What is Wage theft?
'''Wage theft''' is when [[employer]]s illegally hold back money due to their [[worker]]s ([[employee]]s). They may withhold wages or deny [[wikt:benefit|benefits]] that are rightfully due to an employee. It is a term used in the in the [[United States]], but the idea applies more widely. Examples are: failure to pay [[overtime]], paying less than the [[minimum wage]], illegal deductions in pay, working off the clock, or not being paid at all. Wage theft from low wage [[immigrants|immigrant workers]] is common in the United States.<ref name=NYTStudyreport>{{cite news|title=Low-wage workers are often cheated, study says |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/us/02wage.html|accessdate=May 29, 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 1, 2009 |author=Steven Greenhouse}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=More workers are claiming 'wage theft' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/business/more-workers-are-claiming-wage-theft.html|accessdate=August 31, 2014|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 31, 2014|author=Steven Greenhouse}}</ref> The [[Economic Policy Institute]] reported in 2014 that survey evidence suggests wage theft costs US workers billions of dollars a year.<ref>Brady Meixell and Ross Eisenbrey 2014. [http://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-workers-hundreds/ An epidemic of wage theft is costing workers hundreds of millions of dollars a year]. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved June 8, 2015.</ref> The rights violated by wage theft have been guaranteed to workers in the United States in the 1938 [[Fair Labor Standards Act]] (FLSA).<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eE9svG8wLAsC&dq=wage+theft&pg=PR5 |title=Wage theft in America: why millions of working Americans are not getting paid - and what we can do about it |author=Kimberley A. Bobo |year=2009 |publisher=New Press |isbn=9781595584458 |accessdate=March 4, 2012}}</ref> In February 2010 [[Miami-Dade County, Florida]] became the first jurisdiction in America to ban wage theft. Before that, wage theft was