Wage theft costs Americans an estimated $50B per year
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Patty Murray reintroduced their Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act to give workers the right to receive full compensation for the work they perform and receive regular paystubs and final paychecks in a timely manner.
“It’s common sense. If you put in the hours, you should get every dollar you earned, on time, with a paycheck you can actually trust,” said Hickenlooper.
“Wage theft is the biggest form of theft in America—but right now giant corporations are robbing workers blind,” said Murray. “Workers are robbed of an estimated $50 billion every year, and this administration’s answer has been to slash enforcement to the lowest level on record and give the green light for employers to steal from workers—so I’m doing something about it. Our bill guarantees workers the full pay they’ve earned, strengthens accountability, and makes sure stolen wages actually get recovered. You do the work, you earn the pay—that’s a very basic contract we should expect every employer to uphold.”
Each year, wage theft denies workers an estimated $50 billion in pay they have earned as employers commit a variety of wage violations. These violations are widespread at many large corporations. In fiscal year 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor recovered more than $259 million in stolen wages on behalf of workers—representing just a small fraction of wages stolen nationwide. These illegal practices disproportionately hurt low-wage workers. As many as 35% of tipped workers, and 17% of low-wage workers generally, report being paid less than the prevailing local minimum wage in their state.
Specifically, the bill would:
- Strengthen workers’ right to fair pay and improving employer accountability
- Require employers to pay all wages owed to an employee. Currently, under federal law, workers can only recover wages at the minimum wage or for overtime worked. This bill would allow workers to recoup the full compensation that employers have taken from them.
- Increase deterrence of and penalties for wage theft violations
- Bolster recovery of workers’ stolen wages
The bill is endorsed by the AFL-CIO, Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
“EPI’s research has shown that employers steal billions of dollars from workers’ paychecks each year — by misclassifying workers, paying workers less than the minimum wage, stealing tips, or keeping workers’ real hours off the books. Despite this, the federal agency responsible for protecting workers’ paychecks lacks adequate staffing and resources to investigate these violations at scale, and the deterrent penalties in many cases are not strong enough to stop employers from breaking the law in the first place. This bill would go a long way towards cracking down on employers who violate the law, ensuring workers have transparency to understand their rights, and making sure that workers are able to get back the stolen wages they are owed,” said Samantha Sanders, Director of Government Affairs and Advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute.
A one-pager on the bill is available HERE.
Full text of the legislation is available HERE.
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