Pay Abuses Common for Day Laborers, Study Finds

By Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A01

More than half of day laborers in the Washington area have been cheated out of their wages and one in four has been harmed on the job, according to a study being released today that tries to sketch a portrait of the informal workers.

The study is based on the experiences of 476 day laborers in the District, Northern Virginia and Maryland, who were interviewed last year by a team affiliated with the University of California at Los Angeles. It depicts the typical worker as an industrious Latin American man who earns $991 a month.