Construction Wage Theft Costs WI, MN, and IL Taxpayers $362 Million Per Year

摘要

With public budgets increasingly strained by the COVID-19 pandemic, new research by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute (ILEPI) and Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) shows that nearly one-in-five construction workers in the Upper Midwest states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois face some form of wage theft at an annual cost to taxpayers of more than $362 million. Read the Study, "The Costs of Wage Theft and Payroll Fraud in the Construction Industries of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois: Impacts on Workers and Taxpayers." Wage theft includes a range of illegal practices, from improperly classifying employees as independent contractors and not making required payroll tax, unemployment insurance, and workers compensation contributions to paying workers less than legally required "under the table" (or off the books) in cash. "Wage theft-including worker misclassification and payroll fraud-hurts workers, puts law-abiding businesses at a competitive disadvantage, and shortchanges taxpayers," said Nathaniel Goodell, MEPI's principal investigator for the report. "While prior research has shown that between 12% and 21% of construction workers face these abuses, it is alarming to see the Upper Midwest's construction industry at the high end of that scale."