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> This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to can be called wage theft; in essence, it involves employers taking money that belongs to their employ

> This failure to pay what workers are legally entitled to can be called wage theft; in essence, it involves employers taking money that belongs to their employees and keeping it for themselves. Shouldn't it be called fraud rather than theft? I thought theft is depriving someone of something they own... but you don't own the money yet before the payment is made. My understanding was, if you intended to pay a debt, but later refuse to, then you pay it back with some interest (or none, depending on the agreement) and it doesn't qualify as theft. And if you didn't intend to pay it when you acquired the debt, it's fraud... still not theft. The semantics really matter, I think. And I think it might be a great example of why we should really not muddy discussions of crimes (or other things for that matter, I guess). If you insist on treating unpaid debts as theft, and you get exactly what you asked for, you're probably not going to like the outcome. You don't own your employer's money until it's paid to you, just like how a credit card company doesn't own your money until you make your bill payment. Otherwise everyone who declines to make a payment on their credit card bill would also be a thief.

epistasis 5y ago
I don't see how anything could ever be theft with this definition of theft...
- dataflow 5y ago
  Really? I can think of lots of things. If someone took your money from your wallet, that would be theft. If they refused to give it to you in the first place, that's not theft. It's pretty simple?
  - anewhnaccount2 5y ago
    Maybe they took the money as a loan, intending to pay it back one day?
    - dataflow 5y ago
      Sure, and they can provide evidence of that to a jury and the jury can decide if they're convinced of that. Just like they would in any other crime. I don't see the problem.
  - SerLava 5y ago
    The employers stole the labor
nonameiguess 5y ago
It's a term of art. In practice, I don't believe failure to pay a debt is ever prosecuted as theft, but it's not economically distinguishable from it even if a legal distinction is made. This is effectively the basis of accrual accounting whereby firms claim payments as an inflow on their income statements when a good or service is delivered, not when payment is received. Possibly worth noting if you reversed something like the McDonald's example, going into a restaurant and agreeing to pay for a burger, they give you a burger, and you don't pay, I'm pretty sure that would be prosecuted as theft. The terms of exchange don't specify payment in future installments with interest. Labor seemingly works the same way. Batching payments in biweekly installments is for convenience because it would be impractical to disburse funds continuously, not because you're loaning your labor. If you want to say they're not stealing money, fine, but they're stealing work. I guess the law doesn't seem to see it this way, though.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  It’s more like you order a meal and you never get the fries. Did they steal from you or defraud you or was it a mistake. Hence why it’s so hard to catch
- caconym_ 5y ago
  > It's a term of art. This is the right answer. We aren't in danger of eroding the semantic foundations of law by using "theft" instead of "fraud", because "wage theft" is a term with a specific definition.
detaro 5y ago
"Wage theft" is an established term with clear meaning, is it really helpful in any way to try and cherry-pick it from first principles despite that? Nobody is using "wage theft" to suggest treating all unpaid debts as "theft".
- dataflow 5y ago
  I think so? I could totally see laws getting passed treating them similarly as an attempt (or purported attempt) to solve the problem. It's not like it's a wild idea to treat everyone's debts uniformly.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  It is established through unceasing efforts of activists, who pushed for it, precisely in order to exploit the negative connotations of the word “theft” to describe something that is not what people typically associate with the notion of theft. If you go with your friends to restaurant, with the understanding that you’ll pay the bill everyone will pay you their part, but one of them refuses to do so afterwards, would anyone call this “meal theft”? No. Your friend is still morally in the wrong, of course, it’s just not what “theft” is.
  - gruez 5y ago
    Agreed. This is basically the same thing that happened to copyright infringement. The copyright lobby tried to paint it as theft, and then later as piracy.
  - ineptech 5y ago
    > It is established through unceasing efforts of activists, who pushed for it, precisely in order to exploit the negative connotations of the word “theft” to describe something that is not what people typically associate with the notion of theft. Source? I think this term has been in general use for at least two generations.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      You're very much wrong then. It was not commonly used until 2003, when it really took off, and today it's used around 500 times more often than 20 years ago. Suffice to say, wage theft is not a 500 times bigger problem now compared to then. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wage+theft&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wage+theft&yea...
5faulker 5y ago
Entitlement is itself a dangerous concept, but transparency in accounting on this front is a must. Only if we do so can we know whether we're conducting fair trades (which is basically what embloyment is in the marketplace).
elliekelly 5y ago
> You don't own your employer's money until it's paid to you. I think you’re conflating wages earned and wages paid. You most definitely do “own” the funds you’ve earned even if your employer has not yet paid them out to you.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > I think you’re conflating wages earned and wages paid. You most definitely do “own” the funds you’ve earned even if your employer has not yet paid them out to you. "Own"... in what sense? Legally? If I went to withdraw that money from my employer's bank account, would they let me, or would they tell me that's not my money, even though it was supposed to be paid to me?
  - Grimm1 5y ago
    It doesn't matter what your employer would do it matters that you're legally entitled to it and a court would enforce it and have it paid to you. Your private employer doesn't have the ability to define ownership. Governments, and by extension the judiciary, however typically are granted that.
    - dataflow 5y ago
      > It doesn't matter what your employer would do "They" was referring to the bank, not the employer. > it matters that you're legally entitled to it and a court would enforce it and have it paid to you. They wouldn't do it in the same situation as theft I think, though, which is kind of my point. Like if a coworker who joined the week after you got paid from the funds that should've gone to you the week before, and they were already aware of the practice, they would not be receiving "stolen goods" and I'm pretty sure a court would not say you'd be entitled to claw it back from the other employee because the funds somehow actually belonged to you. (Because they didn't; they were merely owed a.k.a. promised-that-they-would-someday-belong to you.) If it helps, I see this as somewhat (not entirely) similar to the difference between stocks and stock options. Just because you have the option to get some stocks, that doesn't mean you own the stocks.
SerLava 5y ago
They already own that money according to the employment contract, and it's stolen 2 weeks later Besides, theft is used as a specific name of a set of crimes, but it also has a generalized definition that means unjust taking, which contains fraud and other forms of theft
sdenton4 5y ago
If it so the work and you don't pay me, you've stolen my time. It's absolutely theft.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  And if you make me love you and don't love me back, you've stolen my heart... The OP was specifically asking about precise definitions, not metaphors like "stolen time".
- nwiswell 5y ago
  And if you loaf around at work and still punch the timecard, should they haul you off to prison for that too?
  - whateveracct 5y ago
    They still spent their time at work. Not loafing at home. Don't like what you got out of that time? Pay up and fire them so you don't waste any more money.
    - nwiswell 5y ago
      OK, fair enough: should buddy punching be a criminal offense? Hopefully our jails have room for 16% of the US hourly workforce.
      - whateveracct 5y ago
        This question seems to stem from some assumption that the employer-employee relationship is perfectly symmetrical and therefore both sides should be litigated the same. Employers should get prosecuted harsher because they have the power.
aqme28 5y ago
What would you call "theft of services"? "Service fraud" instead? Theft is a more consistent term for this than you're giving credit.
- dataflow 5y ago
  Good question. How about "unpaid labor"? Not as attention-grabbing as if you have "theft" in there, but it sure sounds more accurate than any other phrasing I can think of. Or maybe "wage fraud"?
rland 5y ago
A paycheck is not a credit card payment. The value is on the books as soon as the work is completed. If you don't intend to pay debt when you acquire it, that is fraud. But your equivalence ignores the counterparty: a worker is not loaning out their time to a company contingent on a loan agreement, they are making value as soon as the work is made, a fraction of which they own at that point. The terms are legally very different; one is a credit agreement and the other is a wage, because the counterparties are different. In an ideal world, the wage agreement is far stricter than the credit agreement -- hence, it is called "theft" when it is violated. Unfortunately, as stated in the article, we do not live in an ideal world.
acituan 5y ago
> I thought theft is depriving someone of something they own... Semantics really matter indeed. What does "to own" means for you? To have it on your person? To have it in your bank account? To hold it with your hands? Turns out it is much more complicated than that and none of these conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient. You should look up the bundle of rights definition of private property to see how complicated it gets. The moment you contractually are entitled to that money, but deprived of your right of exercising your agency over it, you're being deprived of your property too, hence the appropriateness of the term "theft". > if you intended to pay a debt, but later refuse to, then you pay it back with some interest Only if you agreed to this contractually (or whatever ambient legal context defines the terms otherwise). "But I was gonna pay interest on it" is not a defense of delinquency. It is like I can steal your TV and say "I was gonna return it back, with a smaller TV on the side". You can't deprive people of their bundle of property rights (e.g. right of access and use) willy nilly. > Otherwise everyone who declines to make a payment on their credit card bill would also be a thief. Terms of this is very clearly defined on your credit card agreement; you are in delinquency of that missed pay indeed, hence the consequences of penalty payments, credit score impact and so forth.
dls2016 5y ago
The semantics absolutely do not matter here.

epistasis 5y ago

I don't see how anything could ever be theft with this definition of theft...

dataflow 5y ago
Really? I can think of lots of things. If someone took your money from your wallet, that would be theft. If they refused to give it to you in the first place, that's not theft. It's pretty simple?
- anewhnaccount2 5y ago
  Maybe they took the money as a loan, intending to pay it back one day?
  - dataflow 5y ago
    Sure, and they can provide evidence of that to a jury and the jury can decide if they're convinced of that. Just like they would in any other crime. I don't see the problem.
- SerLava 5y ago
  The employers stole the labor

nonameiguess 5y ago

It's a term of art. In practice, I don't believe failure to pay a debt is ever prosecuted as theft, but it's not economically distinguishable from it even if a legal distinction is made. This is effectively the basis of accrual accounting whereby firms claim payments as an inflow on their income statements when a good or service is delivered, not when payment is received. Possibly worth noting if you reversed something like the McDonald's example, going into a restaurant and agreeing to pay for a burger, they give you a burger, and you don't pay, I'm pretty sure that would be prosecuted as theft. The terms of exchange don't specify payment in future installments with interest. Labor seemingly works the same way. Batching payments in biweekly installments is for convenience because it would be impractical to disburse funds continuously, not because you're loaning your labor. If you want to say they're not stealing money, fine, but they're stealing work. I guess the law doesn't seem to see it this way, though.

rdtwo 5y ago
It’s more like you order a meal and you never get the fries. Did they steal from you or defraud you or was it a mistake. Hence why it’s so hard to catch
caconym_ 5y ago
> It's a term of art. This is the right answer. We aren't in danger of eroding the semantic foundations of law by using "theft" instead of "fraud", because "wage theft" is a term with a specific definition.

detaro 5y ago

"Wage theft" is an established term with clear meaning, is it really helpful in any way to try and cherry-pick it from first principles despite that? Nobody is using "wage theft" to suggest treating all unpaid debts as "theft".

dataflow 5y ago
I think so? I could totally see laws getting passed treating them similarly as an attempt (or purported attempt) to solve the problem. It's not like it's a wild idea to treat everyone's debts uniformly.
xyzzyz 5y ago
It is established through unceasing efforts of activists, who pushed for it, precisely in order to exploit the negative connotations of the word “theft” to describe something that is not what people typically associate with the notion of theft. If you go with your friends to restaurant, with the understanding that you’ll pay the bill everyone will pay you their part, but one of them refuses to do so afterwards, would anyone call this “meal theft”? No. Your friend is still morally in the wrong, of course, it’s just not what “theft” is.
- gruez 5y ago
  Agreed. This is basically the same thing that happened to copyright infringement. The copyright lobby tried to paint it as theft, and then later as piracy.
- ineptech 5y ago
  > It is established through unceasing efforts of activists, who pushed for it, precisely in order to exploit the negative connotations of the word “theft” to describe something that is not what people typically associate with the notion of theft. Source? I think this term has been in general use for at least two generations.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    You're very much wrong then. It was not commonly used until 2003, when it really took off, and today it's used around 500 times more often than 20 years ago. Suffice to say, wage theft is not a 500 times bigger problem now compared to then. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wage+theft&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wage+theft&yea...

5faulker 5y ago

Entitlement is itself a dangerous concept, but transparency in accounting on this front is a must. Only if we do so can we know whether we're conducting fair trades (which is basically what embloyment is in the marketplace).

elliekelly 5y ago

> You don't own your employer's money until it's paid to you. I think you’re conflating wages earned and wages paid. You most definitely do “own” the funds you’ve earned even if your employer has not yet paid them out to you.

dataflow 5y ago
> I think you’re conflating wages earned and wages paid. You most definitely do “own” the funds you’ve earned even if your employer has not yet paid them out to you. "Own"... in what sense? Legally? If I went to withdraw that money from my employer's bank account, would they let me, or would they tell me that's not my money, even though it was supposed to be paid to me?
- Grimm1 5y ago
  It doesn't matter what your employer would do it matters that you're legally entitled to it and a court would enforce it and have it paid to you. Your private employer doesn't have the ability to define ownership. Governments, and by extension the judiciary, however typically are granted that.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > It doesn't matter what your employer would do "They" was referring to the bank, not the employer. > it matters that you're legally entitled to it and a court would enforce it and have it paid to you. They wouldn't do it in the same situation as theft I think, though, which is kind of my point. Like if a coworker who joined the week after you got paid from the funds that should've gone to you the week before, and they were already aware of the practice, they would not be receiving "stolen goods" and I'm pretty sure a court would not say you'd be entitled to claw it back from the other employee because the funds somehow actually belonged to you. (Because they didn't; they were merely owed a.k.a. promised-that-they-would-someday-belong to you.) If it helps, I see this as somewhat (not entirely) similar to the difference between stocks and stock options. Just because you have the option to get some stocks, that doesn't mean you own the stocks.

SerLava 5y ago

They already own that money according to the employment contract, and it's stolen 2 weeks later Besides, theft is used as a specific name of a set of crimes, but it also has a generalized definition that means unjust taking, which contains fraud and other forms of theft

sdenton4 5y ago

If it so the work and you don't pay me, you've stolen my time. It's absolutely theft.

burntoutfire 5y ago
And if you make me love you and don't love me back, you've stolen my heart... The OP was specifically asking about precise definitions, not metaphors like "stolen time".
nwiswell 5y ago
And if you loaf around at work and still punch the timecard, should they haul you off to prison for that too?
- whateveracct 5y ago
  They still spent their time at work. Not loafing at home. Don't like what you got out of that time? Pay up and fire them so you don't waste any more money.
  - nwiswell 5y ago
    OK, fair enough: should buddy punching be a criminal offense? Hopefully our jails have room for 16% of the US hourly workforce.
    - whateveracct 5y ago
      This question seems to stem from some assumption that the employer-employee relationship is perfectly symmetrical and therefore both sides should be litigated the same. Employers should get prosecuted harsher because they have the power.

aqme28 5y ago

What would you call "theft of services"? "Service fraud" instead? Theft is a more consistent term for this than you're giving credit.

dataflow 5y ago
Good question. How about "unpaid labor"? Not as attention-grabbing as if you have "theft" in there, but it sure sounds more accurate than any other phrasing I can think of. Or maybe "wage fraud"?

rland 5y ago

A paycheck is not a credit card payment. The value is on the books as soon as the work is completed. If you don't intend to pay debt when you acquire it, that is fraud. But your equivalence ignores the counterparty: a worker is not loaning out their time to a company contingent on a loan agreement, they are making value as soon as the work is made, a fraction of which they own at that point. The terms are legally very different; one is a credit agreement and the other is a wage, because the counterparties are different. In an ideal world, the wage agreement is far stricter than the credit agreement -- hence, it is called "theft" when it is violated. Unfortunately, as stated in the article, we do not live in an ideal world.

acituan 5y ago

> I thought theft is depriving someone of something they own... Semantics really matter indeed. What does "to own" means for you? To have it on your person? To have it in your bank account? To hold it with your hands? Turns out it is much more complicated than that and none of these conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient. You should look up the bundle of rights definition of private property to see how complicated it gets. The moment you contractually are entitled to that money, but deprived of your right of exercising your agency over it, you're being deprived of your property too, hence the appropriateness of the term "theft". > if you intended to pay a debt, but later refuse to, then you pay it back with some interest Only if you agreed to this contractually (or whatever ambient legal context defines the terms otherwise). "But I was gonna pay interest on it" is not a defense of delinquency. It is like I can steal your TV and say "I was gonna return it back, with a smaller TV on the side". You can't deprive people of their bundle of property rights (e.g. right of access and use) willy nilly. > Otherwise everyone who declines to make a payment on their credit card bill would also be a thief. Terms of this is very clearly defined on your credit card agreement; you are in delinquency of that missed pay indeed, hence the consequences of penalty payments, credit score impact and so forth.

dls2016 5y ago

The semantics absolutely do not matter here.