U.S. State Labor Enforcement Powers and Minimum Wage Violations

Serving as derived from a novel survey of U.S. state labor departments, measures of statutory strength in wage-hour laws, and state-level estimates of minimum wage violations. It examines the relationship between the deployment of enforcement tools and the probability of wage violations. The author is Daniel J. Galvin, and the data was last updated in February 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between state-level estimates of minimum wage violations and measures of statutory strength in wage-hour laws.
• Model the predicted probability of minimum wage violation as a function of strategic enforcement practices derived from the state labor department survey.
• Investigate the nonuse of available enforcement powers across U.S. states using the novel survey data.
• Assess the impact of strategic enforcement practices on wage theft for different worker vulnerability segments identified in the study.

Strengths

• Data is based on a novel survey of U.S. state labor departments, providing primary source information.
• Integrates multiple data sources: survey data, legal measures, and violation estimates.
• The dataset was updated in February 2026, indicating recent maintenance.

Limitations

• Specific data structure details like row count, column names, and file formats are unknown.
• The analysis focuses on U.S. states, limiting international applicability.
• The description suggests the measured enforcement impact may not reach some of the most vulnerable workers, indicating potential coverage gaps.

Provenance

Source

Harvard Dataverse, authored by Daniel J. Galvin.

Collection Method

Combines a novel survey of U.S. state labor departments with constructed measures of statutory strength and state-level violation estimates.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-02-06.

Geography

United States (state-level).