The U.S. Department of Labor is responsible for investigating wage and hour legislation violations and enforcing punishment for those violations. It also serves as a source of information for wage and hour activity, as they report violations, statistics and back wage payments related to wage and hour issues. They have collected wage and hour data since 2007 and report on variables including whether the violations were against the Fair Labor Standards Act, whether violations were found, and the amount, if any, of back wages paid. Since 2007, the Department of Labor has completed over 150,000 investigations, according to their public data.
The following trends were found from the Department of Labor’s Public Wage and Hour Data since 2007:
- Of the over 150,000 investigations, 115,000 resulted in findings of violations of wage and hour law.
- Of these 115,000 investigations that resulted in violations, 56% found violations that included back wage payments, while 8% found violations that included some other sort of penalty.
- Of all investigations, 60% included a Fair Labor Standards Act violation. Nearly half of the investigations resulted in a Fair Labor Standards Act violation that resulted in back wage payments.
- Of all investigations that resulted in back wage payments, 90% included overtime violations.
- The four states that had the most Department of Labor cases were Texas, California, New York and Florida. Investigations and violations in these 4 states accounted for 35% of all data since 2007.
- Overall, back wages that were paid for cases with Department of Labor wage and hour enforcement violations amounted to $1.55 billion since 2007. In addition, $75 million was assessed as civil money penalties.
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