Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this week that more than 6,700 wage theft cases were resolved in New York in 2013, more than in any other year. This resulted in the disbursement of nearly $23 million to more than 12,700 workers who were not paid their proper minimum wage, overtime pay or fringe benefits. This represents an increase of more than 12 percent in the number of closed wage theft cases compared to 2012.
The New York State Department of Labor, which has one of the largest labor standards enforcement staffs in the nation, continues to recover millions of dollars in stolen wages each year for workers through consistent and active enforcement. In 2013, the agency updated the look-back period to three years for most cases, which is still broader than both the federal government’s standard (two years) and the standard in most other states (one or two years).