A new SEIU-funded study alleges that Los Angeles’ fast food workers are experiencing elevated levels of wage theft. The study has been promoted by the union in advance of a hearing next week of the state’s Fast Food Council. But actual claims data collected by state and federal wage enforcement agencies suggests the union’s researchers have it wrong.
Let’s rewind: As part of a long-running campaign to unionize the fast food industry, the SEIU has claimed restaurants are responsible for a disproportionate share of wage theft offenses in California. A 2022 EPI analysis of California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) data found this was not true: Fast food (or limited-service) restaurants accounted for a much lower share of claims than other industries.
Now, the SEIU is again targeting the fast food restaurant industry – this time in Los Angeles – and are reviving the same bogus claims about rampant wage theft.
The union’s recently-released study claims wage theft for fast food workers has increased over the last two decades, and occurred for 1 in 4 Los Angeles fast food workers last year. That study is based on survey data from the Census Bureau; the union researchers don’t know if workers have experienced wage theft, they make assumptions based on self-reported data.
But there is more reliable data available collected by the state itself.
The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) provides a portal for anyone to submit a claim for alleged wage and hour violations. The DIR also keeps an online database of these allegations – which includes all claims filed, not just lawsuits or cases where the state found actual violations and levied damages. The federal Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) also takes wage violation cases.
To understand the full breadth of allegations of wage violations, EPI analyzed the number of claims made to the state’s Los Angeles DIR office and to the federal Department of Labor WHD for businesses in Los Angeles County.
This data shows Los Angeles’ fast food industry has had a steady and relatively low rate of claims. In fact, in 2024, the fast food industry only received 1.2% of all state and federal wage claims made in the Los Angeles area – much lower than industries with greater union density.
This rate has remained steady – fluctuating around the 1-percent mark since 2009, with a brief spike post-COVID. In fact, all 2009 wage claims originating from limited-service (fast food) restaurants represented 1.4% of total 2009 claims, slightly higher than the 2024 rate.
The Los Angeles fast food industry is responsible for an even smaller ratio of wage claims per employee. Based on the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics annual employment data, Los Angeles had just 0.28 wage claims filed per 1,000 employees in fast food restaurants. Other industries, including heavily-unionized construction and transportation, had claim rates several times larger.
The union’s researchers argue that the state’s wage claims data is incomplete. But there’s good reason to believe that the California data is a more-relevant picture of reality: California has created numerous tools for employees to easily file wage claims, and even to seek compensation for alleged violations of labor laws through the Private Attorneys General Act. The data suggest that employees are actively and frequently availing themselves of these tools.
If Los Angeles was truly experiencing a spike in wage theft, it should show in the claims data. And it does not.
Much like previous proposals at the state level, activists are trying to single-out the fast food industry by accusing it of rampant wage theft. The data is clear: Los Angeles fast food restaurants are far less likely to be accused of wage violations than many other industries.