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Raising hourly pay is a rallying cry for politicians and activists, but they've put little attention on a key problem for low-wage workers: states often fail to get workers the money they're owed. Combining data analysis and interviews, a nine-month Politico investigation found workers are so lightly protected that six states have no investigators to handle minimum-wage violations, while 26 additional states have fewer than 10 investigators. Given the widespread nature of wage theft and the dearth of resources to combat it, an estimated $15 billion in desperately needed income for workers with the lowest wages goes instead into the pockets of shady bosses.
