“Should the idea of ‘wage theft’ include paying employees what they are worth?”
— 2026 Question
Hannah Shirley is pursuing a Master of Social Work at the University of North Dakota and earned their undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Idaho in 2018. After a fulfilling career in newspapers, they hope to eventually go into clinical therapy.
“Wage theft” is a legal term that refers to withholding salary from workers that they otherwise earned. It is a crime in the United States and elsewhere. But there is a deeper philosophical idea that wage theft occurs when people aren’t paid what they’re actually worth, as opposed to what they agreed to contractually. Under this conception, wage theft happens when someone’s labor is not properly valued.
Imagine you accept a job for $15 an hour because you have no other option, but the job is hard, or dangerous, or requires a lot of skill, and you decide that you should really be paid twice that. Does it make sense to claim that wages “should” be a certain amount? Is it defensible to argue that the market is “wrong” in its estimation of what work is worth? Should there be more to determining wages than just supply and demand?
Many countries argue this, at least a little. They set a minimum wage to ensure that pay does not fall below a certain level, even if some people are willing to work for less. There are also those who argue that employers should pay even more, not a minimum wage, but a “living wage,” that guarantees everyone a good quality of life. Are they right that employees should be paid enough to flourish, not just survive? Is there a moral standard that supersedes economics? Is undercutting workers for profit unethical, even if it is legal?
Click here to return to the Eliot Glassheim Essay Contest information page.