WP147: Wage Theft in Low-Wage Industries:Mixed Methods Research in Silicon Valley

Wage theft harms workers and their families directly, but also diminishes the collective bargaining power of workers by depressing hourly wages in the impacted industries and occupations. This has a ripple effect on the State’s economy, since it forces workers to rely on increasingly strained public assistance programs, which ultimately affects taxpayers.
The theft of workers’ earned wages is an epidemic that costs workers billions of dollars across various industries. In Santa Clara County alone, our analysis of federal, state, and local datasets found a total of 25,856 reported wage theft cases across industries. These cases affected 32,826 employees and amounted to $128,871,256 in total wage theft that is still unpaid—or an average of $3,926 per employee.
This report demonstrates that wage theft remains rampant in Santa Clara County due to insufficient government enforcement. Despite the progress that the state and local governments have made to combat the problem, workers continue to face wage theft in huge numbers. Even those who successfully file claims against their employers, enduring legal proceedings that can take months or years, largely fail to collect the back wages they are awarded. The crisis of wage theft has only worsened in the age of COVID-19, which has also exacerbated labor trafficking, health and safety violations, job losses, pay decreases, and retaliation against workers.
In this report, the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition recommends state and local policies to (1) protect worker health and safety amid the pandemic, (2) prevent wage theft and strengthen enforcement, and (3) increase worker power and employer accountability.