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EPI Report on Minimum Wage Violations

Absentglare

Absentglare

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The Economic Policy Institute released a report on minimum wage violations, some key findings:

In the 10 most populous states in the country, each year 2.4 million workers covered by state or federal minimum wage laws report being paid less than the applicable minimum wage in their state—approximately 17 percent of the eligible low-wage workforce.
...
Workers suffering minimum wage violations are underpaid an average of $64 per week, nearly one-quarter of their weekly earnings. This means that a victim who works year-round is losing, on average, $3,300 per year and receiving only $10,500 in annual wages.
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Employers steal billions from workers? paychecks each year: Survey data show millions of workers are paid less than the minimum wage, at significant cost to taxpayers and state economies | Economic Policy Institute

The mechanisms for this form of wage theft are:
* Simply offering less than the minimum wage
* Failing to pay overtime
* Requiring employees to work off-the-clock
* Denying breaks
* Illegal deductions on wages
* Taking tips from employees or failing to pay tipped workers the difference to achieve at least a minimum wage
* Mischaracterizing employees as independent contractors with a reduced wage

It's just shocking to me, someone who would make only $13,000 a year doesn't deserve to have a quarter of their paycheck gleaned for the sake of the owner's profits. If a business cannot survive by operating within the law, it does not deserve to survive.

How can we so poorly enforce minimum wage laws? Shouldn't we put severe penalties in place to disincentivize this kind of behavior? Seventeen percent of these people are being violated by their employers!
 
volsrock said:
How can we so poorly enforce immigration laws?


Been asking that for years
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By choice. Neither party is interested in "fixing" illegal immigration.
 
volsrock said:
How can we so poorly enforce immigration laws?


Been asking that for years
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Actually it's funny you say that. One reason is that businesses love to have second-class citizens that they can feel justified in exploiting by, for example, offering far less than the minimum wage, so they're willing spend a lot of money lobbying to make sure we don't have immigration reform.

However, i don't believe that mechanism of wage theft was covered by this report.
 
azgreg said:
By choice. Neither party is interested in "fixing" illegal immigration.
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I think the same is true for wages. Both parties like to talk tough but in the end they don't care to fix it
 
Absentglare said:
The Economic Policy Institute released a report on minimum wage violations, some key findings:



Employers steal billions from workers? paychecks each year: Survey data show millions of workers are paid less than the minimum wage, at significant cost to taxpayers and state economies | Economic Policy Institute

The mechanisms for this form of wage theft are:
* Simply offering less than the minimum wage
* Failing to pay overtime
* Requiring employees to work off-the-clock
* Denying breaks
* Illegal deductions on wages
* Taking tips from employees or failing to pay tipped workers the difference to achieve at least a minimum wage
* Mischaracterizing employees as independent contractors with a reduced wage

It's just shocking to me, someone who would make only $13,000 a year doesn't deserve to have a quarter of their paycheck gleaned for the sake of the owner's profits. If a business cannot survive by operating within the law, it does not deserve to survive.

How can we so poorly enforce minimum wage laws? Shouldn't we put severe penalties in place to disincentivize this kind of behavior? Seventeen percent of these people are being violated by their employers!
Click to expand...

Does anyone know how the argument "denying breaks is wage theft" goes?

tyvm
 
Just because "X" number of workers report being paid less than minimum, doesn't mean that "X" number are actually correct. Math is not usually a skill held by most minimum wage workers - even fast food places have to use pictures or combo numbers on their cash registers. I had an employee who I was paying almost double the amount of minimum wage to do basic cleaning, run errands, and the like. What I was paying him was more than he had ever made in his life. When he got his first check, he came to me mad as hell because what his check was for was for less than what he made per hour. After I got him to calm down, I explained to him about FICA, and other income taxes that come out of his check before he gets it. He understood what taxes were, but because he was getting paid so much more than he had made before, he was in a different tax bracket and the amount of taxes being taken out was a hell of a lot more than he had ever seen or was prepared for.

Now, none of that above is to say that employers that screw over their employees shouldn't pay a price legally, because they should. I just wanted to not that the EPI report is based on worker reported numbers, not actual violations found.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Does anyone know how the argument "denying breaks is wage theft" goes?

tyvm
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Some states have laws that you are required to give a paid 15 minutes break for every X amount of hours worked.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Does anyone know how the argument "denying breaks is wage theft" goes?
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I suspect it’s something like being contracted to work from 9 to 5 with an hour lunch break (so you’re being paid for 7 hours work) but then being expected/required to work through your lunch hour without any additional pay (effectively doing 8 hours work for 7 hours pay). If your hourly rate is already at or near the minimum wage, the extra unpaid hour could push your overall pay below it.
 
Beaudreaux said:
Just because "X" number of workers report being paid less than minimum, doesn't mean that "X" number are actually correct. Math is not usually a skill held by most minimum wage workers - even fast food places have to use pictures or combo numbers on their cash registers. I had an employee who I was paying almost double the amount of minimum wage to do basic cleaning, run errands, and the like. What I was paying him was more than he had ever made in his life. When he got his first check, he came to me mad as hell because what his check was for was for less than what he made per hour. After I got him to calm down, I explained to him about FICA, and other income taxes that come out of his check before he gets it. He understood what taxes were, but because he was getting paid so much more than he had made before, he was in a different tax bracket and the amount of taxes being taken out was a hell of a lot more than he had ever seen or was prepared for.

Now, none of that above is to say that employers that screw over their employees shouldn't pay a price legally, because they should. I just wanted to not that the EPI report is based on worker reported numbers, not actual violations found.
Click to expand...

The difference between taxes he could have seen would be 5% on his gross after ~$9,000 (depending on when this was). If his allowances stayed the same, he might have gone from close-to-no income tax to very little income tax, but at that point it would be a case of someone who didn't really ever pay taxes before.
 
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