> If you are a retail worker and your boss withholds $20 from your paycheck, it's not considered criminal theft.

Yes, it is, in California, at least (and, as of this year, if it was over $950 instead of $20, it would be felony grand theft of wages, rather than a misdemeanor theft.)

Of course, criminal process has a higher proof bar and requires a public prosecutor to care enough to do something, doesn’t improve recovery for the victim, and is usually slower, so actual recovery is probably going to happen through civil/administrative process even if a crime is on the books and applicable.

> Of course, criminal process has a higher proof bar and requires a public prosecutor to care enough to do something

Wage theft really should be a strict liability crime -- only proof necessary to convict is that it happened, not that it was intended.

> Wage theft really should be a strict liability crime -- only proof necessary to convict is that it happened, not that it was intended.

It would still take a public prosecutor to care, and the failure to pay as required is already a strict-liability tort. Not sure that enabling discretionary criminal punishment of acts that are neither intentional, reckless, nor even negligent in this domain helps anyone.

> acts that are neither intentional, reckless, nor even negligent

This point we disagree on. Wage theft is almost always intentional, always reckless, and should be considered negligent as a default.

Wage theft is one of the places where I am okay with guilty until proven innocent because of the huge power disparity between the affected parties.

It should be and is in terms of civil law.

It isnt and shouldn't be in terms of criminal law.

Someone drops a zero on you paycheck, you can sue them civially simply because it happened.

However, a simple mistake should not be a felony when there is already a path to redress accidental damages.

Wage theft is the larger category of theft. Most goes unaddressed, but you suggest the mechanism is fine

No, I think the mechanism is utterly broken. I just dont think the severity of charges are the bottleneck in the problem.

People should be encouraged to file, and the courts should have hearing within a reasonable timeframe, and do so efficiently.

The bottleneck is that the state does a terrible job of handling claims. califonia has an average wait time of 505 days for a hearing for people who dont drop or settle their claim. Under these conditions, most people will continue to not file claims. Especially when only 1 in 7 people that win in court actually get paid.

It doesn't help that the california government is grossly inefficient. The labor commission budget is >160 million, and issues ~50 million in judgements, of which only ~20% actually get paid. So we are talking about a program that costs 1600% more to run than the judgements it hands out.

How's that for depressing.

https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/09/california-...

> The bottleneck is that the state does a terrible job of handling claims.

That's not the only bottleneck. You also need to have the time and resources to pursue this, and it has to be worth your time. If your employer stole $500 from you, but it will cost you $1000 to get those wages back, it's not worth pursuing it in court. And the cost can be in terms of time that you spend on it.

A lot of wage theft is very small amounts that are individually rarely worth pursuing. They also waste a lot of government resources too, for the same reason.

So maybe individual wage theft shouldn't be a strict liability crime, but at some level, it should rise to criminal charges being brought against the management of the company. If a bunch of your employees have reported wage theft against you, and all you have to do is potentially pay them back just what you stole (as you point out, it's not even a given you'd have to pay it back) -- why would you _not_ skim a bit of your employees wages? Add in a very long statute of limitations for wage theft (say 10 years at a minimum) and the chance for management to spend 5-10 years in the clink, I suspect wage theft will decrease quite a bit.

that still doesnt solve the problem that you have to prove they stole wages (intended or otherwise).

Intent isnt a requirement to get a judgement in california, and it IS a crime.

It still takes >500 days to just get a determination that wages are owed (theft intended or not).

Most people cant prove wage theft with evidence the day it happens, let alone 10 years down the road.

Most police departments barely bother with armed robbery and auto theft. They have no legal obligation to pursue criminals. Where do you think investigating wage theft cases with flimsy evidence will rank on their priorities?

I stand by my position that the only way to improve things is ensure speedy case resolution. Make it likely employers will actually be caught and have a reasonable criminal punishment.

US criminal law isnt really set up to hand out enormous punishments just to make examples of people. 10 years in the clink for stealing $500 wages would be cruel and unusual punishment.

What I am suggesting _is_ to have a speedy investigation, that is up-front paid by the accused employer. Force the employer to pay for hiring/engaging people to quickly investigate the case.

And no, I have no problem with forcing employers to prove their innocence instead of the other way around. There's no reason to treat business and natural persons the same way.

> It's one of the more blatant examples of how the laws of the United States are written to unjustly empower those with wealth that I am aware of.

The most blatant thing for me will always be the tax code.

Alone way that W2 income vs long term capital gains is taxed (not to mention that losses are fully tax deductible) makes the message very clear.

Losses are not fully tax deductible.

Fair enough. It's fully deductible when used to offset capital gains as far as I know.

To offset regular income, it's only $3000 a year but losses can be carried forward (though it stays at the dollar value, no inflation is taken into account).

So often largely deductible with some caveats.

It still seems asinine that bad investments are essentially tax subsidized, but whatever.

Also the deductions arbitrarily denied to individuals. Require a car to drive to your W2 job? That's "commuting" and thus not tax deductible, despite it being utterly required for earning that money.

Ya let's subsidize people making 50 mile single occupancy vehicle commutes in an F150 instead of one closer and a more efficient vehicle. /s

Ya let's jump on people making a point with a completely different topic. If you want to increase the price of commuting, raise the gas (/electricity) taxes. That's orthogonal to my point. If you really can't fit this topic in your head without being distracted by OMG CAR, then replace "car" with "subway pass".

The point is that in the business context, expenses required to create income are deductible. If you get paid on a 1099, you get treated as a business and can take those deductions. You can even claim a section 179 accelerated depreciation, and immediately deduct half of the capital expense.

The higher rent you'd pay if you chose to live closer to where you work so that you wouldn't have to drive should also be tax deductible I guess.

I'd say the amount of rent paid in proportion to time working (+supporting activities) divided by time awake should be fully above-the-line deductible, yes.

The point is there are many such deductions that businesses straightforwardly take, that natural persons are told it's all "personal use", despite them being directly necessary to sustain person-as-an-economic-actor.

I guess I somewhat agree in principle but an indiscriminate tax cut/deduction/universal income would be a much better approach. Easier to administers and much fairer.

I'm torn on this, because on one hand I think keeping a record of everything you spend, sorting through it all to tally it up, and generally tracking one's life with spreadsheets is a horrible way to live. So the tax code de facto requiring that is oppressive.

But on the second hand (and this was my main point here), these are deductions that businesses already get to take. Get routinely paid on a 1099, and see all the deductions you can take essentially by virtue of now "running your own business". It's obscene. Perhaps set up an LLC+S-corp for even more.

But on the third hand, I get the argument that if we just eliminated business deductions in general, that "thin businesses" would be impractical.

It's totally unfair. Unfortunately, the reality is that capital is highly mobile while labor is not. In an ideal world, capital gains would be taxed much higher than income from labor. However, is too easy to moved the capital to a place where it's taxed at a lower rate.

A good solution would be a flat tax plus a prebate. Tax all income at 15% regardless of the source, with no tax breaks or exceptions. The first $50k or so is tax free, and that could be handled as a prebate where everyone gets paid (taxRate * floor) by the govt[0]. This would be much more progressive than the current system and vastly simpler to implement and enforce.

Looking at the current capital gains rate is actually too rosy, since there are so many loopholes and exceptions that wealthy people can use to bring the rate down. The actual effective tax rate billionaires in the US pay is below 10%.

I doubt something like this will ever happen given how many selfish interests would fight against it. It sure would be great though if middle class workers didn't pay a higher tax rate than millionaires.

[0] I'm throwing out round numbers but have seen research that backs up figures in this ballpark.

> Yep. If you are a retail worker and your boss withholds $20 from your paycheck, it's not considered criminal theft. It's a civil matter. You have no recourse except civil law.

If a contractor takes your down payment and then never installs the toilet is that criminal theft?

If a contractor installs your toilet without advance payment and then you never pay her, is that criminal theft?

IANAL, and I don't know how this question relates to the bit you quoted, but in this incredibly vague hypothetical situation, there's probably a contract in place and breach of contract is usually handled in civil court. It could be criminal and prosecuted by the state if any fraud has taken place. That would depend on details not given though.

I believe that the typical remedy in both hypotheticals would be civil court -> breach of contract (written or implied) -> place a lien.

Why shouldn't it be considered criminal theft?

You're not exactly refuting them, just pointing out that there are other forms of effective theft not considered criminal.

I suspect most people would be perfectly happy with people facing criminal punishment in large scale wage theft cases. The same probably isn't true for toilet installation disputes.

>You're not exactly refuting them, just pointing out that there are other forms of effective theft not considered criminal.

Correct. The point was to raise the question, if that, why not also this?

> If a contractor takes your down payment and then never installs the toilet is that criminal theft?

To the extent that the funds were entrusted to the contractor on the premise they would be used to purchase third-party goods and services on your behalf, the crime would seem to me to be embezzlement, which is usually distinct from theft but often punished similarly and part of the broad family of property crimes. Advanced payment for services to be rendered, I’m less sure of fitting into that.

> If a contractor installs your toilet without advance payment and then you never pay her, is that criminal theft?

In California, the wage theft law applies to contract as well as W-2 employment.

Note that in either case, there may be a compensable civil wrong without the intent requirement for crime, even if the general scenario described can fit a crime.

I wonder how you could make that criminal. Do you charge the manager making the schedule?

I mean, I think charging whoever executed the action that resulted in the theft is a reasonable starting point.

You would then have to make sure to include a consideration of conspiracy in the case where the owners pressured the manager - just as you would consider conspiracy in a case where a thief was hired by someone else to execute a theft.

What do you suggest is the alternative? To equitably empower the poor and the wealthy even though the poor cost more to empower and have less potential to give back to the country? If you want a wealthy country, I imagine you have strike a balance that favors empowering the wealthy.

Toolz, I think you're arguing for slavery.

Surely you don't think slavery is an attempt at striking a balance?

Not the GP, but I actually don't care at all about living in a "wealthy country," I'd like to live in a country where our resources are allocated appropriately, we're able to invest in ourselves and our futures, and people have access to what they need regardless of their wealth, influence, or ability.

That doesn't require wealth as much as it requires equity. We get wealthier every year but we don't get more equitable, and our investment in things like education, health care, and infrastructure is definitely not rising accordingly.

It has never been the case that we simply weren't wealthy enough to build a just society, it's that our society is structured to promote inequality and maximize the influence of the wealthy.

I think not caring about living in a wealthy country is a perfectly fine value judgement to make for yourself, but as someone with just a modest amount of experience living in poor countries, I highly value wealth.

Maybe my value system that blames wealth is misappropriating the value to wealth when really it's things that correlate with wealth? That's possible of course, but with such consistent correlation I have to imagine it's hard to separate wealth from the society that I most prefer living in.

Happy to be wrong, as equity is a lot more palatable emotionally.

Well it's hard to say without knowing more precisely what you mean, but I can imagine any number of factors that might correlate with a nation's wealth, eg, people might have more time to engage in civil society, they have a stronger military and diplomatic position and so other counties aren't liable to meddle with them, they might achieve the appearance of improving conditions by commiting their worst abuses abroad (eg setting up a sweat shop in another country), etc.

I certainly won't claim that wealth isn't an important factor in outcomes, what I really mean is that it's not a great terminal goal for a society. We shouldn't be hoarding resources, we should be using them to create a better world for ourselves and for future people.

We definitely agree on wealth not being the goal, but my limited understanding and experience suggests that the goals worth having, require wealth to achieve.

Everything costs something, and maybe I'm looking at things through US centric politics, but in my experience people who are ideologically opposed to social programs use costs as a way to cloak their ideology in technocratic language and cast themselves as "the sober adults in the room" rather than ideologues.

In truth we waste a stupendous amount of money and human potential by, for instance, introducing a system of unnecessary middle men (insurance companies) to the healthcare system rather than negotiating with pharmaceutical companies as a nation with a stupendous buying power.

Human potential, I'll note, is worthy in it's own right, but is also a very valuable through a strictly economic lens. People who meet their potential contribute immensely to the economy, people who aren't able to because their society never bothered to invest in them may contribute not not nearly as much as they could have. Eg, if no one had ever taken a chance on Nikola Tesla, he wouldn't have developed AC electricity.

> ideologically opposed to social programs

It's hard to judge someones true intent, but I don't know that I've ever met a person that opposes benevolent programs of any sort if they aren't associated with costs. So if people truly do oppose social programs based only on the cost (both direct and indirect) I do believe that's an ethically defensible position. It's hard for me to imagine a person who doesn't want programs that help people, though and only uses cost as a way to shroud their ill-intent. I hope you're wrong about these people existing.

You've never heard someone say something like, "handouts make people dependent on the government" or "the government shouldn't have a say in our healthcare" or "the government shouldn't decide whether my child learns about X"? Because I've heard each of these ideological arguments used against social programs.

I think the confusion here may be that you're seeing things through your own ideological lens (as we all do) and so you've classified these as "not truly benevolent?" (I don't mean that as a criticism, just a shot in the dark.)

I've heard people say all of these things, but I don't think that saying these things has any bearing on whether those people disagree with programs that help people.

> handouts make people dependent on the government

This is a judgement based on cost - you or I may disagree with the value of the cost, but it is a centralization cost which increases risk. Playing devils advocate, but if your livelihood becomes dependent on a government program and you also watch government programs risking collapse (such as US social security) then the risk becomes obvious that it exists (and each individual will decide for themselves how likely this risk is to manifest)

> the government shouldn't have a say in our healthcare

I think this statement doesn't really fall into the category of things we're talking about. There's nothing about governments involvement in healthcare that means the program is better or worse or more/less benevolent. It would depend on the government and their involvement.

> the government shouldn't decide whether my child learns about X

I would a similar argument as the previous for this.

> I've heard people say all of these things, but I don't think that saying these things has any bearing on whether those people disagree with programs that help people.

This is what I meant about "not truly benevolent," it certainly is the case that these are arguments that the social programs don't help people. All well and good, but my claim was that they were ideologically opposed to social programs, not anything about whether they were opposed to people being helped or something. I never said that at all.

> This is a judgement based on cost

But it isn't. It's a view about outcome, not cost. If we reduced the cost to zero somehow (obviously impossible but bare with me), their objection wouldn't disappear because it hadn't been addressed.

> I think this statement doesn't really fall into the category of things we're talking about. There's nothing about governments involvement in healthcare that means the program is better or worse or more/less benevolent. It would depend on the government and their involvement.

I'm not making a statement about being more out less benevolent, I'm saying this is an ideological statement, which it transparently is. "The government shouldn't have a say in healthcare/education" isn't any kind of factual claim. It's a claim about how the world ought to work.

> I think not caring about living in a wealthy country is a perfectly fine value judgement to make for yourself, but as someone with just a modest amount of experience living in poor countries, I highly value wealth.

I don't see how wealth of the nation helps someone in any way when their piece of it is so small that they can't afford food, healthcare and roof over their head. How is even rational to value something that is actively used to take what little they to enrich "nation".

Not necessarily. It defaults to a civil matter, but if a DA thinks that the employer knowingly defrauded employees, they could prosecute them criminally. It's pure prosecutorial discretion. But prosexutors have limited resources and don't want to get tied down with business disputes. It's not true that the law itself mandates this to only be in civil court.