Report: Nearly 40K workers in Nevada still make below minimum wage

Researchers with the Rutgers University Workplace Justice Lab say that since 2005 — when Nevada’s minimum hourly wage was $5.15 — underpayment has cost workers in the Silver State an estimated $122 million annually.

Although Nevada’s minimum wage has more than doubled over the past two decades, roughly 40,000 Nevadans each year still make less than the state’s $12 per hour minimum wage due to employer wage theft, according to a new study released this month. 

Researchers with the Rutgers University and Northwestern University Workplace Justice Lab say that since 2005 — when Nevada’s minimum hourly wage was $5.15 — underpayment has cost workers in the Silver State an estimated $122 million annually, or roughly $2.4 billion in cumulative unpaid wages over the past two decades. Young, part-time, and less educated workers are the most at-risk of being paid less than the minimum wage. 

During a Monday roundtable in east Las Vegas, featuring Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, as well as advocates and workers, Rutgers labor studies professor Janice Fine added that domestic workers such as housekeepers and childcare workers who work for private households are particularly at risk of underpayment. Researchers found there was about an 18% chance for workers in that sector to be a victim of wage theft — about five times more likely than the average Nevada worker, who has about a 3.4% chance of being underpaid, she said. 

White men in Nevada have about a 2.3% chance of being underpaid.

“The additive effect of being a woman of color without citizenship is profound, and this disparity is not a coincidence,” said Fine, who is also the director of the Workplace Justice Lab. “Employers in low wage industries have historically recruited immigrants and people of color while excluding them from other industries and occupations.” 

Other typically low-wage service jobs such as hairdressers and cosmetologists, as well as agriculture and food service workers, are also more likely to be underpaid compared to the average worker. That’s because workplaces in those fields tend to prey on women, people of color, and undocumented workers to fill gaps in their respective markets because they are less likely to know their rights or report potential abuses to law enforcement. 

Workers in either the 18-24 age demographic and those 65 and older are also paid below minimum wage at a disproportionate rate.

“Domestic work is like the wild west,” Ai-jen Poo, president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, told the panel. “It’s the luck of the draw in terms of who you might get as your employer and what the conditions might be. You never quite know what to expect.”

The report found the average received wage of an underpaid worker was just $6.81, and that those who were victims of wage theft lost on average $3,132 per year compared to their minimum wage counterparts. 

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Fine said the study’s findings underscore the importance of state labor enforcement agencies that can tailor their practices to specific sectors, and further noted that workers are more likely to report a violation when those agencies partner with grassroots groups who have established trust in historically underserved communities. 

Monday’s roundtable in the city’s east side was hosted by the Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center, an advocacy group that informs and organizes on behalf of immigrant workers throughout the Las Vegas valley. The organization outlined a number of policy recommendations state officials could consider to mitigate wage theft. 

Among them, the group called on Aguilar to increase enforcement against unregistered businesses, enterprises operating with revoked licenses, and individuals running a business without a license. Other advocates, including domestic workers who shared their stories of oftentimes having to work for free or through injury, said that Aguilar’s office should do more to investigate reports of wage theft. 

“It is your job to do something,” domestic worker Samatha Cuellar said, via a translator, in a direct appeal to Aguilar, whose office administers business licensing throughout the state. 

Aguilar said hearing feedback from constituents and groups like Arriba in recent weeks has compelled him to find new ways to go after potential bad actors, but also noted his office needs more case workers to investigate such claims. 

Additional resources for Aguilar’s office would likely need the approval of the state legislature, and given the part-time nature of the state Senate and Assembly, such a proposal may have to wait until the 2027 legislative session.

“It is my responsibility now as Secretary of State to really understand why this occurs, how it occurs, and to see if there are ways we can tighten up that system,” Aguilar said. “But [to] also give a voice to those people that are being impacted, to be able to tell our office those stories so we can get our investigators to look at these situations, [and] to work with the Attorney General’s office to help make sure that people are not abusing our office to hurt people.”

The report also found that even though Nevada’s new minimum wage of $12 an hour went into effect last July, that wage is nearly half of what a single adult would need to support themselves. Fine said a single adult living in Nevada would need to make at least $23.85 an hour and work on average, 40 hours per week, to adequately pay for housing, food, and other costs of living. 

“Nevada’s $12 is not a living wage,” Fine said. “Yet, we find that tens of thousands of Nevadans are still paid below the minimum wage every year.”