How Big a Problem Is Wage Theft?

If you read this blog, you already know I'm angry about wage theft. But I don't know if I had a grasp of how large a problem it is. What's the scale?

This graphic answers that question:


We hear all the time about theft and burglary (for instance, "my car's glove compartment was rifled!" seems to be all my neighborhood discussion groups can talk about lately), but the scale of wage theft through minimum wage violations alone overwhelms all of those.

The source of data for this image is described here. It was based on a study of 4,000+ workers in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago with those findings extrapolated to the U.S. economy. Numbers for the oother types of theft are from the FBI's statistics.