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Employers could be cheating more than 200,000 Ohio workers each year out of hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings by failing to pay minimum wage, according to a new analysis by Policy Matters Ohio.
Failure to pay the minimum wage is a form of wage theft. According to researchers, wage theft disproportionately impacts low-income workers who often don't report the illegal activity because they are dependent on their jobs to survive. Women, people of color and immigrants are also more likely to be victimized.
“Wage theft can happen to anybody,” Micheal Shields, researcher with Policy Matters Ohio, said (via the Dayton Daily News). “But low-paid people are five times as likely to experience wage theft.”
Shields believes that there must be harsher penalties for violations and toucher enforcement of wage and hour laws to prevent wage theft. One way that local communities can help is by approving anti-wage-theft ordinances.
“One of the core problems is that dishonest employers calculate that there will be no consequences if they steal from workers and all too often they’re right,” Shields added.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), says he strongly supports the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act. The act would increase penalties on employers who steal wages and increase the economic damages awarded to three times the amount employers owe in unpaid damages. It will also protect workers from retaliation.