Does federal or state law require that workers have rest breaks?

Unless you live in a handful of states, the answer is no, according to this informative article by Chris Morran. An excerpt:

Many of us have the option of taking at least one brief lunch and/or
rest break during the work day (whether you take it or not is a
different discussion), and lots of people believe they are legally
entitled to a break for every few hours worked. But … [w]hile federal law does require that employers pay workers for “rest
periods of short duration, usually 20 minutes or less,” it doesn’t
actually require that adult workers be given these rest periods…. [And] only eight states — California, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington — have laws requiring minimum paid rest periods to most employees.

The article tells stories of workers forced to work all day without any breaks.

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