Most states have a wage garnishment law. In some states, wage garnishment laws can be used in bankruptcy as an exemption to protect income that you had coming due, but not yet received, as of the day you filed, for work you had already done — so called “earned but unpaid wages”.
In some states, the wage garnishment law protects not only wages owed to you, but also wages already in your possession and saved over time preferably holding it in a separate bank account. In other states wage garnishment laws do not protect wages once they are they are in your possession.
There is a federal wage garnishment protection found in the CCPA (Consumer Credit Protection Act), 15 U.S.C. ยง 1673, which limits how much of your pay can be taken for collection purposes. But this law law is generally found not to be an exemptions in bankruptcy. See, e.g. IN RE HORTON, Case No. 10-53495., Bankr. ED Kentucky, 3/4/2011