Wage theft occurs when employers fail to pay workers wages that are required by law, including minimum wage and overtime. New York also requires spread of hours payment for many workers, including food service and hotel workers as well as non-exempt employees who are paid the minimum wage.
Wage theft costs employees, especially the lowest-paid workers in society, billions of dollars per year in unpaid minimum wage and overtime.
Wage theft can take many forms. Sometimes wage theft is obvious, such as when companies pay an hourly rate that is too low. Often times wage theft is harder to detect and can occur when companies automatically deduct meal breaks, misclassify employees as exempt, take illegal deductions, pay salaries to non-exempt workers, and take the tip credit without following New York’s strict rules for tipped employees.
