It's the season for hand-wringing: Austere budgets from the governor, mayor and President have left policymakers and the public alike scrambling to determine what's at risk of getting taxed, cut, downsized or frozen.

With the recession already taking a dramatic toll on New York City - the unemployment rate rose to 10.6% in December, the highest in 17 years - it would be nice if we could find some misplaced pot of funds to ease the burden on families and communities during such strenuous times.

It turns out, there is a massive leak in our economy, one that desperately needs to be plugged. Every week, more than 300,000 low-wage earners in the five boroughs are subject to some form of wage theft from employers.

In our recent study on the scope of wage theft, "Working Without Laws," we found that 21% of the low-wage workers we surveyed are being paid less than the minimum wage; 77% aren't getting overtime pay, and 69% are working unpaid hours off the clock, before or after a shift is done.

The violations add up to a loss of more than $18.4 million in wages a week, or nearly $1 billion a year.

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