The effects of the current economic recession are further reaching than most analysts ever could have predicted.
Those effects go far beyond the obvious issues such as unemployment and home foreclosures.
One serious effect of the recession has been on the number of instances of wage theft in the United States.
Lawsuits involving employees that have been the victims of wage theft by their employers have increased drastically in the last few years.
Many of these lawsuits have been class action and have involved large companies.
Many companies that have engaged in theft argue that they had no other choice because they were hit so hard financially.
However, no matter how serious a company's financial loss has been, there is never an excuse for stealing from employees.
The Most Common Types of Wage Theft Seen During the Recession As companies try desperately to make a profit and keep from going under, they have increasingly engaged in illegal behavior regarding the fair payment of their employees including:

• Violating minimum wage laws--this has especially become an issue with illegal immigrants who fear that if they retaliate or seek legal ramification for their losses that they will be deported.
  
• Refusal to pay overtime for work exceeding 40 hours in one week.
  
• Forcing employees to work off the clock so that there is no record of the work that they performed.
  
• Misclassifying employees as independent contractors to get around minimum wage and overtime laws.
  
• Refusing to pay workers in general for jobs that they finished.
  

Employees can try to protect themselves from illegal payment practices by:

• Refusing to work off the clock
• Making sure that there are records of time worked
• Reporting any infraction regarding wages that occurs

Recession or not, all employees deserve to be paid in full for the work they have performed.