• stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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    7 months ago

    Are any of these stats actual stats or part of a study or anything other than a watermarked, compressed meme format that someone can cite? Almost election time and getting stats and facts straight rn is pretty important

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Good question. I wondered the same thing: could I see a shareable source that one might take more seriously than a meme?

      Here’s some things I found on DDG:

      US DOL stats on wage theft

      Then I found a couple more sources, one of which has OP’s image, and both point to the same article from an organization called the EPI which I’ve never heard of. It seems to be some big NGO that’s been around since the 80s but really vetting the credibility of this source is a bit beyond my attention span right now.

      The EPI seems to have credible sources in that article and seems to cite them appropriately. The larceny et al. crime stats seem to come from an FBI data set from 2012. The EPI article itself is from 2014, so that eases one potential concern of cherry picking old data compared to current inflation numbers. But it’s also worth noting that ten year-old data isn’t great. That said, is it hard to believe that not much has changed in ten years? The figures seem reasonably trustworthy given this brief (BRIEF) assessment.

      Great question, keep on askin’.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        7 months ago

        Thanks for the info!

        I honestly wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to find that it’s worse now. :/

      • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        It’s not about when to want things, it’s about when to look out for things. Yes, you should always be aware of tornadoes, but you should pay extra attention during tornado season.

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Your last sentence seems to add that during elections it is more important to be factual. I think my point is we should be holding those news networks that cannot do that even without elections accountable and not consuming their product.

          • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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            7 months ago

            I’m fairly confident in saying all people want truth all the time.

            I wasn’t addressing that at all - I’m saying it’s even more important to be double checking and fact checking during election season because that’s when we’ve seen foreign adversaries try and push fake news and other bs to muddy waters, fool and bend some populace, trick and misinform others as a sort of “backdoor” for future wins, etc.

            Not because truth is more valuable during election season, but because lies are more common.

    • Fal@yiffit.net
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      7 months ago

      Also I wonder if this is a fair comparison. Shouldn’t wage theft be compared to all other civil penalties imposed on people, not just criminal theft?

      • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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        7 months ago

        Hey!!

        You beat me to the point! >:(

        There’s no way that the stats here are legit stats because they’d account for the most glaring issue: you’re comparing groups of people that follow the laws of economics and individuals who commit a crime.

        It’s like comparing an apple to the root system of an orange tree

        Like sure we can compare them, but what’s the fucking point when one is so much different…

        Stealing “wages” also shouldn’t be treated the same as stealing everything out of someone’s pocket - are we talking a dollar per day? Are we talking about reports of robbery (common for insurance fraud so there’s noise in that data) or confirmed and sentenced theft? Etc etc

        • Dieinahole@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          What the fuck is wrong with you?

          Stealing wages is theft. And a far more insidious kind of theft.

          • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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            7 months ago

            I didn’t say that, I said we shouldn’t be treating them 1:1 - I want to know the truth of exactly how the “crime” happened so I can fairly assess and not be making judgments and decisions based off bad science/bad statistics…

            But let’s jump to conclusions ig

        • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
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          7 months ago

          you’re comparing groups of people that follow the laws of economics and individuals who commit a crime.

          Are you trying to suggest that wage theft isn’t a crime? I think your biggest mistake here is believing that stealing from an individual employee is somehow not as bad as other kinds of theft, you’re like a reverse Robin Hood.

          • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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            7 months ago

            Not at all! Obviously, everyone deserves to be paid a fair wage…

            Why would I be asking for actual truth and science if I didn’t care about people getting paid fairly? That wouldn’t make sense

            I was just saying that wage theft and actual physical thefts are different and have some specific concerns that I’d want to see weighed in the stats as an example

            • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              The point you’re missing is we’re not talking about some Marxian extraction of surplus value that for all intents and purposes is legal wage theft. We’re talking about actual illegal wage theft where employers are not paying out the money they’re legally obligated to pay out. For example paying below minimum wage or not paying for overtime work etc. That is functionally no different to someone robbing you on the street. In both cases something of value, that you legally own (or in case of wage theft are obligated to receive), is taken from you.

              The employers are not following some laws of economics, they’re just straight up committing a crime.

              • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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                7 months ago

                The point you’re missing is that you have completely misunderstood me.

                I wasn’t saying that wage theft isn’t a criminal act.

                I was asking for legitimate source/vetting to remove noise and any other dangerous mis-judgments that happen commonly from amateur stats work. It’s very easy to make an incorrect statement based off of bad or poorly portrayed stats. Was not at all saying that they aren’t a crime, just that all the facts need to be on the table about the data so we can make true and informed judgments from it.

                Hoping this clears things up, I’m not sure how much clearer I can get haha

                Edit: removed a small chunk - thought you were the person I was talking to originally.

                • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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                  7 months ago

                  I’ve misunderstood you? Well what did you actually say?

                  you’re comparing groups of people that follow the laws of economics and individuals who commit a crime.

                  One group follows the laws of economics (as in not a crime) and the other group commits crimes? Or did you mean this part

                  I was just saying that wage theft and actual physical thefts are different

                  Which you haven’t explained how they’re different, except for the part where you’re saying one isn’t a crime and the other is.

                  Was not at all saying that they aren’t a crime, just that all the facts need to be on the table about the data so we can make true and informed judgments from it.

                  But the facts were on the table? This guy gave the numbers before the comment you replied to even existed and then there was also this guy who found the source on reddit, also before your comment. Now you could argue federation delay and you didn’t see them the first time, but if you really cared about finding the data you could’ve found the data. But I don’t think you really care that much the data because you also started your first comment with:

                  There’s no way that the stats here are legit stats…

                  Seems to me like you made up your mind before you even questioned whether they’re factual or not.

                  • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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                    7 months ago

                    I haven’t gotten the time to look through the number yet, it’s on my list. Responding to these is pretty quick. But you’ve made up your mind about me already I guess…

                    I was implying in the example listed that we should be fully aware of the differences of the two items portrayed, which a good solid source usually does and was my justification for having asked for one first. Hope this clears things up.

                • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
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                  7 months ago

                  I literally quoted the part where you said that wage theft was “groups of people that follow the laws of economics” and other types of theft being compared was “individuals who commit a crime”. The only reasonable interpretation is that you believe wage theft isn’t a crime; you are, at best, downplaying wage theft as an issue. If there’s a misunderstanding it stems entirely from you saying exactly the thing you’re being accused of saying.

                  You also said, and once again I’ll quote you directly:

                  Stealing “wages” also shouldn’t be treated the same as stealing everything out of someone’s pocket - are we talking a dollar per day?

                  But why not? In what way is someone stealing $100 from your wallet worse than your employer stealing $100 from your paycheck? I’d argue wage theft is in fact worse; that’s someone with power stealing from those they have power over. That is not a good thing.

                  I’d also like to point out that so far nobody has criticised you for asking for sources, that’s just deflection. You’re being criticised for the views you personally expressed in this thread.

                  • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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                    7 months ago

                    Because theft is a one time occurrence and offense.

                    Wage theft is repeated.

                    Thefts here could also be including report-only theft where insurance fraud frequently happens and is a source of noise

                    Which i specifically said and you (conveniently) left out here in favor of the opinion you’ve already made up about me.

                    I think we can probably end this convo now.