A new study from Policy Matters Ohio shines a light on an important tool for ensuring economic opportunity for everyone, minimum-wage and related laws. The report, titled "Investigating Wage Theft: A Survey of the States," details the resources devoted to enforcing minimum-wage laws in 43 states and the District of Columbia. In Colorado, the survey found eight full-time investigators work for the state's labor standards enforcement agency.
A couple of excerpts from the report:
"The total number of investigators enforcing state minimum-wage and related laws – 659.5, including many who spend time on other issues – is very modest compared to the almost 100 million private-sector employees in the jurisdictions that provided answers to the survey. That works out to more than 146,000 workers for each investigator, though that is a rough gauge since not all workers are covered by state laws and some states leave much or all enforcement of minimum-wage laws to the U. S. Department of Labor. ...
"Adequate enforcement not only increases compliance with labor law, it improves worker well being, and levels the playing field so some employers do not have an illegal, unfair advantage over others. When wage law is not enforced, workers may not be paid for all of their hours, tax revenue is not collected on the unpaid wages, families are deprived of earnings, and communities can suffer."
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