For 2/3 of low-wage workers to have been affected by wage theft, either most low-wage workers are overwhelming employeed by a small number of companies (which i

For 2/3 of low-wage workers to have been affected by wage theft, either most low-wage workers are overwhelming employeed by a small number of companies (which if true is also concerning - but not bourne out by the numbers in the EPI report), or most companies are stealing from at least some workers. That's obscene. The converse is not true. For most stores to have been affected by employee shoplifting only requires a tiny minority of employees - one per store! - to shoplift. There is also an equilibrium; in the general case employees can't shoplift more than the equivalent security measure to prevent the shoplifting would cost. The equivalent limit to stolen wages is considerably more harrowing: the workers' mental and physical health. Collectively this means shoplifting can be addressed by fairly typical business measures - additional security, hiring practices, lawsuits against individuals, etc. The infrastructure for all that is already in place, because capital already put it in place to protect itself and because shoplifting is not the norm. But wage theft requires radical or systemic change to ensure employees have the ability to punish all employers, because capital has again put measure in place to protect itself, and wage theft is the norm. Finally, there is the issue of what you're measuring. Assuming shoplifting and employer theft from low-wage workers occur at the same rate for the same percentage, shoplifting would still dominate because it's much closer to a percentage of total revenue. Obviously total revenue is higher than a fraction of wages! So how, exactly, is that comparison more meaningful?