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Data · Wage and OSHA enforcement

Unpaid wages and OSHA citations, county by county

How often federal investigators find unpaid wages in each county, how much is owed and to how many workers, under which law and in which industry, and how many OSHA safety inspections there end in citations and penalties. We sum the Labor Department's own enforcement files over ten fiscal years, publish counts and sums only, and check every state against the department's published totals.

Checked October 28, 2026 · CC BY 4.0 · Not legal advice

What is in this dataset?

What the U.S. Department of Labor found when it enforced wage and safety laws, counted for every county, state and territory and the US over the last ten complete federal fiscal years. From the Wage and Hour Division (WHD): concluded cases, cases with violations, back wages found owed, employees owed back wages, civil money penalties, Fair Labor Standards Act overtime and minimum wage back wages, and child labor violations. From the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), federal and state-plan offices: inspections (and how many followed a complaint, a referral, an accident or a fatality or catastrophe), violations cited (serious, willful, repeat), and penalties. State and US records add one record per law WHD enforces (FLSA, FMLA, Davis-Bacon, the Service Contract Act, H-2A, H-2B, H-1B, MSPA and others) and one per industry sector. Only counts and sums are published: no employer name, address or case number, and back wages are suppressed wherever 1 or 2 employees were owed.

Use it to size wage-and-hour and workplace-safety work in the counties a firm serves: how often federal investigators find unpaid wages there, how much is owed and to how many workers, which laws and industries the cases come from, and how many OSHA inspections follow a complaint, an accident or a death. Look up a state to get every county, law and industry in it, compare up to ten states, or search for a county or an industry by name. These are the cases the federal government closed, not all wage theft or workplace injury: state labor agencies and private lawsuits are not in it.

Records
5,217
Look up by
57
state or territory
Primary source
5,217

The letters are explained in what P, S, D and U mean.

Where does the data come from?

The DOL Open Data Portal's complete WHD enforcement, OSHA inspection and OSHA violation files are streamed and summed by state code, by county (the employer's or worksite's ZIP code placed with the Census ZCTA-to-county relationship file), by federal fiscal year (WHD by findings end date, OSHA by inspection open date), by law and by NAICS sector, without keeping any employer name, address or case number; deleted citation items and records of no inspection are left out. State totals computed straight from the state code are the totals gate, DOL's budget justifications (OSHA inspections) and WHD's fiscal-year tables (back wages) the second sources.

Period covered
October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2025
Places
The whole US, states and counties
How often we refresh it
Every month
Records read
October 28, 2026

Official sources

The sources the records cite most

What does a record look like?

  • United States: in FY2025 the Wage and Hour Division concluded 7,528 cases dated there (6,403 with violations), finding $137,068,963 in back wages owed to 89,450 employees and $16,841,955 in civil money penalties; OSHA opened 68,703 inspections (17,051 after a complaint, 4,395 after an accident, fatality or catastrophe) and cited 133,898 violations (78,287 serious, 565 willful, 5,196 repeat) with $329,091,697 in current penalties. FY2016-FY2025: 134,377 wage cases, $2,094,507,450 in back wages owed to 1,732,370 employees; 687,333 OSHA inspections, 1,398,731 violations. DOL enforcement files as of 2026-10-28; recent years still fill in as cases close.

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: DOL Open Data Portal: WHD enforcement

  • Texas: in FY2025 the Wage and Hour Division concluded 1,205 cases dated there (1,052 with violations), finding $16,433,667 in back wages owed to 11,574 employees and $530,860 in civil money penalties; OSHA opened 3,722 inspections (374 after a complaint, 185 after an accident, fatality or catastrophe) and cited 5,318 violations (3,850 serious, 2 willful, 255 repeat) with $24,176,620 in current penalties. FY2016-FY2025: 20,191 wage cases, $219,752,434 in back wages owed to 207,127 employees; 37,550 OSHA inspections, 65,388 violations. DOL enforcement files as of 2026-10-28; recent years still fill in as cases close.

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: DOL Open Data Portal: WHD enforcement

  • California: in FY2025 the Wage and Hour Division concluded 466 cases dated there (352 with violations), finding $11,532,963 in back wages owed to 4,669 employees and $1,161,371 in civil money penalties; OSHA opened 7,069 inspections (1,715 after a complaint, 2,308 after an accident, fatality or catastrophe) and cited 13,663 violations (3,118 serious, 29 willful, 175 repeat) with $37,809,111 in current penalties. FY2016-FY2025: 9,558 wage cases, $195,415,538 in back wages owed to 113,131 employees; 72,474 OSHA inspections, 156,962 violations. DOL enforcement files as of 2026-10-28; recent years still fill in as cases close.

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: DOL Open Data Portal: WHD enforcement

  • Florida: in FY2025 the Wage and Hour Division concluded 429 cases dated there (359 with violations), finding $4,788,100 in back wages owed to 4,334 employees and $844,047 in civil money penalties; OSHA opened 2,750 inspections (607 after a complaint, 133 after an accident, fatality or catastrophe) and cited 3,900 violations (2,876 serious, 15 willful, 198 repeat) with $17,684,271 in current penalties. FY2016-FY2025: 11,046 wage cases, $139,426,661 in back wages owed to 143,627 employees; 23,151 OSHA inspections, 34,394 violations. DOL enforcement files as of 2026-10-28; recent years still fill in as cases close.

    Status P · checked October 28, 2026 · source: DOL Open Data Portal: WHD enforcement

The full records add the dates, the quoted source text and every field in the CSV and JSON files below.

What each of the 37 main columns means
jurisdiction
Two-letter code of the state or territory, or US
level
county, county-not-given (cases and inspections in the state whose ZIP code places them in no county of it), state, state-not-given (no usable state code), us, act (one law WHD enforces, state or US) or industry (one NAICS sector, state or US)
county
5-digit county FIPS code (vintage 2025; Connecticut by planning region), placed by ZIP code; empty for other levels
countyName
County name as the Census Bureau writes it
stateName
State or territory name
act
Act records: the law's short id (flsa, flsa-overtime, flsa-minimum-wage, flsa-retaliation, child-labor, fmla, davis-bacon, service-contract, contract-work-hours, h-2a, h-2b, h-1b, mspa, garnishment, polygraph, other)
actName
Act records: the law's name
sector
Industry records: the NAICS sector code (2 digits, or 31-33, 44-45, 48-49), or unclassified
sectorName
Industry records: the NAICS sector name
year
The latest complete federal fiscal year in the record (FY N runs October 1 of N-1 to September 30 of N)
fiscalYears
The ten fiscal years covered
value
Back wages WHD found owed over the ten fiscal years, in dollars (null where suppressed)
whd_cases
Latest fiscal year: concluded WHD compliance actions (cases) whose findings ended in that year; for act records, cases with a finding under that law
whd_cases_with_violations
Of those, cases where WHD recorded at least one violation
whd_back_wages
Back wages the employers agreed to pay or were found to owe, in dollars (null where 1 or 2 employees were owed)
whd_employees_owed
Employees due back wages (null where 1 or 2)
whd_penalties
Civil money penalties assessed, in dollars
whd_flsa_overtime_back_wages
Back wages for Fair Labor Standards Act overtime violations, in dollars
whd_flsa_minimum_wage_back_wages
Back wages for FLSA minimum wage violations, in dollars
whd_child_labor_violations
FLSA child labor violations
whd_cases_10y
WHD cases over the ten fiscal years
whd_back_wages_10y
Back wages over the ten fiscal years, in dollars
whd_employees_owed_10y
Employees due back wages over the ten fiscal years
whd_penalties_10y
Civil money penalties over the ten fiscal years, in dollars
osha_inspections
Latest fiscal year: OSHA inspections opened (federal OSHA and state-plan offices; records of no inspection left out)
osha_complaint_inspections
Of those, inspections that followed a complaint
osha_fatality_catastrophe_inspections
Of those, inspections that followed a fatality or catastrophe (OSHA's Fat/Cat type; the separate Accident type is in osha_accident_inspections in the JSON)
osha_violations
Citation items from those inspections (deleted items left out)
osha_serious
Serious violations cited
osha_willful
Willful violations cited
osha_repeat
Repeat violations cited
osha_current_penalties
Current OSHA penalties on those citations (after any settlement or decision), in dollars
osha_inspections_10y
OSHA inspections over the ten fiscal years
osha_violations_10y
Violations cited over the ten fiscal years
osha_serious_10y
Serious violations over the ten fiscal years
osha_current_penalties_10y
Current OSHA penalties over the ten fiscal years, in dollars
years
Per fiscal year: {whd: [...], osha: [...]} for place records (order in yearFields), or one list for act records

How do I use it in my own tools?

wageenforcement_lookup
For one two-letter state or territory code, or US: WHD back wages, employees owed, penalties and cases, and OSHA inspections, violations and penalties for the state, every county in it, every law WHD enforces and every industry sector, latest fiscal year and ten-year history.
wageenforcement_compare
Wage-and-hour and OSHA enforcement records for up to 10 states or territories (two-letter codes) or US side by side: back wages, employees owed, penalties, inspections and violations by county, law and industry.
wageenforcement_search
Enforcement records whose text matches the words given, such as a county name ("Harris County"), a law ("overtime Texas", "FMLA"), an industry ("construction") or a 5-digit county FIPS code.

How to cite this dataset

You can reuse, adapt and republish this data, including commercially, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC BY 4.0). The only condition is that you credit Probative and link to the source.

Version
1.0.0, released October 28, 2026
Every version
10.5281/zenodo.23744225 (always points to the newest)
License
CC BY 4.0

Download the data

Free, no email or login. The files are hosted on this site and Zenodo, a public research archive.

Suggested citation

Probative. (2026). Wage-and-hour and OSHA enforcement by county, state, act and industry (U.S. Department of Labor) (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23744226

Credit line for a chart, table or article

Source: Probative, Wage-and-hour and OSHA enforcement by county, state, act and industry (U.S. Department of Labor), version 1.0.0, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23744226, licensed CC BY 4.0.

Add to a reference manager (Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote)

Not legal advice. These are counts and sums of federal enforcement findings, kept for research and marketing planning. A WHD back-wage finding or an OSHA citation is the agency's finding, not a court judgment, and employers can contest them. Rights and deadlines in a wage or injury matter are for your own counsel.

What changed recently?

  • 2026-10-28 · U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division back wages, employees owed and penalties, and OSHA inspections, violations and penalties, by county, state, act and industry, FY2016-FY2025. (source)

The full log is in changes.json.

What are the limits?

  • These are the cases the U.S. Department of Labor closed, not all wage theft or workplace injury. Claims handled by state labor departments, private lawsuits and arbitration, and violations nobody reported are not in it, so a low count can mean little federal enforcement rather than few problems.
  • The wage file has no case open or close date. Each case is dated by the end of the period in which the Wage and Hour Division found violations, and only concluded cases are listed, so the latest two fiscal years keep growing as investigations close. The file also lists fewer cases than the division's own yearly tables, while its back wages come close to them.
  • Counties are placed by the employer's or worksite's ZIP code, matched to the county that holds most of the ZIP's land. A ZIP that crosses a county line counts in one county, and cases or inspections without a usable ZIP stay in the state's 'county not given' row, so the state total is complete even where the county split is not. Territories have no county rows.
  • Back wages and the number of employees owed are left out wherever only 1 or 2 employees were owed, so no worker's own back pay can be read off. Case and inspection counts are never left out.
  • OSHA figures include inspections by federal OSHA and by the state-plan agencies that run their own programs. Citations and penalties are those on record when we read the file: employers can contest them, and penalties often fall after a settlement, so we give the current penalty and keep the initial one in the JSON.
  • The Wage and Hour Division has changed how it counts violations for recently loaded cases (DOL's own note on the field gives the date), so violation counts for the newest cases are not directly comparable with earlier ones. Back wages, employees owed and case counts are not affected.
  • Records older than 45 days since their last check are marked stale in the files until we re-check them. Every confirmed error we fix is listed in the data corrections log.

Found a wrong value? Report an error with the record id and the source that shows the right value.

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