More than 5,500 Illinois workers owed back pay totaling more than $4.2 million can claim their unpaid wages online, the U.S. Department of Labor said Tuesday.
The funds are the result of investigations by the department’s wage and hour division, which recovers back pay for workers when they are underpaid in violation of laws, including minimum wage and overtime laws.
“Among the division’s top priorities is putting wages recovered by its investigations swiftly into the hands of people who earned them,” the department said in a news release.
Illinois workers can find out if they are owed back pay by searching for an employer or former employer’s name on the department’s “Workers Owed Wages” or WOW search tool online, which is available in English and Spanish.
When workers provide their name and employer, the system will confirm whether or not there are wages owed to them. If a worker is owed wages, they must submit a signed form, contact information and some form of identification, such as a drivers’ license or state ID, taxpayer identification card, or pay stub, in order to claim them.
Wages are held in the WOW system for three years and then sent to the U.S. Treasury if they remain unclaimed, Labor Department spokesperson Scott Allen said.
Illinois workers can also search for unclaimed wages on the state’s I-CASH website. The state’s Labor Department conducts investigations separately from the U.S. Labor Department, but also works to recover wages for employees who have been underpaid in violation of the law.
“Wage theft investigations take time, and sometimes a worker may move or change phone numbers by the time back wages have been collected, making them hard to locate,” the state’s Labor Department said in a news release last month.
A change in state law last year extended the time the department has to locate workers owed back pay to three years, the agency said. After three years, the department can send the unpaid wages to the state treasurer’s unclaimed property fund, so they can still be claimed by the worker.
