Social Sustainability
Wage Theft
The non-payment of earned wages — underpayment, unpaid overtime, illegal deductions — the most common and least punished labour crime.
Definition
Wage theft is the failure to pay workers what they are legally or contractually owed: paying below minimum wage, denying overtime premiums, forcing off-the-clock work, making illegal deductions, withholding final pay, or misclassifying employees to evade entitlements. Studies in the US alone estimate tens of billions of dollars stolen annually — more than all robberies combined — and in global supply chains, wage theft (withheld pay, deduction abuse) is a documented path into debt bondage and forced labour.
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