FOR RELEASE: May 29, 2025
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New report: Labor investigator staffing hits 52-year low, raising the risk of wage theft
Staffing reductions at the U.S. Department of Labor, coupled with the recent crackdown on immigrant workers, could worsen America’s $13 billion wage theft problem.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Millions of workers are illegally underpaid in America, and experts say the problem is about to get worse.
A new report by the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and Northwestern University reveals that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD), already working with a skeleton staff of investigators for many years, just hit its lowest headcount since at least 1973. The report warns that insufficient staffing could hinder enforcement of existing wage protections and lead to more wage theft.
At the same time, deportation fears are driving many immigrant workers further into the shadows, fearful to show up for work or speak up about mistreatment. The report warns that struggling industries could face labor shortages and American workers could feel the effects.
“The Wage and Hour Division has been cut off at the knees for years and it just got significantly worse,” said Janice Fine, director of the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and one of the report’s co-authors. “Wage theft is rife in industries that already pay too little to live on. When government is starved of enforcement resources, it is too easy for unscrupulous employers to commit flagrant violations of labor and employment laws. Scapegoating immigrant workers won't solve the underlying problem.”
Workplace Justice Lab researchers analyzed federal data to determine the scope of wage theft in America, the current number of investigators in every WHD office nationwide, and the ratio of investigators to workers. They found:
- At least 4 million workers are illegally paid below the minimum wage each year, costing each victim an average of $3,000 annually and totaling more than $13 billion nationwide. Total losses from wage theft consistently outpace total losses from property theft, yet the resources for labor standards enforcement do not fit the scale of the crime.
- WHD staffing has fluctuated over the years, hitting a high of 1,232 investigators in 1978, dropping through the 1980s and 90s, rebounding under President Obama, and settling at 674 in the waning days of the Biden administration. Today, it’s at a 52-year low.
- As of May 14, 2025, WHD had just 611 investigators to protect 165 million workers. That’s a ratio of one investigator to every 278,000 workers and 20,000 establishments. However, an undisclosed number of investigators have accepted a deferred resignation from the Trump administration and stopped working, so the true number is even lower.
- The number of investigators is now less than half of what it was at its 1978 peak, yet there are nearly three times as many workers and more than four times as many establishments subject to laws enforced by WHD.
- WHD investigators are unevenly employed throughout the 50 states relative to each state’s population. In Maine, Maryland and Washington, there is just one investigator for every 500,000 workers. There are no WHD investigators based in Delaware, Montana, Vermont or Wyoming, so investigators must travel from other states.
This report focuses primarily on investigators employed by the federal government (WHD), not those employed by state labor departments. However, prior research by the Workplace Justice Lab revealed that most states are working with a skeleton staff of their own, making them ill-equipped to handle a surge of new claims. Five states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi – employ no wage and hour investigators, making workers in those states entirely reliant upon the overburdened WHD for assistance.
“All workers in the United States have the legal right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but there simply isn’t the staffing to make that right a reality,” said Jake Barnes, research program manager for the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and the report’s lead author. “That’s why, every year, millions of workers have their wages stolen with impunity. Weak labor law enforcement is an invitation for unscrupulous employers to drive down wages for everyone.”
Shifting priorities in Washington threaten to further erode labor standards. In 2024, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had a $4.5 billion budget for “enforcement and removal operations.” That was approximately 15 times higher than WHD’s budget of $315 million, and the gap is expected to grow in the years to come.
The Workplace Justice Lab report warns that immigration crackdowns could harm the economy. Citing research by scholars at the University of Colorado Denver and elsewhere, the report warns that deportations – and the fear of deportations – could keep immigrant workers home, worsening labor shortages in the home health care, construction and agriculture industries, driving down employment and wages for U.S.-born workers and raising prices for consumers.
“The priorities of the federal government are not aligned with the problem it ostensibly wants to solve,” said Daniel J. Galvin, director of the Workplace Justice Lab @ Northwestern University and one of the report’s co-authors. “If the goal is to help U.S. workers, we should prioritize labor standards enforcement, not mass deportations.”
Despite the inadequate size of its staff, WHD recovered $273 million in back wages and damages for nearly 152,000 workers in 2024. If the federal government funded WHD on the scale it funds ICE, the report estimates that the agency would be able to recover more than $4 billion for workers every year.
About the Report
This report combines new Workplace Justice Lab research with wage theft data from Galvin’s book, “Alt-Labor and the New Politics of Workers’ Rights.”
About the Researchers
Jake Barnes is the research program manager of the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University.
Janice Fine is the director of the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and a professor of labor studies and employment relations in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers.
Daniel J. Galvin is the director of the Workplace Justice Lab @ Northwestern University, a professor of political science and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern.
Jenn Round is the director of the labor standards enforcement program in the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and formerly led enforcement at the Seattle Office of Labor Standards.
Hana Shepherd is a senior researcher in the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and an associate professor of sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers.
About Us
The Workplace Justice Lab is a multi-institutional partnership that conducts research on workers’ rights and economic inequality and collaborates with state and local government agencies as well as worker centers, unions and legal nonprofits. It is anchored by the Workplace Justice Lab @ Rutgers University and includes the Workplace Justice Lab @ Northwestern University and the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California.
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