State Nonpayment of Wages

About this dataset:

Wage theft is when employers fail to pay wages after workers have earned them. Estimates suggest that wage theft costs workers billions of dollars a year. Wage theft disproportionately affects people of color, women, and immigrants. Low-wage workers have less money to start with so that any reduction to their income adds to their socioeconomic stress and is associated with poor public health outcomes.  

Two kinds of “wage theft laws” make wage theft illegal. These laws regulate: (1) the minimum wage; or (2) nonpayment of wages. Cities have been at the forefront of innovation by enacting or strengthening anti-wage theft laws. Not all cities have wage theft laws. When they do, it is difficult to fully comprehend the impact that these policies have on reducing wage theft and their related public health outcomes.  

This dataset provides a comprehensive overview of state nonpayment of wages laws in 25 states from the 40 largest U.S. cities from January 1, 2010, to April 15, 2023. This map identifies whether such a law exists. It also displays key features of regulating the nonpayment of wages, including whether the law imposes monetary or non-monetary penalties, requires employers to keep records or provide information about wages to workers, or protects against employer retaliation.  

This dataset is a part of a suite of datasets that focus on how workers in the 40 largest U.S. cities are exposed to city and state wage theft laws, created by a research team led by Jennifer J. Lee at the Sandra and Stephen Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple Law School.