A Road map for Strategic Enforcement Targeting: Complaints and Compliance with Los Angeles County’s Minimum Wage

In order to determine the degree to which complaints made to the LA DCBA match overall industry violation rates, this memo analyzes the relationship between minimum wage complaints (LA DCBA complaint data) and estimates of minimum wage violations (using CPS-MORG data) in Los Angeles County. Our most important finding is that significant numbers of violations of Los Angeles County’s minimum wage ordinance are in fact going unreported. Several industries with the highest estimated violation rates have among the lowest complaint rates according to LA DCBA data.