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Employers are Stealing Billions of Dollars from their Workers
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119410/economic-policy-institute-wage-theft-could-total-50-billion-yearAs the economy slowly recovers, its become increasingly clear that its not just unemployed Americans who need help from the government. Its those that are employed as well.
Thats the main finding of a new report from the Economic Policy Institute on wage theft. What is wage theft? Its when employers refuse to pay their workers their rightful wages and benefits, such as refusing to pay overtime. Its a major problem across the United States. One study, which EPI cites, examined three cities (New York, Chicago and Los Angeles) and found that two-thirds of workers in low-wage industries had experienced a pay-related offense in any given week in 2008. Those violations cost workers more than $2,600 a year on averagenearly 15 percent of their total earnings. If wage theft is as prevalent in the rest of the United States as it is in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, then it costs workers more than $50 billion a year.
Its tough to calculate how widespread wage theft is because much of it goes unreported. But not all. The U.S. Department of Labor, state departments of labor, state attorneys general, and private attorneys file cases on behalf of workers to recover lost wages. No single database collects this information so EPI consulted with state labor departments and attorneys general and researched private civil litigation cases to estimate the total amount that workers recovered in wages. In 2012, it totaled at least $933 million. In fact that understates the total since the researchers didnt receive data from six state departments of labor and five attorneys general.
Remember, the actual amount recovered is only a fraction of the total wage theft. In other words, wage theft totals billions of dollars every year. EPI puts these numbers in perspective to show just the significance of these pay-related offenses. For instance, in 2012, people and companies reported $341 million in lost property from robbery, all forms of it. These are just reported instances of robbery, so that certainly understates the true extent of it. Even so, workers recovered three times as much in stolen wages as Americans lost in reported robberies. That's a massive loss for low-wage workers.
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Employers are Stealing Billions of Dollars from their Workers (Original Post)
Bill USA
Jan 2015
OP
But That Is Just Part Of Doing Business In The New Economy. Part Of The Reagan Revolution.
TheMastersNemesis
Jan 2015
#1
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)1. But That Is Just Part Of Doing Business In The New Economy. Part Of The Reagan Revolution.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)2. ,
,
niyad
(113,079 posts)3. k and r and bookmarking for later.