My wife works for a large pharmaceutical company in NC. She is salaried and doesn,t get paid overtime. My question is at what point is a managers title just a ploy for non-pay of overtime. She manages a few employees ( 3-5), but also has do the same work as them. Lately she has had to put in overtime of 20+ hours a week to make up for the lack of staffing, she is doing the staff's work. Is she eligible for overtime, or is it just time for her to start looking for another job. Any help is appreciated.

An employee's primary "job duties" v. "job title" dictate whether he/she can be classified as exempt from OT

Factors to consider when determining an employee’s primary duty include, but are not limited to 1.) relative importance of the exempt duties, 2.)amount of time spent performing exempt work 3.) relative freedom from direct supervision, 4.) relationship between the employee’s salary and the wages paid to other employees for the same kind of nonexempt work, etc.

Employees who spend more than 50% of their time performing exempt work will generally satisfy the primary duty requirement,

On the basis of what you have posted, we can't say. If she is correctly classified as exempt, there are no circumstances whatsoever in which she is legally entitled to overtime. However, without a far more detailed description of her job duties, as well as an understanding of how much of her time is spent managing her subordinates and how much of it is performing other duties, no one here can opine whether she is correctly classified or not.