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Chief Justice John Roberts pauses order for Trump admin to pay $2 billion in foreign aid by midnight; NM Legislature advances appropriations bill with funding for wildlife corridors; Group warns livestock manure making MI Great Lakes not so great; Volunteer lobbyists to press Colorado lawmakers on homelessness.

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The House has passed a budget outline. Elon Musk attends first Trump cabinet meeting. And federal workers leave jobs despite litigation allowing them to stay.

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The federal funding freeze has left U.S. farmers in limbo about their future farm projects, tourists could find public lands in disarray when visiting this summer, while money to fight rural wildfires is in jeopardy.

Maryland worst state for wage theft, study finds

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Friday, January 31, 2025   

An analysis of U.S. Labor Department data by financial education organization Goat Academy finds Maryland leads the nation in the average wages stolen from workers.

Maryland led all 50 states in the average amount of wages owed to employees, at more than $2,200. Bay State neighbors Delaware and Virginia trailed Maryland with the second and third highest averages.

Amy Gellatly, an attorney in the Workplace Justice Project at the Public Justice Center, said those figures may just be the tip of the iceberg.

"There's so many structural barriers to get a worker to the point where they feel confident that they know their rights are being violated," she said. "They decide they want to do something about it; they know where to go."

Gellatly added that workers in certain industries historically have issues with wage theft, including those in construction, home care, cleaning services, food services and retail.

Misclassification, Gellatly said, is also a major issue in wage theft, when an employer classifies an employee as an independent contractor. Independent contractors don't receive the same benefits as an employee, such as unemployment insurance or workers compensation if injured on the job.

Gellatly said Maryland could, like other states, pass a law that a person who does work for another is considered an employee, not a contractor. She added that people could be considered contractors if they are really in business for themselves -- and setting the conditions of their labor.

"What we're seeing across the country is like the 'gigafication' of work," she said. "So, you have the entity that really is in control of setting the terms and conditions of a person's employment, but they won't directly hire the worker, as a way to try to separate themselves from responsibility and then turn a blind eye."

In total, more than $128 million in back wages are owed to U.S. employees.


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