Remote Work and Wage Theft: What Changed After 2020

The shift to remote work created a new category of wage theft: employers who treated home-based work as if the normal rules didn’t apply. In California, they do — and remote workers who were underpaid have claims worth filing.

The Expense Reimbursement Issue

California Labor Code § 2802 requires employers to reimburse employees for all necessary business expenses. For remote workers, that includes: a portion of home internet costs, cell phone bills if used for work, and any equipment the employer required but didn’t provide. Employers who shifted overhead to employees without reimbursement violated the law from day one.

The shift to remote work created identifiable liability. Workers who were required to work from home in 2020 and beyond, without reimbursement for internet and equipment, have claims for those unreimbursed costs — going back three years from the date of filing.

The California Wage Theft Recovery System gives workers the exact tools and templates to document violations, calculate what they’re owed, and file the right claims at the right agencies — without paying an attorney to get started. Request your free evaluation here.