San Diego County has more than $29 million in unpaid wage-theft judgments dating to 2017. A proposal before the Board of Supervisors would move the county from waiting for complaints toward proactive investigations in high-risk industries, expand multilingual outreach and give County Counsel a faster path to pursue employers that do not pay final judgments.
The plan directs the Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement to identify industries for targeted investigations, including restaurants, construction, janitorial work, hospitality and home health care. It also calls for a review of how cases move from intake to legal action, an assessment of sustainable funding and a return to the board within 120 days. The office was created in 2021 and now operates a Wage Theft Enforcement Program and Workplace Justice Fund.
A regional survey cited in the board letter found that 87% of hourly workers reported experiencing some form of wage theft and about 90% of community members did not know where to report it. Those figures describe the survey respondents and should not be read as an audited rate for every hourly worker in the county. They do identify the two problems the proposal is built to address: violations that are not reported and orders that are not collected.
The first problem requires access. A worker who is paid in cash, speaks limited English or fears retaliation may not find a county form or trust that filing it will recover wages. Outreach through worker organizations and community groups can improve the path into the system. It does not substitute for investigators who can examine payroll records, schedules and employer practices without putting the full burden on one employee.
The second problem is execution. A judgment has little value to a household if the employer closes, transfers assets or simply refuses to pay. The proposal tells labor officials and County Counsel to streamline referrals and litigation. It does not guarantee collection of the existing $29 million. Recovery will depend on the age of each case, the employer's assets, legal remedies and the resources assigned to enforcement.
Proactive work also changes what the county must document. A complaint-led office can count the people who find it; an industry investigation must explain why a sector was selected, how employers were sampled and whether violations were concentrated or widespread. Publishing that method would let supervisors distinguish a targeted enforcement result from a claim about every business in an industry.
Most of the money is deferred. The recommendations would refer $300,000 in ongoing funding and two permanent positions to the fiscal 2027-28 budget process. Staff would also look for as much as $150,000 in one-time money for temporary help during the current fiscal year. The initial directives carry no immediate fiscal effect; later appropriations would require separate action. That sequencing lets supervisors order a strategy now without guaranteeing the staff needed to run it.
The online record for Tuesday's meeting had not been finalized by Wednesday morning; action results were absent and the minutes carried a draft label. If authorized, the 120-day report should make the enforcement gap measurable: complaints received, investigations opened without a complaint, judgments entered, dollars recovered, case age and outcomes by industry. Without those numbers, the county could add outreach and referrals while leaving the central question unanswered—whether earned pay reaches the worker who is owed it.