$15 billion a year

The federal data provides a revealing look at a practice that pushes America’s lowest-paid workers further into poverty. The data doesn’t include violations of state wage-theft laws or cases where employees sued. And it misses all the workers who don’t file complaints, either because they’re afraid to or are unaware of their rights.

But some economists say wage theft is so pervasive that it’s costing workers at least $15 billion a year — far more than the amount stolen in robberies.

Companies are more prone to cheat employees of color and immigrant workers, according to Daniel Galvin, a political science professor and policy researcher at Northwestern University. His research, based on data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, shows that immigrants and Latino workers were twice as likely to earn less than the minimum wage from 2009 to 2019 compared with white Americans. Black workers were nearly 50% more likely to get ripped off in comparison.

Galvin reports in his forthcoming book, “Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights,” that the lowest-paid workers lost roughly $1.67 per hour — about 21% of their income — to wage theft from 2009 to 2019.

A Labor Department official said the agency orders companies to pay damages when appropriate, determined on a case-by-case basis. Fines are usually assessed when a company repeatedly, or willfully, breaks the law. The department tries to resolve cases administratively to avoid taking employers to court. much she was owed: $1,272.

With help from an attorney at Adelante Alabama Worker Center, Callejas sued the owner of the hotel, AUM Pelham LLC. The company denied that Callejas was hired at $10 an hour or that she worked overtime, but it agreed to a settlement.

Callejas walked away with $2,500 in back wages and damages. But that didn’t wipe away the memories of her struggle. “Every time I paid my bills,” she recalled, “I never had enough money.”

Isaac Guazo, an economic justice organizer for Adelante Alabama, said fewer workers have reported wage theft during the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean it’s happening less.

“It’s the opposite, actually,” he said. “Workers will tolerate a lot more abuse right now because it’s so hard to find another job and they need to pay rent.”

Ruth Palacios and Arturo Xelo, a married couple from Mexico, disinfected COVID-19 patient rooms at the Memorial Sloan

Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. They worked seven days a week for months, Palacios said, but weren’t paid overtime. At the start of the pandemic, they earned the local minimum wage of $15 an hour, she said, but after a few months, their boss lowered their pay to $12.25, she said.

Palacios, Xelo and two of their former co-workers filed a federal lawsuit against the contractor that hired them, BMS Cat, in January. In court records, the company denied that it paid the cleaners less than the minimum wage or that it owed them overtime pay. The hospital did not respond to requests for comment, either.

“The little guys have to speak up because people — the bosses — are taking advantage of their workers,” Palacios said in a video call from her home in Queens.