Wage theft occurs when workers are paid below the minimum wage, not paid for overtime, forced to work off the clock, misclassified as independent contractors, or simply not paid for work performed.  By any measure, this is a problem that has deepened during the current economic crisis, during which nonstandard work arrangements have become more common, and enforcement of basic labor protections has withered.  

See the wage theft resources maintained by the National Employment law Project  and Interfaith Worker Justice.  For the basic patterns, see Annette Bernhardt, et. al., Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities (NELP, 2009); National Employment Law Project, Winning Wage Justice (2010); Government Accountability Office, Testimony before the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division’s Complaint Intake and Investigative Processes Leave Low Wage Workers Vulnerable to Wage Theft (March 2009).

Industry-specific studies include the Restaurant Opportunities Center series Behind the Kitchen Door on labor conditions in food service in a number of cities; and Workers Defense Project, Building Austin, Building Injustice (2009) on conditions in the Texas capital’s construction industry, and the work of Domestic Workers United and the National Day Labor Organizing Network.  A good summary of the misclassification issues is Sarah Leberstein, Independent Contractor Misclassification Imposes Huge Costs on Workers and Federal and State Treasuries (NELP, June 2010).

State- and city-level studies include Annette Bernhardt et al, All Work and No Pay: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City, Social Forces (2013); Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy, Wage Theft: How Millions of Dollars are Stolen from Florida’s Workforce (January 2012); and Oregon Center for Public Policy, Evidence of Widespread Wage Theft (February 2012) and Iowa Policy Project, Wage Theft in Iowa (2012).