My question is where wage theft sits compared with other types of theft too. I remember it being comparable to all other types of theft some time ago, but that may have been in Australia. Does anyone know?
2024 US wage theft: $50 billion annually (EPI US estimate)
US Yearly shoplifting shrinkage stated at “around $13 billion”.
US Retail Theft and shrinkage nearly $112 billion (includes embezzlement, fraud, employee theft, and lost/damage merchandise)
Note: The numbers are skewed. The wage theft numbers are only based on recovered wages.
The shrinkage statistics like to throw in fraud and embezzlement numbers.
Yep, also those numbers are not all from the same year. The $50 billion is from the Economic Policy Institute from 2017, so adjusted for inflation would be at least $65.8 billion now. And that will definitely be underreported as you said, only wages actually disputed are included there and it may or may not include those disputed and not obtained, it is unclear.
That said, it is roughly 15% of total earnings which is stolen this way. If that was shrinkage for a store it would not operate. So intense, and yet cameras and AI systems are being rolled out for preventing theft but nothing is being done about wage theft. It makes it very clear that policing is for protecting the current system with the current spread of wealth and not for preventing theft or increasing justice.
I really think the only way around this would be to have systems external to the companies for clock on and clock off linked to their pay system to have people actually recording their hours and have their pay adjusted by an impartial system. Business owners have proven themselves untrustworthy in terms of paying for labour and they should be held to account.
My question is where wage theft sits compared with other types of theft too. I remember it being comparable to all other types of theft some time ago, but that may have been in Australia. Does anyone know?
2024 US wage theft: $50 billion annually (EPI US estimate) US Yearly shoplifting shrinkage stated at “around $13 billion”. US Retail Theft and shrinkage nearly $112 billion (includes embezzlement, fraud, employee theft, and lost/damage merchandise)
Note: The numbers are skewed. The wage theft numbers are only based on recovered wages.
The shrinkage statistics like to throw in fraud and embezzlement numbers.
Yep, also those numbers are not all from the same year. The $50 billion is from the Economic Policy Institute from 2017, so adjusted for inflation would be at least $65.8 billion now. And that will definitely be underreported as you said, only wages actually disputed are included there and it may or may not include those disputed and not obtained, it is unclear.
That said, it is roughly 15% of total earnings which is stolen this way. If that was shrinkage for a store it would not operate. So intense, and yet cameras and AI systems are being rolled out for preventing theft but nothing is being done about wage theft. It makes it very clear that policing is for protecting the current system with the current spread of wealth and not for preventing theft or increasing justice.
I really think the only way around this would be to have systems external to the companies for clock on and clock off linked to their pay system to have people actually recording their hours and have their pay adjusted by an impartial system. Business owners have proven themselves untrustworthy in terms of paying for labour and they should be held to account.
It’s only categorized as theft if it is a loss to the wealthy