As a salaried employee, I have the luxury of not keeping track of the hours I work. For example, I stayed in Manhattan last week preparing a presentation for an RFP our company is competing for. Our workday spilled into the late evenings, including dinner and drinks, as we worked on our pitch and then we collaborated from home over the weekend fine-tuning it through Adobe Connect sessions. We easily spent 80-100 hours preparing it and nobody on our team was whining or bitching about the hours worked. For us, it's rewarding work, especially when we win the bid and bring large contracts to the company (and commissions to ourselves).
People get so hung up on the hours they work and whether or not they are getting "compensated" for every minute they are "on the clock."
No wonders employers are gun shy about the hourly employees. They don't want to expose themselves to litigation so they are extra careful. This is not good for the workers, who find themselves expendable - just a cog in the machine.
If you are self-motivated and want to live the American dream, pursue professional; commission-based; or managerial work where you are "exempt" from these ridiculous labor laws - which only serve to keep YOU down.