Maryland workers are owed more than $6.8M. Do you qualify?

About 5,200 Marylanders are owed a total of more than $6.8 million in unpaid wages, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Over the last few years, the Department of Labor has “recovered millions” of dollars owed to workers across the country, said Linamarie Martinez, an assistant district director in Maryland.

The money comes from federal investigations and enforcement into workplaces and employers who are not properly paying employees.

Anyone can use the department’s “Workers Owed Wages” or “WOW” tool online to see if the department has money that they’re owed. The tool searches by employer, and then after a worker verifies their name and submits contact information, they can fill out a claim form.

In most cases, a worker will receive a check for earned wages in about six weeks, Martinez said. The money is taxed.

Martinez said that sometimes, when employers are ordered to give back pay, they are unable to find former employees. In those situations, the money sits with the Department of Labor for three years. After that, though, the money is sent to the U.S. Treasury.

That’s why it’s important people check to see if they’re owed anything, Martinez said.

“We have these monies waiting on their behalf,” she said.

In Maryland, there are 5,243 workers owed a total of $6,811,280 in recovered wages. The national labor department’s Wage and Hour Division has recovered more than $1 billion in back wages and damages overall during the Biden administration.

That created “justice and economic relief for more than 615,000 workers,” acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in an October statement.