Wage Theft Statistics 2026: Back Wages and Violations

The most reliable wage theft statistics come from the people who enforce the law. In fiscal year 2025 (October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025), the US Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) recovered $259,294,764 in back wages for 176,957 workers, an average of $1,465 per worker, according to WHD enforcement data. That is the largest yearly total since fiscal 2019. It is also only the part that was caught and repaid. Research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) suggests the money workers lose each year runs into the tens of billions.

Every number below comes from a DOL data table, an EPI report or a peer-reviewed survey we opened, with its reference period beside it. Fiscal year 2026 ended on September 30, 2026, but as of November 13, 2026 the WHD data pages still show fiscal 2025 as the latest year, so that is the year used here.

Back wages recovered by the Department of Labor

The WHD enforces the federal minimum wage, overtime, child labor, family leave and several other laws. Its "All Acts" table is the national scoreboard for back wages recovered. All figures are federal fiscal years.

• $259.3 million in back wages in fiscal 2025, up 27.9 percent from $202.7 million in fiscal 2024 (Workzenly calculation from WHD data).
• 176,957 workers received back wages, up from 151,989 a year earlier.
• The average recovery was $1,465 per worker, the figure DOL publishes on its data page. In fiscal 2019 it was $1,027 (Workzenly calculation).
• WHD concluded 16,924 compliance actions in fiscal 2025, down from 17,300 in fiscal 2024 and 33,146 in fiscal 2013. That is about half as many as in 2013, so fewer cases are producing larger recoveries.
• $58.7 million in civil money penalties was assessed in fiscal 2025, up from $35.9 million in fiscal 2024 and $19.5 million in fiscal 2019.
• The highest recent total was $322.5 million for 313,941 workers in fiscal 2019.

What this means for employers: federal enforcement is doing fewer investigations, but each one is costing employers more. A single case closes at an average of about $15,300 in back wages in fiscal 2025 (Workzenly calculation: $259.3 million across 16,924 compliance actions), before any damages or penalties. Clean time and pay records are what end an investigation quickly.

Wage and hour violations by type

Most federal back wages come under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which sets the minimum wage and overtime rules. In fiscal 2025 the FLSA accounted for $184.4 million of the $259.3 million total, about 71 percent (Workzenly calculation). The WHD FLSA table splits it by violation.

Source: DOL WHD, Fair Labor Standards Act back wages, fiscal year 2025. Shares are a Workzenly calculation and match the shares EPI published from the same table. Worker counts by type add to more than the total because one worker can be owed for more than one violation.

• Overtime is the biggest category by far. The average overtime recovery was about $1,324 per worker, against about $658 for minimum wage (Workzenly calculations).
• Minimum wage back wages jumped. They rose from $15.3 million for 21,543 workers in fiscal 2024 to $27.5 million for 41,812 workers in fiscal 2025, an increase of about 80 percent in dollars.
• Tip violations are a growing line. Tip-related back wages were $10.0 million in fiscal 2025, up from $7.4 million in fiscal 2024 and $189,332 in fiscal 2019.
• Overtime recoveries were higher before. They peaked in this series at $194.2 million in fiscal 2018 and were $186.3 million in fiscal 2019.

The DOL table counts money recovered, not the cause. Unpaid overtime usually comes from a few patterns: work before or after the shift, a misclassified "salaried" employee, or bonuses left out of the regular rate. Our guide on how to calculate overtime covers the regular-rate math, and exempt vs non-exempt covers classification.

What this means for employers: if you employ hourly staff who sometimes work past 40 hours, overtime is your largest exposure. Make sure every minute worked is recorded, rounding is neutral (see the 7-minute rule), and overtime is calculated on the full regular rate.

Wage theft by industry

WHD publishes a separate table for 20 low-wage, high-violation industries. These wage theft statistics show where the money was recovered in fiscal 2025.

• Health care: $53.3 million for 32,884 workers across 2,370 compliance actions, up about 41 percent from $37.8 million in fiscal 2024 (Workzenly calculation).
• Construction: $43.4 million for 18,340 workers across 1,802 actions, the highest average recovery of the three largest industries at about $2,368 per worker (Workzenly calculation).
• Food services: $42.7 million for 30,029 workers. It had the most compliance actions of any listed industry, 4,088, up from 3,827 in fiscal 2024.
• Retail: $8.6 million for 5,203 workers in 1,058 actions. Retail actions have fallen from 3,094 in fiscal 2020.
• Guard services recoveries tripled, from $3.7 million in fiscal 2024 to $11.0 million.

What this means for employers: these are the industries DOL watches most, and they are also the shift-based businesses where hours vary week to week. If you run a restaurant, a health care or home care team or a construction crew, assume your records may be checked and keep them ready to hand over.

Unpaid wages recovered by state

States enforce their own wage laws, which are often stricter than federal law. In its November 10, 2026 report, EPI surveyed state labor departments and attorneys general in summer 2026. Agencies in 39 states and the District of Columbia reported recovering $267.3 million in 2025, slightly more than the DOL's federal total.

Source: EPI survey of state labor departments and attorneys general, Appendix Table 1, published November 10, 2026. Some states report by fiscal year rather than calendar year.

• Massachusetts alone reported $156.1 million, about 58 percent of the reported state total, and the top three states made up about 81 percent (Workzenly calculations from EPI data).
• Seven states do not recover wages for workers and defer to the federal government: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, according to EPI.
• California, the largest state workforce, is marked "NA" in EPI's table because its data was unavailable or not received, so the state total is understated.

These are not violation rates. A high number can mean an active enforcement agency as much as a high rate of wage theft, and a low number in a large state such as Texas ($1.9 million) partly reflects how much enforcement the state does.

What this means for employers: state rules on minimum wage, meal and rest breaks and final paychecks create violations that federal law does not. If you operate in an active state such as Massachusetts, New York or New Jersey, build those rules into your payroll process.

All recovered wages, including lawsuits

Government agencies are only one route. Workers also recover pay through class and collective action lawsuits. EPI combines all three for its yearly count of back wages recovered.

• Nearly $1 billion was recovered for workers in 2025, EPI reports: $259.3 million by the DOL, $267.3 million by state agencies, and $434.3 million in the 10 largest wage and hour class action settlements. Those three add up to $960.9 million (Workzenly calculation).
• The top 10 wage and hour class action settlements totaled $742.5 million in 2023, $614.5 million in 2024 and $434.3 million in 2025, per EPI's compilation of law firm data.
• EPI's earlier report counted $3.24 billion recovered over the four years 2017 to 2020 through the DOL, state agencies and class actions (EPI, December 22, 2021).

One note on method: EPI's class action series uses Seyfarth Shaw data through 2021 and Duane Morris data after that, so the years before and after the switch are not strictly comparable.

What this means for employers: a single lawsuit can cost more than years of correct pay. The largest settlements are counted in the tens or hundreds of millions, and they almost always start with a pay practice that applied to every worker in the same job.

How much wage theft goes unrecovered

Recovered pay is the floor. No government survey measures all wage theft, so the best estimates come from research. These are the wage theft facts with an original study behind them.

• $8 billion a year in 10 states. EPI's May 10, 2017 report by David Cooper and Teresa Kroeger found that in the 10 most populous states, 2.4 million workers covered by minimum wage laws reported being paid less than the minimum, about 17 percent of the eligible low-wage workforce. Their underpayment totaled over $8 billion a year. The data are 2013 to 2015 Current Population Survey averages.
• $15 billion nationally. If those states are representative, the authors write, minimum wage theft exceeds $15 billion each year nationwide. This is an extrapolation, not a count.
• $64 a week. Affected workers were underpaid an average of $64 per week, nearly a quarter of their weekly earnings, or about $3,300 a year for a year-round worker.
• 68 percent in one week. A 2008 survey of 4,387 workers in low-wage industries in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City found that 68 percent had at least one pay-related violation in the previous work week. 26 percent were paid below the minimum wage, and 76 percent of those who worked more than 40 hours were not paid the legal overtime rate (Bernhardt et al., "Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers," 2009).
• Unpaid time around the shift. In the same survey, of workers who came in early or stayed late, 70 percent were not paid for that time. Workers lost an average of $51 a week out of average weekly earnings of $339.
• $52.5 billion in 2025. Applying the 2008 survey's rates to the national workforce, EPI estimates that low-wage workers lost $52.5 billion to all forms of wage theft in 2025 (EPI, November 10, 2026). Treat it as a model estimate.
• More than property crime. EPI's analysis of FBI data says the $15 billion minimum wage estimate alone is larger than any form of property crime reported in the last year, including all stolen currency ($10.96 billion) and locally stolen motor vehicles ($8.22 billion).

Set side by side, the roughly $1 billion recovered in 2025 is under 2 percent of EPI's $52.5 billion estimate (Workzenly calculation). The two figures measure different things: the recovery count includes workers at all pay levels, while the estimate covers low-wage workers only. Both studies are also old or modeled, so use them for scale rather than precision.

What this means for employers: most underpayment is never reported, which means your own records are the main check on your pay practices. Off-the-clock work and missed breaks rarely look like theft to the manager who allowed them, but they are counted as violations. Our guide to time theft covers the employee side of the same records problem.

Penalties and what employers owe

Wage theft costs an employer more than the wages. These are the federal rules, from DOL's Handy Reference Guide to the FLSA and civil money penalty table.

• Liquidated damages: the DOL or an employee can recover back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages for minimum wage and overtime violations, which can double the bill.
• Look-back period: generally 2 years of back wages and damages, or 3 years for willful violations.
• Civil money penalties: up to $2,515 per repeated or willful minimum wage or overtime violation, for penalties assessed on or after January 16, 2026. DOL says the amounts were unchanged from 2025.
• Penalties assessed: WHD assessed $58.7 million in civil money penalties across all laws in fiscal 2025, up 63 percent from fiscal 2024 (Workzenly calculation).
• Records: employers must keep payroll records for at least 3 years and time cards for at least 2 years, per DOL Fact Sheet 21.

State laws often add their own penalties, such as waiting-time penalties for late final pay. This page is general information, not legal advice.

What this means for employers: a $1,000 overtime mistake can become $2,000 with liquidated damages, multiplied by every worker in the same role and up to three years back. Review timesheets every pay period, fix errors in the next paycheck, and keep the records long enough to prove it.

About this data

Federal figures come from the DOL Wage and Hour Division's enforcement data pages, which are updated once a year after each fiscal year closes on September 30. State recoveries, total recoveries and the $52.5 billion estimate come from EPI's report of November 10, 2026, which EPI has published every few years. The prevalence studies are from 2009 and 2017 and use survey data from 2008 and 2013 to 2015. Where we did our own arithmetic, we label it as a Workzenly calculation. We review this page when WHD publishes fiscal 2026 data and when new research comes out. Journalists, students and bloggers are welcome to cite these wage theft statistics with a link to this page.

More workforce statistics: Overtime statistics · Minimum wage statistics · Restaurant industry statistics · Construction labor shortage statistics.

Sources

1. US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Data and Statistics (fiscal year 2025 summary). dol.gov/agencies/whd/data
2. DOL WHD, "All Acts" enforcement data, fiscal years 2013 to 2025. dol.gov/agencies/whd/data/charts/all-acts
3. DOL WHD, Fair Labor Standards Act back wages by violation type, fiscal years 2013 to 2025. dol.gov/agencies/whd/data/charts/fair-labor-standards-act
4. DOL WHD, Low Wage, High Violation Industries, fiscal years 2013 to 2025. dol.gov/agencies/whd/data/charts/low-wage-high-violation-industries
5. DOL WHD, Civil Money Penalty Inflation Adjustments, amounts effective on or after January 16, 2026. dol.gov/agencies/whd/resources/penalties
6. DOL WHD, Handy Reference Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act. dol.gov
7. Poydock, McNicholas, Sanders and Wich, "Nearly $1 billion in stolen wages was recovered for workers in 2025," Economic Policy Institute, November 10, 2026. epi.org
8. Mangundayao, McNicholas, Poydock and Sait, "More than $3 billion in stolen wages recovered for workers between 2017 and 2020," Economic Policy Institute, December 22, 2021. files.epi.org
9. Cooper and Kroeger, "Employers steal billions from workers' paychecks each year," Economic Policy Institute, May 10, 2017 (CPS data 2013 to 2015). files.epi.org
10. Bernhardt et al., "Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America's Cities," National Employment Law Project and partners, 2009 (survey conducted 2008). nelp.org

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