Worker Debt and Inequality

As researchers have chronicled for over two decades now, supply chain workers are routinely paid at or below the minimum wage, oftentimes owing to noncompliance such as wage theft, fraudulent deductions, and predatory fees, as well as laws that exclude certain classes of workers from wage standards. Low wages means that workers often need to go into debt to secure the basic necessities of life, and worker debt has become a critical, consistent element of business models configured around forced labour and human trafficking implemented by both producers and labour market intermediaries. The broader politics of debt, including national debt shaped by histories of colonial dispossession and enslavement, corporations’ strategic use of debt to reduce tax burdens, and taxpayer debts to bailout corporations amidst crises, further complicate the power relations and prospects for addressing debt bondage in supply chains. This brief explores solutions, including: alternative forms of corporate accountability mechanisms; government and value redistribution policies; reparations for historical injustice; debt relief; and business model innovation.