So measured wage "theft" comes out to $3 per person per year. But it's a contract violation, not violence, so a monetary comparison is completely sociopathic. Also, this headline excludes transfer payments as a form of theft.
As others have pointed out, not all burglary and larceny is necessarily violent. But you're also missing the point that wage theft is not always a dispassionate contract dispute between equal parties. Especially for those most vulnerable (minimum wage workers, people with medical conditions, people with dependents, the food and housing insecure) there is a massive level of coercion going on as well. These individuals often cannot afford to risk a legal fight to assert their claims to what they're fairly owed.
I have friends who knew their employer was stealing from them and had to forgo things like medications because they couldn't make ends meet that month. Friends in the restaurant industry who've had to skips meals and go hungry while their manager skimmed from the tip pool. It may not meet the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "violence" but it sure seemed like violence to me.
Theft in general doesn't involve violence or the threat of violence. You're thinking of robbery.
One merely has to illegally deprive someone of something they legally own in order to commit theft. A pickpocketing is a theft. A mugging is a robbery. Wage theft is an entirely appropriate name. You could also call it "wage misappropriation" or "wage embezzlement" (though "embezzlement" generally applies to company property) if you want to make it sound classier :-P
Burglary is violence too. So is pickpocketing.
They literally are not. If I have my pocket picked or my house burgled when I'm out, I may not find out until later. There was no violence or threat of violence employed against my person.
Robbery and theft are legally defined as separate crimes. The former is treated far more harshly than the latter.
It's still pickpocketing, which is theft. Unless they employ force against you in turn, or threaten you, to stop you from removing their hand. That makes it robbery.
> If they’re burgling your house, you’ve got the right to shoot them dead.
It's still burglary, which is theft. Unless they also employ violence against you, or threaten violence against you, in the course of committing the burglary. That makes it robbery.
This isn't my opinion, so there's no use arguing with me. You're arguing against the law and the English language.
If you don't like this, take it up with the dictionary. Sorry for the bluntness but this is getting a bit ridiculous.
> By contrast, the total amount recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million in 2012. This is almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. Further, the nearly $1 billion successfully reclaimed by workers is only the tip of the wage-theft iceberg, since most victims never sue and never complain to the government.
But we do know that the total amount of money recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million—almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year.
https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...
High is $50 billion.
2019 workforce was 164 million.
-> $305/worker.
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-summary....
50 billion is a made up number.
The fact is, this isn’t really theft. It’s a change in wages that has occurred after you switched jobs, only instead of saying “actually we’re going to pay you $X, now that you’ve started,” they sneak in lower wages through other means. That’s not a good thing, but it’s hardball negotiation, not theft.
Nah, paying someone under the negotiated rate by lying about how many hours they worked is certainly a form of theft. Failing to give statutory-required pay is also a form of theft.
I'd looked up earlier today: the three metro areas account for nearly 1/5th all US economic activity. NYC, LA, and Chicago metro areas represent 17% of US GDP. That's a sizable chunk.
Methodology questions or quanitative comparisons are reasonable objections. Bald acusations of fabrication are going to require some substantial foundation least they be dismissed for their own claim: that they're made up.
Welll... it's still over the lowest estimate possible, because it's the amount of damages paid and damages are often trebled.