An analysis of U-S Labor Department data by financial education organization Goat Academy finds Maryland leads the nation in the average wages stolen from workers. Maryland led all 50 states in the average amount of wages owed to employees, at more than 22-hundred dollars. Bay state neighbors Delaware and Virginia trailed Maryland with the second and third highest averages. Amy Gellatly, an attorney with the Public Justice Center, says those figures may just be the tip of the iceberg.
"There’s so many structural barriers to get a worker to the point where they feel confident that they know their rights are being violated; they decide they want to do something about it; they know where to go."
Gellatly adds that workers in certain industries historically have issues with wage theft, including those in construction, homecare, cleaning services, food services, and retail.
Misclassification, Gellatly says, is also a major issue in wage theft. That is where an employer classifies an employee as an independent contractor. Independent contractors do not receive the same benefits as an employee, like unemployment insurance or workers compensation if injured on the job. Gellatly says Maryland could, like other states, pass a law that a person who does work for another is considered an employee, not a contractor. She adds that a person could be considered a contractor if the person is really in business for themselves – and setting the conditions of their labor.
"What we’re seeing across the country is like the “gigafication” of work. So you have like the entity that really is in control of setting the terms and conditions of a person’s employment, but they won’t directly hire the worker, as a way to try to separate themselves from responsibility and then turn a blind eye."
In total, more than 128-million dollars in back wages are owed to U-S employees.
An analysis of U-S Labor Department data by financial education organization Goat Academy finds Maryland leads the nation in the average wages stolen from workers.
