Wage theft

Wage theft is when employers illegally hold back money due to their workers (employees). They may withhold wages or deny benefits that are rightfully due to an employee. It is a term used in the in the United States, but the idea applies more widely.

Examples are: failure to pay overtime, paying less than the minimum wage, illegal deductions in pay, working off the clock, or not being paid at all.

Wage theft from low wage immigrant workers is common in the United States.^[1]^[2] The Economic Policy Institute reported in 2014 that survey evidence suggests wage theft costs US workers billions of dollars a year.^[3] The rights violated by wage theft have been guaranteed to workers in the United States in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).^[4]

In February 2010 Miami-Dade County, Florida became the first jurisdiction in America to ban wage theft. Before that, wage theft was called "the crime wave that almost no one talks about".^[5]

Wage Theft Media

Service Employees International Union anti-wage theft protest (Seattle, 2013)
Annual value of different forms of theft in the U.S., expressed in billions of US dollars. Figures are from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for 2012.

References

↑ Steven Greenhouse (September 1, 2009). Low-wage workers are often cheated, study says. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02wage.html. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
↑ Steven Greenhouse (August 31, 2014). More workers are claiming 'wage theft'. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/business/more-workers-are-claiming-wage-theft.html. Retrieved August 31, 2014.
↑ Brady Meixell and Ross Eisenbrey 2014. An epidemic of wage theft is costing workers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
↑ Kimberley A. Bobo (2009). Wage theft in America: why millions of working Americans are not getting paid - and what we can do about it. New Press. ISBN 9781595584458. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
↑ "Stop Wage Theft — In the News". South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016. Retrieved March 30, 2014.

[NYTStudyreport-1] Steven Greenhouse (September 1, 2009). Low-wage workers are often cheated, study says. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02wage.html. Retrieved May 29, 2012.

[2] Steven Greenhouse (August 31, 2014). More workers are claiming 'wage theft'. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/business/more-workers-are-claiming-wage-theft.html. Retrieved August 31, 2014.

[3] Brady Meixell and Ross Eisenbrey 2014. An epidemic of wage theft is costing workers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved June 8, 2015.

[4] Kimberley A. Bobo (2009). Wage theft in America: why millions of working Americans are not getting paid - and what we can do about it. New Press. ISBN 9781595584458. Retrieved March 4, 2012.

[5] "Stop Wage Theft — In the News". South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016. Retrieved March 30, 2014.

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