“We did not have the data to understand the scale of the issue in New York State until the ProPublica and Documented series came out last year,” state Sen. Jessica Ramos said.

The legislation was prompted by reports of rampant wage theft against New York workers, including two investigations published by Documented and ProPublica. The stories revealed that more than 127,000 New Yorkers have been victims of wage theft during a recent five-year period, but that the New York State Department of Labor was unable to recover $79 million in back wages owed to the workers.