188 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. © 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP XVII. WAGE ASSIGNMENTS & GARNISHMENTS A. Assignments Wage assignments are contracts that transfer an employee’s right to collect his or her future wages to a third party.1180 Typically, employees assign their wages in order to repay debts owed to banks, credit card companies, or other creditors. Massachusetts takes a paternalistic approach to wage assignments, carefully regulating them due to concerns that such assignments could result from improper coercion or could leave employees unable to support themselves and their families.1181 To be deemed valid in Massachusetts, all wage assignments must be in writing and they must substantially conform to a standard form provided in the statute.1182 The employer must accept the wage assignment in writing, and the employee’s spouse must give written consent as well.1183 Employees may not assign their wages to their employer or to any third party if the intent is to relieve the employer of the obligation to pay wages.1184 The Commonwealth’s other requirements for valid wage assignments vary depending on whether the assignment is for more or less than $3,000.1185 For amounts under $3,000, a record of the wage assignment must be recorded by the clerk of the municipality where the employee resides if the employee is a Massachusetts resident, or where the employee is employed if the employee resides out-of-state. The assignment must state that wages of $10.00 per week are exempt. Wage assignments of less than $3,000 are only valid for one year.1186 Wage assignments that are greater than $3,000 have different and additional requirements.1187 First, a wage assignment can only secure a debt that was incurred prior to or at the same time as the assignment’s execution. The written wage assignment must list its date of execution, the amount of money or goods the employee received in return, and any interest rate that applies to the loan. The wage assignment must also state that 75 percent of the employee’s weekly earnings are exempt, and 1180 M.G.L. ch. 154, § 1. Employees may assign wages earned through at-will employment, even though the employment is of unknown duration and the amount of future earnings is uncertain. See Citizens’ Loan Ass’n v. Boston & Maine R.R., 196 Mass. 528, 530 (1907) (“[T]he worker under contract for service, though indefinite as to time and compensation and terminable at will[,] has an actual and real interest in wages to be earned in the future by virtue of his contract.”). 1181 See In re Nance, 556 F.2d 602, 610 (1st Cir. 1977) (holding that the purpose of the statute is to “protect a wage earner from assigning away in advance his entire means of supporting himself and his family”). 1182 M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 2-3, 5; In re Opinion of Justices, 267 Mass. 607, 609 (1929) (noting that wage assignments must be memorialized in writing). 1183 M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 2-3. The statute by its terms requires the written consent of the employee’s wife, but it is likely that a court would update this language to require the consent of a spouse of either sex. See In Re Opinion of Justices, 267 Mass. at 609 (noting that wage assignments must have written consent of employee’s wife). 1184 M.G.L. ch. 149, § 150. 1185 See M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 2-4. 1186 M.G.L. ch. 154, § 2. 1187 M.G.L. ch. 154, §§ 3-4.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTkwMTQ4