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Wage theft in the United States: Towards new research agendas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Joy Jeounghee Kim Open the ORCID record for Joy Jeounghee Kim [Opens in a new window]  and
Skye Allmang
Joy Jeounghee Kim*
Affiliation:
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
Skye Allmang
Affiliation:
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
*
Joy Jeounghee Kim, School of Social Work, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 120 Albany Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. Email: Jeoukim@ssw.rutgers.edu
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Abstract

Wage theft – the nonpayment of employees’ wages and benefits by employers – is a violation of national, state, and local labour standards, yet it is prevalent in the low-wage labour market of the United States. Building upon the recent increase in attention to the wage theft problem through advocacy, policy, and research efforts, we contextualise the problem within the country’s deregulated neoliberal labour market. We then propose a conceptual framework to demonstrate how the problem occurs when the price of labour standards violation is low due to lax enforcement, and there is a high price of compliance due to ambiguous and increasingly outdated labour standards. We further evaluate extant federal, state, and local policy initiatives designed to curb wage theft by modernising outdated labour standards and strengthening their enforcement. Finally, we propose future research agendas, such as examining the effects of fissured employment relationships and the enforcement efforts of state and local anti-wage theft laws, to guide the development of effective policy interventions.

Keywords

J5J8Employee misclassificationemployment lawshour and wage lawneoliberal labour marketwage theft
Type
Original Articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 534 - 551
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021

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