Fredy Moreno had been working as a house painter for a few weeks in March when he began to suspect that his boss had no intention of paying him. “He told me that he was going to pay me on a certain date, then moved that date,” Mr. Moreno said through an interpreter. “Then he made an excuse — that he’s in the hospital.”But because the pandemic had just hit and he worried about finding another job in a recession, he decided to keep working. But during a recession, the problem — known as wage theft — tends to increase significantly. On average, the workers on the receiving end of these violations lost about one-fifth of their hourly wage.

Source: New York Times September 03, 2020 17:48 UTC