Colorado Lawmakers Advance Bill to Crack Down on Wage Theft

One of the costliest categories of theft each year in the U.S. isn’t burglary, robbery or grand theft auto — it’s wage theft, the act of paying employees less than they’re legally owed. Every year, employers cheat workers out of more than $50 billion in wages, more than triple the FBI’s estimate for the total annual value stolen in all major property crimes combined.

Now lawmakers want to crack down on wage theft in Colorado, starting by treating it like any other kind of theft. Under existing state law, denial or underpayment of wages is considered a misdemeanor, no matter how much a worker is owed. House Bill 1267, which passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, April 2, would define wage theft as theft, making it a felony if the amount of unpaid wages is more than $2,000.

“A hard day’s work should equal a fair day’s wages,” said Representative Jonathan Singer, a Democrat from Longmont and co-sponsor of the bill, during the committee hearing. “What actually happens in some situations is that we have dishonest actors that put honest employers at a competitive disadvantage. We have folks out there who will hire people and then not pay them.”

Wage theft comes in many forms, from simple non-payment to improper deductions, failure to pay overtime, minimum-wage violations and more. But the most common victims of the practice in Colorado are low-income Latino workers, including those who are undocumented or speak little English — and in the most serious cases, wage theft is committed as part of human-trafficking schemes.

Read more: https://www.westword.com/news/colorado-lawmakers-advance-bill-to-crack-down-on-wage-theft-11296675