Meanwhile, the rate of wage theft complaints has soared in recent years, and the state agency responsible for policing labor laws has been unable to keep up. In the 2024 fiscal year, more than 15,000 complaints were filed with the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), which is charged with enforcing state and federal labor law. That\u2019s the highest amount since at least 2016 and double the amount from 2021, according to agency reports<\/a>. Of the 12,400 cases investigated that year, the state ordered employers to pay back more than $10 million in wages.<\/p>\n Wage theft comes in the form of anything from missing paychecks, commissions, bonuses, or other owed wages under the state payday law to overtime manipulation and misclassification as an independent contractor. TWC may not investigate every complaint if it\u2019s submitted past the 6-month deadline, without sufficient evidence, or involves a bankrupt employer.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the number of cases grew, so has the backlog of unresolved complaints, according to an internal TWC audit<\/a> that the Texas Observer obtained through a public records request. Once investigators are assigned a case, the department goal in 2023 was to finish in 21 days\u2014they achieved a 10-day average. Although they were fast at processing claims, the increasing number of cases started piling up and it took longer for them to even be assigned to investigators. This caused them to fall short of their second internal goal, which is to have a case complete within 90 days after the case is first submitted\u2014their 2023 average was 103 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to do this work day in and day out, especially when you have way too much work on your plate,\u201d said Jenn Round, a Rutgers University researcher at the Workplace Justice Lab, who helps states with their labor law enforcement efforts and formerly led the Seattle Office of Labor Standards.<\/p>\n Despite the challenges faced by state investigators, TWC has recovered millions of dollars for workers over the years. Records<\/a> show that they collected $7.5 million in the 2024 fiscal year, the highest amount since at least 2016. \u201cTo have the capacity and the resources to do impactful investigations, you have to have the people power,\u201d Round said.<\/p>\n The TWC signaled a need for more support last year when they requested<\/a> an extra $1.2 million for its biennial budget for salary increases to help retain its labor law enforcement staff, citing the growing rate of complaints. TWC had a turnover rate of 14 percent in 2024, the fifth highest of all state agencies that year, according to a state auditor\u2019s report. The agency has also seen a drop in qualified candidates for investigator positions, among others, according to its latest strategic plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the TWC\u2019s three governor-appointed commissioners ranked<\/a> the request 9th out of 10 on the agency\u2019s priority list, the requested salary funds were ultimately declined by Texas House<\/a> and Senate<\/a> appropriators earlier this year. (In 2023, legislators did approve $2.2 million to fund the modernization of the department\u2019s outdated case management system, but implementation is facing delays.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The operating budget for the agency\u2019s labor law enforcement activities is set at $4.5 million<\/a> for the 2026 fiscal year, compared to $3.7 million<\/a> in 2023.\u00a0A TWC spokesperson told the Observer they did not have anyone available for an interview, and the agency did not not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The TWC could soon undergo major changes given that the agency is under review<\/a> by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, which typically happens every 12 years with lawmakers deciding if an agency should be reformed or abolished. Public input<\/a> is now being sought since the agency released its self-evaluation report<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n For Goldhammer, who has helped workers file complaints, he\u2019d like to see the state fund more investigators to process complaints, an increase in the current 180-day statute of limitations (federal labor law investigations have a two-year statute of limitations), and the creation of an industry funded wage-theft pool that could be used to immediately pay out claims that are in favor of an employee.<\/p>\n Stronger collection capabilities are also needed, advocates say.\u00a0<\/p>\n Research<\/a> by Round and her colleagues found that TWC ordered $99 million in wages ordered due across over 57,000 cases between 2010 and 2020, but 80 percent of those wages had yet to be recovered as of 2024. The TWC told the Dallas Morning News in 2023 that it could not verify Rutgers\u2019 findings<\/a> since it lacked access to the methodology.<\/p>\n \u201cCollections is a difficult problem. It\u2019s like collecting against any debt. If the money\u2019s not there, the money\u2019s not there,\u201d Round said. TWC\u2019s current enforcement and deterrent tools vary. Penalties of up to $1,000 can be imposed on bad-faith employers, the agency can order the employer\u2019s bank to freeze funds and turn them over, or it can file a lawsuit against the employer. A lien is also attached to an employer\u2019s property after a final determination of owed wages, which could force employers to pay back owed wages if they try to sell the property. There are currently more than 11,000 active liens totaling over $127 million, according to state data<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other enforcement mechanisms used elsewhere around the country include revoking the food permits<\/a> from employers that don\u2019t comply with wage orders or stop-work orders<\/a> that force an employer to close operations if they don\u2019t pay owed wages, Round noted.\u00a0A few cities\u2014Austin, El Paso, and Houston\u2014have enacted ordinances meant to fight wage theft, but they lacked<\/a> enforcement powers and have since been preempted by state law.<\/p>\n Collecting wages is also a problem faced by labor attorneys, such as Joe Buenker, who represents Houston-area workers in federal labor lawsuits. In one case, he said, it took him five years to collect the money off of a lien he had placed on an employer\u2019s property. \u201cIf I had collected all the judgments in my career, I\u2019d have my own island,\u201d Buenker told the Observer.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not getting what we should get out of that business relationship\u2026The person that\u2019s doing it right\u2014paying their worker as an employee, withholding taxes, and having all their people covered by workers\u2019 comp\u2014it\u2019s more expensive to do business the right way, but it benefits society as a whole,\u201d Buenker said.<\/p>\n In parallel to these varying state labor law enforcement systems and the courts, there is also the Wage and Hour Division within the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which investigates violations of various federal laws, including those that cover minimum wage and overtime. A recent case involved<\/a> workers in Travis County who alleged that their wages were stolen while working for contractors building the Tesla Gigafactory.<\/p>\n The number of investigators, however, is dwindling. As of earlier this year, there were just 611 the lowest point in decades nationwide<\/a>, according to Rutgers University researchers. As of May 2025, there were only 68 federal investigators assigned in Texas\u2014one for every 232,000 workers. A review of federal data<\/a> shows that the total wages federal investigators ordered to be paid back in Texas is the lowest it\u2019s been in 21 years at $7.5 million in the 2025 fiscal year, compared to tens of millions in prior years. <\/p>\n \u201cNo law can enforce itself. You have to have people to enforce it,\u201d Jeff Darby, a former DOL wage investigator in Texas for 33 years until 2023, told the Observer. \u201cAnd if you don\u2019t, the whole thing is a fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas workers have long struggled with wage theft by their employers\u2014and the state\u2019s willingness and ability to crack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2557,27,29,28,4462,13780,13781],"class_list":["post-17779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-labor","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-workforce-commission","tag-wage-theft","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Membership-Banner-Aug-2024-Evergreen.png\")
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