Does the US Labor Department owe you money?

In Texas, the US Labor Department is still holding on to more than $8 million for approximately 12,000 workers

Texas workers are still owed $8 million in unpaid wages, and the US Labor Department wants to return it.

In Fiscal Year 2023, investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recovered more than $212 million in back wages for nearly 163,000 workers.

While this figure can change daily, roughly $100 million is still unclaimed in the nation, and in Texas that figure is more than $8 million for 12,400 workers.

This is money workers earned but were never paid.

The average back wage check recovered for a single employee in 2023 in the nation was over $1,100. InTexas, the average owed to workers still is about $662 per worker.

A top priority at the U.S. Labor Department is to ensure that the back wages we recover are swiftly paid to the workers who earned them.

Yet, a significant portion of that money remains unclaimed because some of the workers due back wages cannot be located. In many cases, the employees change jobs or change addresses and cannot be notified. Name changes or an employer’s failure to retain contact information can also make it difficult for us to find employees and put back wages recovered into their hands.

The Wage and Hour Division can only hold unclaimed back wages for three years before we are required to turn it over to the Department of the Treasury. Despite our best efforts, too much of this money remains unclaimed.

In an effort to reach out to more workers and help them claim the money they are owed, the agency has developed an online search tool, Workers Owed Wages that allows workers to enter information to find out if we are holding back wages on their behalf. The tool provides a quick and easy way for employees to find out if they are owed money and receive it.

The WOW system is currently available in English and a Spanish. Last year, the division also updated the WOW website to make it more user-friendly and offer ways to search the database, and we enhanced security.

Both the English and Spanish versions of the website allow workers and their advocates to answer a series of questions to determine if they are owed wages and to easily claim them. If there is money to be distributed, workers will be directed to the Wage and Hour Division office that can help them get their check quickly. Calls can be answered, confidentially, in over 200 languages.

The division is eager to get these wages into the hands of the workers who earned them without delay. We are encouraging stakeholders to share the Workers Owed Wages link (https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ whd/wow) and informational videos (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=2OpkoIGey1o ) with others on their websites, in social media, or in newsletters.

For San Saba County, there are two workers owed wages. Total owed is $7,849.31.