Back to Basics: Making sense of joint employment

Let me paint you a picture. Paul, an employee at a fast food burger joint, is chatting with his neighbor about how, just in the past few months, he's struggled to keep on top of his finances.  He's paid a couple bills late and his credit card debt is building up. Nothing in Paul's life has changed: he's paying the same rent in his Denver apartment, he's single and he's healthy. His neighbor finds Paul's new financial hardship strange — in January, Colorado's hourly minimum wage rose from $10.20 to $11.10, on pace to reach $12/hour by 2020. If anything, Paul should be feeling more financially stable. So he suggests Paul check his next pay stub. When Paul does, he finds that his manager never figured the new minimum wage rate into his salary.