS 653.025(1), recalculated annually by the State Court Administrator, rather than the federal $7.25 rate |
Child support, spousal support, and restitution judgments use a SEPARATE, LOWER floor schedule under § 18.385(6), $254/week, $509/two-week period, $545/half-month, $1,090/month, unchanged since before the 2024 reform, reflecting that these debts are allowed to reach deeper into a paycheck. Section 18.385(5) requires an employer to deduct support-order withholding FIRST from the nonexempt pool before any amount goes to an ordinary garnishment. Bankruptcy court orders and federal tax debt are excluded from § 18.385's protections entirely; state tax debt is excluded from the floor protections too, and the 75% baseline exemption doesn't apply to a state-agency debt if the state issues a special notice under ORS § 18.855(6). Federal student loans follow the independent federal mechanism, capped at 15% of disposable pay under 20 U.S.C. § 1095a |
None beyond the standard formula. The 75%/statutory-floor exemption applies uniformly regardless of how many dependents a debtor supports; there's no separate per-dependent add-on or family-support exemption layered on top |
Strict first-in-time priority by date of DELIVERY to the garnishee, not filing or judgment date: § 18.627(1) gives the first writ delivered priority over all later writs for the same debtor, and a garnishee only pays a later writ from whatever nonexempt property remains after fully complying with the first. One wrinkle: if the first writ doesn't claim ALL of the nonexempt wages available (for example, because it's a smaller fixed debt), § 18.627(2) lets the garnishee make concurrent payment of the remaining nonexempt balance to a second writ rather than making it wait. Support orders sit outside this queue entirely: they're deducted first, before this priority system even applies to what's left |
Broader than the federal floor: § 18.385(11) states plainly that 'an employer may not discharge any individual because the individual has had earnings garnished,' with no limit to a single indebtedness the way federal law (15 U.S.C. § 1674) and many states' own statutes are written. On its face, Oregon's rule protects an employee even after a second or third unrelated garnishment, not just the first |
| Pennsylvania verified 2026-07-05 | 42 Pa.C.S. § 8127(a) (the exemption itself, in the Judicial Code's judgments-and-liens chapter); procedural rules for the residential-lease exception sit in Pa.R.C.P. 3301-3313, separate from the general execution rules in Pa.R.C.P. 3101 et seq. |
Zero for an ordinary private judgment creditor (credit card, medical debt, personal loan, tort judgment) — § 8127(a) exempts wages, salaries, and commissions from attachment entirely except for the debts it names: divorce (23 Pa.C.S. Pt. IV), support, board for four weeks or less, a capped residential-lease judgment, PHEAA student loans, and criminal restitution/costs/fines/bail |
Far more protective than the federal floor for the debts most people actually owe: rather than merely capping garnishment at 25% of disposable earnings the way federal law alone would, Pennsylvania bars wage attachment for ordinary private debt entirely |
Not applicable in the ordinary case — there's no percentage/minimum-wage formula because wages aren't reachable at all for ordinary debt. The one place a formula exists is the residential-lease exception, where the amount attached is capped at 10% of the debtor's net wages per pay period (net of federal/state/local income tax, FICA and nonvoluntary retirement, union dues, and health insurance premiums) or an amount that would drop net income below the federal poverty income guidelines, whichever is less |
Support orders get first priority and criminal-restitution/costs/fines/bail orders get second priority over any other attachment, execution, garnishment, or wage assignment (§ 8127(b)); § 8127(a) separately opens wages to attachment for divorce-related obligations, board debts of four weeks or less, and PHEAA-guaranteed student loans; federal tax levies and federal (non-PHEAA) student loan administrative garnishment still reach Pennsylvania wages because federal law preempts the state exemption |
None as a separate test — moot, because the general § 8127(a) exemption already protects all wages from ordinary attachment regardless of dependents or household status, leaving nothing for a head-of-household exemption to add |
Support orders are first priority and criminal-restitution/fines/bail orders are second priority over any other attachment, execution, garnishment, or wage assignment (§ 8127(b)); for the residential-lease wage-attachment exception specifically, if an employer is served with more than one such attachment against the same debtor, each is satisfied fully, in the order served, before the next one takes effect (§ 8127(c)(1)) |
More protective than the federal floor's wording: § 8127(e) bars an employer from taking 'any adverse action' against an employee solely because their wages, salaries, or commissions have been attached — broader than the federal rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674), which only bars discharge, and Pennsylvania's bar isn't limited to a single attachment the way the federal rule effectively is |
| Rhode Island verified 2026-07-05 | R.I. Gen. Laws § 10-5-8 (garnishment of wages, restricted to amounts not exempt by law, and child-support priority); § 9-26-4(8) (the state's own wage-exemption amounts); 15 U.S.C. § 1673 (federal floor that fills the gap left by the outdated state exemption) |
Rhode Island's own statute only exempts the first $50 of an 'other' debtor's wages from attachment (§ 9-26-4(8)(iii)) — a flat dollar figure, not updated in the state's 2025 amendments to this same section (which added an unrelated tuition-savings-account exemption). Because federal law bars any state from providing LESS protection than the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act floor, the effective cap in Rhode Island is the federal formula: the lesser of 25% of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)). Rhode Island's garnishment statute, § 10-5-8, attaches wages only 'as is in excess of the amount... exempt by law from attachment' — a cross-reference that pulls in the federal floor once the state's own $50 figure is preempted as too thin |
Rhode Island's own codified wage exemption ($50 flat) is far LESS protective than the federal floor, so it is preempted and the federal 25%/30x-minimum-wage formula controls directly. Rhode Island neither adds its own more-protective formula nor bars garnishment; it simply defaults to the federal floor because its own statute was never updated |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage under 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) (currently $217.50/week at $7.25/hour) — the plain federal multiplier, since Rhode Island's own statute sets no competing minimum-wage-based floor for ordinary garnishment |
Child support garnishment (§ 15-5-25) and wage assignments for support (§ 15-5-24, or chapter 16 of title 15) automatically take priority over an ordinary garnishment under § 10-5-8, 'whether or not the garnishment or assignment... occurs before or after any garnishment' under the ordinary section, and no apportionment to any other garnishment (including for taxes) occurs until child support is paid in full (§ 10-5-8(b)). Support income withholding under § 15-5-24 is also not subject to the ordinary wage exemption at all except as federal law requires (§ 15-5-24(g)). Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment and state/federal tax levies proceed through their own separate channels outside this chapter |
None specific to wages. Rhode Island's exemption list does protect 'the salary and wages of the wife and the minor children of any debtor' outright (§ 9-26-4(9)) — a family-member-specific exemption rather than a head-of-household add-on to the debtor's own wage cap — but there is no extra percentage or dollar exemption for a debtor who is themselves supporting a family, on top of the (federally-controlled) ordinary cap |
No general Rhode Island statute sets a first-in-time or combined-cap rule among multiple ORDINARY garnishments; the only express statutory priority rule found is the one for child support and support wage assignments automatically outranking an ordinary garnishment under § 10-5-8(b), regardless of which was served first. Rhode Island's trustee-process chapter (title 10, ch. 17) sets procedural rules for a single trustee's account and liability but does not itself resolve competing ordinary garnishments |
No Rhode Island statute specific to ordinary wage garnishment was found protecting against discharge — only the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674, barring discharge for a first garnishment on one debt) applies. Rhode Island does have its own anti-discharge protection for child support wage withholding specifically: an employer 'may not use the wage withholding as a basis for the discharge of an employee or for any disciplinary action against the employee' (§ 15-5-24(e)), but that provision doesn't extend to ordinary creditor garnishments |
| South Carolina verified 2026-07-05 | S.C. Code § 15-39-410 (execution generally exempts personal-service earnings); § 37-5-104 (separate, specific bar for consumer credit debt); § 15-39-420(2) (bar extends to out-of-state debt) |
Barred entirely for ordinary private judgment creditors: personal-service earnings cannot be applied to satisfy any judgment through execution (§ 15-39-410), reinforced for consumer-credit debt specifically by § 37-5-104. Reserved exceptions: court-ordered support, SCDOR/GEAR government-debt collection, and federal student-loan administrative garnishment |
More protective than the federal CCPA by definition: South Carolina bars ordinary wage garnishment outright rather than capping a percentage, so the federal 25%/30x-minimum-wage formula never comes into play for a private judgment creditor's attempt to garnish South Carolina wages |
Not applicable to the ordinary case: South Carolina doesn't use a percentage-or-wage-multiple formula for private judgment creditors at all; personal-service earnings are 100% protected from that kind of garnishment. The exception categories (support, tax, student loans) each carry their own separate federal formula instead |
Child/spousal support: court-ordered income withholding under Title 63, Ch. 17, capped at the federal CCPA's 50-65% tiers (§ 63-17-1460(B)(2), (D)). Government debt: SCDOR may use wage garnishment as a collection tool for debts owed to public entities under the GEAR program (§ 12-4-580), and can levy for unpaid state taxes outside the court-judgment process. Federal student loans: Department of Education administrative wage garnishment, capped at 15% of disposable pay (20 U.S.C. § 1095a), also bypasses South Carolina courts entirely |
Not applicable: since ordinary wage garnishment is already barred entirely for private judgment creditors, there's no separate head-of-household layer to add on top of a percentage cap the way other states use one; the earnings are already fully protected regardless of dependents |
For the support-withholding lane, the main context in which South Carolina wages ARE actually withheld, § 63-17-1460(H) gives support withholding priority over any other legal process against the same wages, and § 63-17-1460(D) directs that when more than one support withholding notice applies, priority goes to current support obligations, with the combined total capped by the federal CCPA limit |
Two independent state protections layer on top of the federal one-debt rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674): § 37-5-106 bars firing an employee merely because a creditor 'subjected or attempted to subject' wages to garnishment for a consumer-credit debt, a broader trigger than actual withholding, and § 63-17-1460(I) separately bars discharging, refusing to hire, or otherwise penalizing an employee because of the duty to withhold child support, with no numeric limit on the number of orders |
| South Dakota verified 2026-07-05 | SDCL § 21-18-51 (the ordinary garnishment cap and per-dependent reduction); § 21-18-52 (support garnishment ceiling); § 21-18-53 (confirms earnings are exempt only to the extent §§ 21-18-51/-52 allow); § 21-18-2.1 (definition of earnings); § 21-18-14.1 (120-day continuing lien mechanism) |
The lesser of: (1) 20% of disposable earnings for the week, or (2) the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 40 times the federal minimum hourly wage or the applicable South Dakota minimum wage if greater, LESS $25 per week for each dependent family member (other than the debtor) residing with the debtor (§ 21-18-51). These restrictions don't apply to a court support order or a bankruptcy order under Title 11 of the U.S. Code, which follow § 21-18-52 instead. A creditor may also obtain a continuing 120-day lien on wages (§ 21-18-14.1) rather than a one-time attachment |
More protective than the federal floor on multiple fronts at once: a lower percentage (20% vs. the federal 25%), a bigger minimum-wage multiplier (40x vs. the federal 30x) tied to whichever of the federal or South Dakota minimum wage is higher, and — unlike the plain federal test — a built-in dollar reduction for each dependent living with the debtor. South Dakota is not a bar state; a creditor can still reach 20% of earnings above the protected floor |
40 times the federal minimum hourly wage (29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1)) or the applicable South Dakota minimum wage, whichever is greater, at the time earnings are payable (§ 21-18-51(2)) — a bigger multiplier than the federal 30x, and pegged to whichever minimum wage protects the debtor more |
Child and spousal support orders are excluded from the ordinary § 21-18-51 cap entirely and instead follow § 21-18-52's own ceiling: 50% of disposable earnings if the debtor is supporting another spouse or child, or 60% if not, rising to 55%/65% for arrears predating the current 12-week period — matching the federal CCPA support percentages exactly. Bankruptcy Title 11 court orders are likewise excluded from the ordinary cap. Unlike the federal statute and many other states' versions of this exception, § 21-18-51's own exception list names only support orders and bankruptcy orders — it does not separately name state or federal tax debt, which typically proceeds through its own administrative levy process outside this garnishment chapter. Federal student loan administrative wage garnishment likewise runs outside this chapter |
South Dakota builds a per-dependent dollar reduction directly into the ordinary cap's second prong rather than using a separate head-of-household provision: the minimum-wage-floor calculation in § 21-18-51(2) is reduced by $25 per week for every dependent family member (other than the debtor) who resides with the debtor. This is a real, additional protection for a debtor supporting a family, but it only affects the second (minimum-wage) prong of the two-part test, not the flat 20% figure in the first prong |
No statute in this chapter was found setting a first-in-time or combined-cap rule for multiple ordinary garnishments running at once. A plaintiff may secure a 120-day continuing lien on the debtor's wages (§ 21-18-14.1), under which the garnishee withholds the nonexempt portion of earnings as they accrue until the lien amount is satisfied, 120 days pass, or employment ends — but the statute doesn't itself say how a second creditor's garnishment is treated while an existing continuing lien is in effect |
No South Dakota statute specific to ordinary wage garnishment protecting against discharge was found in either the garnishment chapter (SDCL ch. 21-18) or the labor and employment title (SDCL Title 60); only the federal floor applies (15 U.S.C. § 1674, barring discharge for a first garnishment on one debt) |
| Tennessee verified 2026-07-05 | Ordinary cap: T.C.A. § 26-2-106. Per-dependent-child add-on: § 26-2-107. Garnishment mechanics, liens, and priority: §§ 26-2-214, 26-2-224 (Title 26, Execution, Ch. 2). Child/spousal support runs through a separate mechanism: T.C.A. § 36-5-501 (Title 36, Domestic Relations) |
Under § 26-2-106(a), the lesser of: (1) 25% of disposable earnings for the week, or (2) the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage. Both figures are then reduced by an additional $2.50 per week for each dependent child under 16 who is a Tennessee resident (§ 26-2-107), per the Tennessee courts' own official garnishment-summons notice |
Tennessee adopts the federal CCPA's own numbers verbatim, 25% of disposable earnings, 30x the federal minimum wage, with no independent state percentage or multiplier. Tennessee neither strengthens nor weakens the federal formula's core math; its only addition on top of the federal floor is the modest $2.50-per-dependent-child reduction under § 26-2-107, which federal law doesn't provide |
30 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($7.25) = $217.50 of weekly disposable earnings protected. Tennessee has no state minimum wage of its own: § 26-2-106 references only the federal rate, and the U.S. Department of Labor's own state minimum-wage table lists Tennessee as having 'No state minimum wage law' (updated January 1, 2026). The $217.50 floor is reduced further by $2.50 per dependent child under 16 |
Child support and alimony don't run through § 26-2-106 at all, they're enforced through a separate mandatory income assignment, T.C.A. § 36-5-501, capped at a flat 50% of income after FICA, withholding taxes, and the child's health-insurance premium (§ 36-5-501(a)(1)), actually LOWER than the federal CCPA's own support ceiling of up to 65% for a single obligor in arrears (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(2)), so Tennessee's own flat cap controls. State or federal tax debt is excluded from the ordinary cap entirely: the Tennessee courts' own official garnishment-summons notice (referencing § 26-2-216(b)(2)) states plainly that 'no disposable earnings are exempt' for a tax judgment, tracking federal law's own tax carve-out (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)(1)(C)). Federal student loan default collection proceeds independently at 15% of disposable pay without a court order (20 U.S.C. § 1095a(a)(1)) |
A modest, statutorily-fixed dollar add-on rather than a true head-of-household exemption: $2.50 per week for each dependent child under 16 who is a Tennessee resident (§ 26-2-107(a)), on top of the ordinary § 26-2-106 exemption. The debtor must affirmatively tell the employer which dependents to claim, or the add-on doesn't apply (§ 26-2-107(b)-(c)); the dollar figure has been unchanged since a 1989 amendment |
Strict first-in-time: 'A lien obtained under this section shall have priority over any subsequent liens obtained under this section' (§ 26-2-214(b)(2)). A later-filed writ can run concurrently with an earlier one only if it seeks less than the statutory maximum; § 26-2-224 bars a later writ that itself seeks the maximum from running concurrently with an earlier one at all, requiring it to wait until the earlier writ's judgment is satisfied, expires, or is stayed. The Tennessee Attorney General's Opinion No. 19-10 (2019) confirms combined amounts under simultaneous writs can never exceed § 26-2-106's overall cap. Child-support income assignments independently outrank ordinary judgment-creditor garnishments by statute: an assignment under § 36-5-501 'shall take priority over any other assignment or garnishment of wages, as described in title 26, chapter 2' (§ 36-5-501(j)(1)) |
No Tennessee statute specific to discharge over an ORDINARY creditor's garnishment was found, leaving the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674, barring discharge for a single garnishment only) as the applicable rule. Tennessee does have its own broader anti-discharge protection, but only for support income assignments: 'It is unlawful for an employer to use the assignment as a basis for discharge or any disciplinary action against the employee, ... An employer shall be subject to a fine for a Class C misdemeanor if the income assignment is used as a basis to refuse to employ a person or to discharge the obligor/employee or for any disciplinary action' (§ 36-5-501(i)): again with no one-garnishment limit, but scoped only to support enforcement, not an ordinary judgment creditor |
| Texas verified 2026-07-05 | Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 28 (the bar itself); codified in Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 63.004 and Tex. Prop. Code § 42.001(b)(1); support exceptions run through Tex. Fam. Code chs. 8 and 158 |
Zero for an ordinary judgment creditor — current wages for personal service can't be garnished at all except for child support or spousal maintenance |
Far more protective than the federal floor: Texas bars ordinary wage garnishment entirely, where federal law alone would allow up to 25% |
Not applicable — there's no percentage/minimum-wage formula, because ordinary wages can't be garnished for a private debt in the first place |
Child support (Fam. Code § 158.009, capped at 50% of disposable earnings) and spousal maintenance (Fam. Code § 8.101) are the only private-party exceptions the Constitution allows; federal tax levies and federal student loan garnishment (up to 15%, no court judgment needed) reach Texas wages too, but only because federal law preempts the state bar |
Moot — the general constitutional bar already exempts all current wages from ordinary garnishment regardless of household or dependent status, so no separate head-of-household test exists or is needed |
For the debts Texas does allow: a combined support withholding order pays current child support first, then current spousal maintenance, then child support arrears, then spousal maintenance arrears (Fam. Code § 8.101(d)); multiple child-support orders split available withholding capacity up to the 50% cap (Fam. Code § 158.207) |
No Texas-specific statute; Texas relies solely on the federal bar on firing an employee over garnishment of a single debt (15 U.S.C. § 1674) |
| Utah verified 2026-07-05 | Ordinary-judgment cap and priority: Utah R. Civ. P. 64D(a), (f); consumer-credit-specific cap (adds a reduced rate for education loans): Utah Code § 70C-7-103; anti-discharge: § 70C-7-104; child-support income withholding, priority, and anti-discharge: §§ 26B-9-306, -310, -311 |
Lesser of 25% of disposable earnings, or the amount by which they exceed 30 hours/week times the federal minimum hourly wage, for an ordinary judgment (Utah R. Civ. P. 64D(a)); cut to 15% of disposable earnings instead of 25% if the judgment is on a consumer-credit-agreement education loan (§ 70C-7-103(2)(c)) |
Matches the federal formula exactly on both prongs (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)) for an ordinary judgment; more protective specifically for education-loan consumer-credit debt, where the percentage prong drops to 15% instead of 25% |
30 hours per week multiplied by the federal minimum hourly wage — the same multiplier federal law uses, with no separate, higher Utah-specific minimum-wage figure written into the formula |
Child support collected through automatic income withholding is capped at the federal CCPA maximum (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings, § 26B-9-306(2), citing 15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)); if pursued instead as an ordinary garnishment writ, Utah R. Civ. P. 64D(a)(1) sets a 50% cap; federal tax levies and federal student loans bypass this system entirely, using their own federal administrative processes |
None found specific to wages; Utah's protection is the ordinary 25%/30-hour-minimum-wage formula itself, plus the separate personal-property exemption list in the Utah Exemptions Act (§ 78B-5-505), which doesn't include a head-of-household wage carve-out on top of the ordinary cap |
Strict first-in-time for ordinary creditors — 'Priority among writs of garnishment is in order of service' (Utah R. Civ. P. 64D(f)), so only one writ is paid at a time — but a child-support income-withholding notice or order 'is prior to all other legal collection processes provided by state law, including garnishment, attachment, execution, and wage assignment' (§ 26B-9-311), and a state agency's benefit-overpayment collection order (Department of Workforce Services) is treated the same way in practice, jumping ahead of ordinary writs regardless of filing order |
§ 70C-7-104 bars discharge over garnishment 'in connection with any one judgment' — matching, not exceeding, the federal single-garnishment floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674); a separate, standalone protection under § 26B-9-310 bars an employer from discharging, refusing to hire, or disciplining an obligor because of a child-support income-withholding notice, regardless of how many notices are received |
| Vermont verified 2026-07-06 | 12 V.S.A. §§ 3167-3172 (trustee process against earnings); § 3170 (exemption formula); § 3172 (anti-discharge) |
Garnishable amount is whatever remains after exempting the greater of 75% of weekly disposable earnings or 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (12 V.S.A. § 3170(b)(1)) — mathematically the same test as the federal CCPA formula, just stated as an exemption instead of a cap; a court order approving trustee process is required before any withholding begins at all |
Adopts the federal 25%/30x formula exactly for ordinary debt (§ 3170(b)(1) exempts the same amount the federal formula would exempt); more protective than federal law specifically for consumer credit debt, which is exempt up to 85% of disposable earnings or 40 times the federal minimum wage, whichever is greater (§ 3170(b)(2)) |
30 times the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage for ordinary debt, or 40 times the federal minimum hourly wage for debt from a consumer credit transaction (12 V.S.A. § 3170(b)(1)-(2)) — tied to the federal wage, not Vermont's own higher state minimum wage |
Child support wage withholding is entirely exempt from Chapter 121's court-hearing procedure (15 V.S.A. § 789(a)), runs through its own expedited administrative process (§ 782), outranks any other legal process against the same wages, and follows only the federal CCPA support cap (15 U.S.C. § 1673(b)); arrearage-only withholding added on top of current support is capped at 25% of the current support obligation (§ 789(d)). Unpaid state tax debt is collected through a separate administrative wage garnishment (32 V.S.A. § 3208) with its own 80%/40x exemption, bypassing the ordinary court-motion process entirely |
No fixed head-of-household category; instead a court may exempt a greater amount than the standard formula if it finds the debtor's reasonable weekly expenses for their own and their dependents' maintenance exceed it (12 V.S.A. § 3170(b)(3)); separately, no trustee-process order may issue at all against a debtor who received Vermont public assistance (DCF or Dept. of Vermont Health Access) in the two months before the hearing (§ 3170(a)) |
No dedicated statute for ranking multiple ordinary trustee-process orders against the same debtor — each creditor must separately move for and obtain its own court order after a hearing (§§ 3168-3169), at which the court itself finds the debtor's current weekly disposable earnings, rather than an automatic first-in-time or combined-cap rule applying across creditors |
12 V.S.A. § 3172 bars discharging an employee over trustee process, creates a rebuttable presumption that a discharge within 60 days of the trustee summons being served was because of it, and lets a wrongfully discharged employee sue for reinstatement, back wages, damages, costs, and attorney's fees — broader than the federal rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674), which only bars discharge for a single garnishment |
| Virginia verified 2026-07-05 | Wages Exempt chapter, Va. Code § 34-29 (the cap itself); garnishment procedure in Title 8.01, Ch. 18, Art. 7, §§ 8.01-511 to -525 |
Lesser of 25% of weekly disposable earnings, or the amount disposable earnings exceed 40x the higher of the federal or Virginia minimum hourly wage (§ 34-29(A)) |
Matches the federal 25% cap exactly on the percentage prong, but is more protective on the wage-floor prong: 40x the higher of the federal or Virginia minimum wage, versus federal law's flat 30x the federal minimum wage alone — because Virginia's own minimum wage ($12.77/hour) is well above the $7.25 federal rate, more of a Virginia paycheck is fully protected than the federal formula alone would protect |
40 times the greater of the federal minimum hourly wage ($7.25) or Virginia's own minimum hourly wage, currently $12.77/hour through December 31, 2026 — so $510.80 of weekly disposable earnings is fully protected right now. Virginia's minimum wage is scheduled to keep rising ($13.75 on January 1, 2027, $15.00 on January 1, 2028), which will keep raising this dollar floor even though the 40x multiplier itself doesn't change |
A support order isn't subject to the ordinary cap at all — it instead takes 50% to 65% of disposable earnings depending on arrears and other dependents (§ 34-29(C)); a state or federal tax debt is also completely exempt from the ordinary cap today, reaching up to 100% of disposable earnings (§ 34-29(B)(3)) — though an already-enacted 2026 amendment will cap STATE tax garnishments at the same 25%/40x formula as ordinary debt starting July 1, 2027 (federal tax debt stays uncapped; see pending_legislation); federal student loan administrative wage garnishment (15%, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) proceeds independently of this chapter |
None specific to wage garnishment. Virginia doesn't add any extra percentage or dollar protection to § 34-29's formula for supporting a family; a separate homestead exemption for dependents exists elsewhere in Title 34 (§ 34-4), but it protects a debtor's separately-claimed property and money generally, not an ongoing wage garnishment, and is outside this survey's scope |
Support withholding is deducted first from disposable earnings; ordinary garnishments are then honored strictly in the order the writ of fieri facias was delivered to the sheriff, per the official Garnishee Information Sheet (Va. Courts form DC-455) implementing § 34-29 — a later ordinary garnishment simply waits until an earlier one is satisfied |
§ 34-29(G) bars discharging an employee because his earnings 'have been subjected to garnishment for any one indebtedness' — the same protection the federal floor (15 U.S.C. § 1674) provides, with no additional Virginia-specific protection beyond it |
| Washington verified 2026-07-05 | Garnishment chapter, RCW 6.27 (the cap itself in § 6.27.150; definitions in § 6.27.010) |
For CONSUMER debt (most ordinary judgment-creditor claims): lesser of 20% of disposable earnings, or the amount disposable earnings exceed 35x the Washington state minimum hourly wage (§ 6.27.150(4)). For OTHER, non-consumer/non-student-loan debt (e.g., a business debt or a tort judgment not for personal/family/household purposes): lesser of 25% of disposable earnings, or the amount disposable earnings exceed 35x the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage (§ 6.27.150(1)) |
More protective than the federal 25%/30x formula in every category. For consumer debt specifically, Washington cuts the percentage to 20% and multiplies by Washington's own, much higher minimum wage instead of the federal rate — a materially bigger protected floor. Even the residual 'other debt' category, which keeps the federal 25% figure, still uses 35x instead of the federal 30x multiplier |
For consumer debt: 35x Washington's own state minimum hourly wage ($17.13/hour as of January 1, 2026) = $599.55/week fully protected. For the residual 'other debt' category: 35x the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage ($7.25) = $253.75/week. Which wage applies depends entirely on which debt category the garnishment falls into |
Child support cannot be collected through an ordinary wage garnishment under this chapter at all — Washington's own statutory Notice of Garnishment (§ 6.27.140) states plainly that 'a garnishment against wages or other earnings for child support may not be issued under chapter 6.27 RCW'; it's instead handled through a separate mandatory wage assignment / income-withholding process (chapters 26.18 and 74.20A). A spousal-maintenance claim pursued as an ordinary garnishment (not a ch. 26.18 mandatory wage assignment) is capped at 50% of disposable earnings instead (§ 6.27.150(2)). Private student loan debt gets an even narrower cap than ordinary consumer debt — at most 15% of disposable earnings can be taken (§ 6.27.150(3)). Federal tax levies and federal student loan administrative wage garnishment proceed independently of this chapter |
None tied to dependents or family support specifically for wage garnishment, beyond the separate consumer-debt and spousal-maintenance categories above. Washington's personal-property exemption schedule (RCW 6.15.010) is a distinct, non-wage exemption a debtor claims separately and is outside this survey's scope |
A continuing wage-garnishment lien generally has first-in-time priority over a later garnishment lien or wage assignment (§ 6.27.360(1)) — but a child-support payroll-deduction notice or wage assignment (chs. 26.18/74.20A) and certain criminal legal-financial-obligation assignments always outrank an ordinary garnishment lien regardless of which was served first (§ 6.27.360(2)-(3)); only the nonexempt wages left after those support/LFO amounts are then available to the earlier-filed ordinary lien |
More protective than the federal floor. RCW 6.27.170 bars discharging an employee over a garnishment, and loses that protection only once garnishments on THREE OR MORE separate debts have been served on the employer within any 12 consecutive months — federal law (15 U.S.C. § 1674) protects only a single garnishment |
| West Virginia verified 2026-07-06 | W. Va. Code § 38-5A-3 (suggestee execution — cap, floor, one-year continuing levy, priority among multiple executions); § 46A-2-131 (West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, anti-discharge); § 48-14-417 (support collection priority) |
The lesser of 20% of wages remaining after deduction of all state and federal taxes, or the amount by which those wages exceed 50 times the federal minimum hourly wage — whichever leaves the debtor with more (§ 38-5A-3(a)). The execution operates as a continuing lien on wages due within one year of issuance, unless vacated or modified sooner |
More protective than the federal CCPA test on both prongs: a flat 20% cap instead of 25%, and a 50x-minimum-wage floor instead of 30x — one of the more protective ordinary-garnishment regimes in this survey. Note the deduction base differs too: West Virginia's cap runs off wages after state and federal TAXES only, not the broader federal 'disposable earnings' concept (which also nets out FICA/Medicare), so the base the percentage applies to is somewhat larger even though the resulting cap is tighter |
50 times the federal minimum hourly wage ($362.50/week at $7.25/hour) — well above the federal 30x floor; garnishment can never reduce a debtor's weekly take-home pay below this amount (§ 38-5A-3(a)) |
Support collection has absolute priority over any other legal process against the same income and applies 'despite any exemption that might otherwise be applicable' (§ 48-14-417) — it jumps ahead of an ordinary suggestee execution regardless of when either was served. Support withholding itself follows the federal CCPA support percentages (up to 50-65% of disposable earnings), a separate mechanism from the ordinary 20%/50x-floor test. Tax debt and federal student loans are collected through their own administrative processes outside this ordinary-creditor scheme |
No head-of-household or family-support exemption on top of the ordinary 20%/50x-floor cap anywhere in this article. West Virginia's separate personal-property exemption schedule (§ 38-8-1: $1,100 plus unused homestead) is a distinct, non-wage exemption, not an earnings add-on |
More than one suggestee execution can be served on the same wages, but only one is being satisfied at a time, strictly in order of priority of service; once the senior execution is paid off without exhausting the maximum garnishable amount, the remaining balance goes to the next junior execution in line (§ 38-5A-3(a)). Support collection under § 48-14-417 overrides this priority scheme entirely, regardless of service order |
Narrower than federal law: West Virginia's anti-discharge statute only bars firing or retaliating against an employee because a creditor subjected the employee's earnings to garnishment 'for the purpose of paying a judgment arising from a consumer credit sale, consumer lease or consumer loan' (§ 46A-2-131) — garnishment for a debt outside that consumer-credit definition (e.g., a personal-injury judgment) isn't covered by this state statute, though the federal 15 U.S.C. § 1674 single-indebtedness protection still applies regardless of debt type |
| Wisconsin verified 2026-07-05 | Wis. Stat. ch. 812, subch. II (Earnings Garnishment), §§ 812.30 to 812.44, definitions, the exemption, the judicial-relief process, payment and priority rules, and the anti-retaliation rule. Court-ordered support withholding runs separately through ch. 767 (Wis. Stat. § 767.75). A DIFFERENT statute, Wis. Stat. § 815.18(3)(h) (the general "Property Exempt from Execution" chapter, used mainly in bankruptcy and non-earnings-garnishment execution), sets its own, separate net-income exemption, distinct from, and not the source of, ch. 812's earnings-garnishment rule |
Wis. Stat. § 812.34(2)(a): 80% of the debtor's disposable earnings are exempt, so 20% is the most an ordinary judgment creditor can reach, unless the debtor's earnings are totally exempt under par. (b) (poverty-line household income, or need-based public assistance) or further reduced under par. (c) (if 20% would push household income below the poverty line). Chapter 812's own text sets no separate dollar-floor or minimum-wage-multiple prong at all; the exemption is a flat percentage, adjusted only by the poverty-line/public-assistance provisions |
Wisconsin's flat 20% cap is already more protective than the federal CCPA's 25% (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)), so Wisconsin's own rule never needs to fall back on the federal minimum-wage-based prong to beat the federal floor. But because ch. 812 doesn't independently restate the federal 30x-minimum-wage floor the way most states' statutes do, that federal floor still operates in the background, as a backstop federal law itself guarantees, rather than as a rule written into Wisconsin's own text |
Chapter 812 sets no minimum-wage-tied floor of its own, only the 80%/20% split and the poverty-line/public-assistance provisions. The federal CCPA's 30x-the-federal-minimum-wage floor (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)(2)) still applies underneath Wisconsin's rule as a backstop by operation of federal law. A SEPARATE Wisconsin statute, § 815.18(3)(h) (part of the general execution-exemption chapter, not the earnings-garnishment subchapter), does set its own floor, 75% of net income exempt, but never less than 30 times the greater of the state or federal minimum hourly wage, and because Wisconsin's own minimum wage equals the federal $7.25 rate, that alternate floor also computes to $217.50/week. Several secondary sources, including this topic's own CTA template, describe that 30x-minimum-wage figure as if it were written into § 812.34 itself; it isn't, it comes from a different chapter |
Section 812.34(1) excludes debts under a state or federal chapter 13 debt-adjustment plan, support debts, and unpaid taxes from the 80%/20% exemption entirely. Support withholding instead runs under ch. 767 (§ 767.75), following the federal CCPA's own support tiers (50-65% of disposable earnings depending on second-family and arrears status) rather than any separate Wisconsin percentage. Section 812.39(2) sets the interaction precisely: a support assignment always outranks an ordinary earnings garnishment regardless of which was served first, and if 25% or more of disposable earnings is already assigned for support, the ordinary creditor gets nothing; if less than 25%, the ordinary creditor's share is cut so the combined total never exceeds 25%. Federal student loan administrative garnishment (15% of disposable pay, 20 U.S.C. § 1095a) and IRS tax levies proceed under independent federal authority, unconstrained by Wisconsin's cap |
Not a per-dependent dollar add-on, but a broad income-based version of the same idea: § 812.34(2)(b) makes earnings COMPLETELY exempt if the debtor's household income (the debtor's and dependents' earnings and other income together, as defined in § 812.30(8)) falls below the federal poverty line, or if the debtor receives, recently received, or has been found eligible for need-based public assistance; § 812.34(2)(c) separately trims even the ordinary 20% garnishment if it would push household income below the poverty line. Because "dependent" and "household income" are both defined around who the debtor actually supports, this functions as Wisconsin's version of a family-support exemption: structured as a means test tied to the poverty line rather than a fixed dollar figure per dependent |
Only one earnings garnishment runs against a debtor's pay at a time. Under § 812.35(6), if the garnishee is already subject to one or more unterminated earnings garnishments when a new one is served, the garnishee retains the new form and puts it into effect only in the pay period after the last pending garnishment ends: a strict serial queue, not a shared percentage. Section 812.40 reinforces this: even a written extension of an existing garnishment is automatically voided if a different creditor's garnishment is served on the garnishee before that extension takes effect. A ch. 767 support assignment always outranks this ordinary-creditor queue regardless of timing (§ 812.39(2)) |
Wisconsin's anti-retaliation rule, § 812.43, is broader on its face than the federal rule and most peer states: it bars a garnishee from imposing any fee or taking any "adverse action against a debtor by reason of the garnishment of the debtor's earnings," full stop, with no limitation to a first or single garnishment, unlike the federal one-debt rule (15 U.S.C. § 1674) or states that just copy it. A violation gives the debtor a private right of action for reinstatement, back wages and benefits, restoration of seniority, other relief allowed by law, and reasonable attorney fees, a civil remedy, not the criminal penalty some other states attach to their anti-discharge rule |
| Wyoming verified 2026-07-06 | W.S. 1-15-408 (post-judgment garnishment cap); §§ 1-15-501 through 1-15-511 (continuing garnishment article, cap in § 1-15-511, priority in § 1-15-504); § 1-15-509 (anti-discharge); parallel Wyoming Uniform Consumer Credit Code provisions at W.S. 40-14-505 and 40-14-506 for consumer-credit-sale, lease, or loan debts |
Lesser of 25% of the debtor's disposable earnings for the week, or the amount by which disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum hourly wage (W.S. 1-15-408(b); the continuing-garnishment article states the identical formula in § 1-15-511(a)) |
Adopts the federal 25%/30x formula exactly (15 U.S.C. § 1673(a)), with no state-specific reduction in the percentage or increase in the wage multiplier |
30 times the FEDERAL minimum hourly wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206(a)(1) — not Wyoming's own state minimum wage, which sets no higher floor here |
A child support income withholding order obtained under W.S. 20-6-201 through 20-6-222 has priority over any other garnishment, ordinary or continuing (W.S. 1-15-408(a), 1-15-504(c)); debt from a consumer credit sale, lease, or loan instead follows a parallel cap and anti-discharge rule under the Wyoming Uniform Consumer Credit Code (W.S. 40-14-505, 40-14-506) rather than the ordinary civil procedure code, though the numeric formula is the same |
None found — no dependent-based or family-support add-on exists on top of the plain 25%/30x formula in either the civil procedure code or the Consumer Credit Code; only narrow, unrelated categorical exemptions exist (e.g., National Guard members' military earnings, W.S. 19-9-401) |
Only one writ of continuing garnishment against a debtor's earnings may be satisfied at a time; competing writs are satisfied strictly in the order served on the garnishee, a creditor may not serve more than one continuing-garnishment writ on the same garnishee for the same debtor within any 90-day period, and a suspended continuing garnishment keeps its priority over any writ served after the suspension ends (W.S. 1-15-504(a)-(b)); a child support withholding order always outranks a continuing garnishment regardless of service order and tolls the earlier writ's effective period until the withholding order ends (§ 1-15-504(c)) |
W.S. 1-15-509 bars discharging an employee over any continuing garnishment (no textual single-garnishment limit) and lets a wrongfully discharged employee sue within 120 days for reinstatement, lost wages up to 30 working days, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees; the parallel W.S. 40-14-506 separately bars discharge for a garnishment tied to a consumer credit sale, lease, or loan |
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