As of the end of August last year, 17,191 cases involving claims of wage theft were being handled by New York’s Labor Department, 1½ times as many as were pending at the beginning of 2008. One of them belonged to Solomon Perez and his co-workers.

Perez delivers food for an Indian restaurant in New York City. His wage is $5.25 an hour, plus tips. But he claims the restaurant takes 10% of the tips from online orders. Before this job, he was a dishwasher at another restaurant owned by the same people. His pay for a six-day work week of 60 to 70 hours was $360.

The low compensation for both jobs is a violation of New York and federal labor laws.

In 2010, Perez and two other workers filed a complaint with the state for wage theft. Six months later, the restaurant closed, and the Department of Labor told the workers not to worry, that the case was going well. They checked in every few months for an update and finally were told their case couldn’t be resolved.

A few weeks ago, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo promised to support an increase in the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $8, and said he agreed that places where it was more expensive to live, like New York City, could set the local wage higher.

But it doesn’t matter what you’re paid if employers can take advantage of a huge, desperate labor pool by paying you less than $6 an hour.

Only after inquiries by the media did the governor’s office announce earlier this month that a settlement had been reached with the owners of the two restaurants that employed Perez. Reportedly, a total of $225,000 will be paid to 19 workers including damages for delays in the investigation.

Read the whole story in the New York Times.