More Americans consume local news about crime than on any other topic except for the weather: Violent crime is ubiquitous on television newscasts; though property crime, a staple on social media sites like Nextdoor, is more prevalent. There’s one type of crime, however, that almost never makes the headlines: wage theft…

The Workplace Justice Fund confronts wage theft in San Diego County, California’s second most populous administrative area. In 2023, organizations such as the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a statewide group that targets illegal and unfair business practices in the janitorial industry, and the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI), a San Diego–based research institute, banded together with county leaders to establish the fund, one of the first of its kind in California.

Initiatives like the Workplace Justice Fund are examples of co-enforcement programs: Labor standards enforcement agencies partner with community-based organizations that have existing ties with low-wage workers. This allows agencies to build on the progress that community partners have already made, ultimately expanding their reach and allowing them to more effectively recover unpaid wages. Seattle, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia have put co-enforcement into practice, with Seattle alone providing over $1.5 million to fund worker organizations and community organizing projects.

Nearly 90 percent of the hourly workers interviewed for a 2024 CPI and San Diego State University survey were wage theft victims. The fund assists workers who’ve secured favorable judgments from the state labor commissioner’s office but have not received back pay from an employer, a problem that many workers encounter despite the order. These individuals can receive up to $3,000 in immediate relief. In its first months, the fund distributed roughly $100,000 to workers.