For more than a decade, local and state laws have been increasingly focused on providing more protection and agency to workers fighting wage theft, according to new data published today on LawAtlas.org.
Wage theft occurs when an employer does not pay the wage or benefits owed to an employee. In the United States, this disproportionately affects people of color, women, and immigrants.
Cities have been largely at the forefront of innovation by enacting or strengthening anti-wage theft laws that regulate minimum wage or nonpayment of wages, according to the new data. The prevalence of city wage theft laws has tripled from January 1, 2010, to April 15, 2023. This includes novel approaches like establishing licensing penalties, educational outreach to employers and workers, third-party complaints or wall-to-wall investigations, and evidentiary burden shifting in favor of the worker. Workers in these cities have access to additional protections from laws that seek to stop employers from committing wage theft and support them to file complaints.
The four new datasets, developed by researchers at Temple University Beasley School of Law along with CPHLR, capture laws from January 1, 2010, to April 15, 2023. The datasets capture the legal landscape in the 40 largest US cities and 25 states where they’re located and include laws that govern the payment of minimum, overtime, and promised wages. The data identify whether the law imposes monetary or non-monetary penalties, requires employers to keep records or provide information about wages to workers, or protects against employer retaliation.
The data also show:
In 10 of the 40 largest cities, there are local laws that authorize the revocation of a business-related license based on an employer's failure to pay minimum, overtime, or promised wages. This is an increase from one city that had these protections as of January 1, 2010. Only Massachusetts has a state-level law offering this protection as of April 15, 2023.
Eleven of the 40 largest cities impose mandatory monetary penalties on an employer for minimum wage violations. In all of those cities, the monetary penalties go to the worker. These are either a percentage of the wage owed or a daily fine, as of April 15, 2023.
Nine cities versus only one state has a provision that provides education to workers and employers, as of April 15, 2023.
Only four cities are preempted from enacting any kind of local wage theft legislation, as of April 15, 2023.
We created these datasets recognizing that state and local law was helping to fill a void where federal law and its enforcement fell short,” said Jennifer Lee, associate professor in the Sandra and Stephen Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple University Beasley School of Law and lead researcher on this project. “While many are familiar with the state and local phenomenon of fighting wage theft, there was no comprehensive and detailed legal mapping of these laws. Researchers can use these datasets to study the impact of wage theft regulation on worker health and identify the efficacy of such laws.”
The four new datasets were created with technical support by the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law and are available on LawAtlas.org:
The Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law creates and advances research on the health effects of laws and policies. Learn more at http://phlr.temple.edu