Wage theft – the nonpayment of employees’ wages and benefits by employers – is a violation of national, state, and local labour standards, yet it is prevalent in the low-wage labour market of the United States. Building upon the recent increase in attention to the wage theft problem through advocacy, policy, and research efforts, we contextualise the problem within the country’s deregulated neoliberal labour market. We then propose a conceptual framework to demonstrate how the problem occurs when the price of labour standards violation is low due to lax enforcement, and there is a high price of compliance due to ambiguous and increasingly outdated labour standards. We further evaluate extant federal, state, and local policy initiatives designed to curb wage theft by modernising outdated labour standards and strengthening their enforcement. Finally, we propose future research agendas, such as examining the effects of fissured employment relationships and the enforcement efforts of state and local anti-wage theft laws, to guide the development of effective policy interventions.

JEL Codes: J5, J8

工资盗窃——雇主不支付雇员的工资和福利——违反了国家、州和地方的劳工标准，但在美国的低工资劳动力市场上却很普遍。基于最近通过宣传、政策和研究工作对工资盗窃问题的关注增加，我们将这个问题置于该国放松管制的新自由主义劳动力市场中。然后，我们提出了一个概念框架，以证明当由于执法不严导致违反劳工标准的价格很低，以及由于模糊且日益过时的劳工标准而导致合规的代价很高时，问题是如何发生的。我们进一步评估现有的联邦、州和地方政策举措，旨在通过现代化过时的劳工标准和加强其执行来遏制工资盗窃。最后，

JEL 代码: J5, J8