Congress moves to criminalize wage theft with up to 5 years in prison
H.R. 5048 — Don’t STEAL Act · Filed by Seth Magaziner (D-RI) · 28 cosponsors · Introduced Aug 26, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Fair Labor Standards Act to strengthen enforcement against wage theft by increasing criminal and civil penalties. It establishes a new right to full compensation requiring employers to pay the greater of contractual wages or applicable federal/state minimum wage, and creates tiered criminal penalties (up to 5 years imprisonment for wage theft exceeding $1,000, up to 1 year for amounts of $1,000 or less), with fines collected directed to the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division for enforcement.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is strengthening criminal and civil penalties for wage theft and directing enforcement resources to the Department of Labor. This is fundamentally a labor-protection and enforcement measure, not a tax or regulatory carve-out.
What the text implies
- The 90-day effective date creates a brief window before penalties apply, potentially allowing employers to adjust practices before enforcement begins.
- Tiered penalties based on dollar amount ($1,000 threshold) may create incentives for employers to structure violations as multiple smaller thefts to avoid felony-level prosecution.
- Fines collected are directed to DOL enforcement, creating a potential feedback loop where successful prosecutions fund more enforcement, but only if appropriations support the Division's operations.
- The bill applies only to employees 'engaged in commerce' — a broad category under FLSA but potentially excludes some workers in purely intrastate operations, though this mirrors existing FLSA scope.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Workers gain a statutory right to full compensation and stronger legal recourse against wage theft, with meaningful criminal penalties and increased enforcement resources. The bill directly protects employees from employer non-payment and underpayment, a concrete public benefit with no offsetting cost to ordinary citizens.
Named in the bill
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Title 18 USC, House Committee on Education and Workforce
Where it stands
28 cosponsors: 28 Democrats.
- Aug 26, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Aug 26, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $20,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 12 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Seth Magaziner, the sponsor, reported $526,804 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- International Association of Sheet Metal Air Rail & Transportation Workers — $20,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 6, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,279 characters) on Aug 14, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 6, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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