Wage Theft Enforcement — Recovered Back Wages from 367,893 U.S. Department of Labor Compliance Actions (2005–2026)

Aggregated enforcement statistics from 367,893 concluded U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division compliance actions (fiscal year 2005 forward), which recovered $4.79 billion in back wages for 5.4 million workers. Four CSV tables: back wages by named industry, by NAICS 2-digit sector, by state (50 + DC), and by year. Key findings: 86% of recovered wage theft is unpaid overtime ($2.97B) versus $494M in minimum-wage violations — the typical case is stolen overtime, not sub-minimum pay Median recovery per case is just $4,412 — high-volume, low-dollar-per-case, which is why most wage theft goes unreported Construction, accommodation & food services, and health care lead by recovered back wages; home health care has the highest median theft per case ($10,848) Federal enforcement volume has declined for over a decade even as recovered dollars held up Full analysis: https://settlementinsight.com/research/wage-theft-enforcement Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division enforcement database via the DOL Open Data Portal (public domain). This release provides the processed aggregations used in the Settlement Insight research study.