Comment by olalonde

By the way, the stat you mention counts consensual arrangements as wage theft, probably the large majority of it (e.g. hiring illegal immigrants for under the minimum wage). Calling that "theft" is a rhetorical move, much like libertarians calling taxation "theft": it borrows the moral weight of stealing for something that's legally and morally quite different. If the stat had been calculated from asking workers, "does your employer owe you money that they refuse to pay?", I suspect the number would drop dramatically.