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We have all heard tales of Wage Theft but did you know that it costs workers millions of dollars every year? All too often workers toil away with no benefits and no assurance that they will actually be paid for the hours that they work, let alone at the proper rate.
To an employer, skimming a little off the top may not seem like such a huge problem. A few overtime hours here, save some money on some benefits there; these actions add up and contribute to the epidemic of wage theft sweeping our nation. To put things into perspective, if an employer were to short an average laborer in California just thirty minutes a week it would add up to around $1,600 a year in lost wages for the employee. A study found that, in the low-wage labor market, 76% of workers were not paid an overtime rate for working over 40 hours in a week and 26% of low wage workers were being paid less than minimum wage. This same study estimated that the average cost of wage theft per worker is $2,634 a year.
If that doesn’t send the message home, an Economic Policy Institute article referenced the 2012 crime rates reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and found that wage theft cost more annual damages than robberies stating:
In 2012 there were 292,074 robberies of all kinds, including bank robberies, residential robberies, convenience store and gas station robberies, and street robberies. The total value of the property taken in those crimes was $340,850,358. Those are not the robberies that were solved; those are all the robberies that were reported to the police, anywhere in the nation.
No one knows precisely how many instances of wage theft occurred in the U.S. during 2012, nor do we know what the victims suffered in total dollars earned but not paid. But we do know that the total amount of money recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million—almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year.
While the US Department of Labor has over 1,000 investigators working tirelessly to identify perpetrators, there are still employers slipping through the cracks. So now let’s say your company was just awarded a large public works project and you are preparing to work with your subcontractors: How will you ensure that the proper prevailing wages are being paid, along with the correct hours being reported?
LCPtracker’s powerful web-based software is backed with an extensive validation system to identify violations and allow for quick and easy corrections. Daily logs are automatically cross-checked with payrolls to ensure accuracy and prevailing wages/Davis-Bacon, and are preset with increases to make certain that wages are accurate. LCPtracker also offers extensive online training options with live trainers for a simple learning process that takes less time than setting up a meeting in Outlook to discuss wage violations with your team.
Don’t let your company or your subcontractors be a part of the problem.
To learn more about LCPtracker click HERE
To read a more in-depth article on the wage theft epidemic click HERE