American workers are owed $163M in unpaid wages. Do you qualify?

(NewsNation) — Are you owed money? The U.S. Department of Labor claims there are over 208,000 workers in the country who are owed $163.3 million in back pay from companies that violated wage laws.

Now, the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is trying to help you get paid.

The agency set up a website where anyone can check to see if they are owed back pay from a previous company. The worker will need to see if their company is listed first before gaining access to see if they are among those who are owed money.

The division says it often gets unpaid wages on behalf of workers when companies can’t locate previous employees and holds the funds while the Labor Department continues to look for them.

“One of our top priorities is to ensure that the back wages we recover are swiftly paid to the workers who earned them,” WHD administrator Jessica Looman told USA Today.

However, workers have only three years to claim any back pay or else the funds get sent to the U.S. Treasury, according to the WHD.

USA Today reported in 2023, the Labor Department doled out more than $26.9 million through the worker-owed wage system. However, there are still thousands of employees who haven’t claimed their money yet, the report said.