Employers are by dollar amount the biggest actual thieves by far in the US. Business owners ought to generally receive more scorn and critical evaluation than common property thieves who represent a thin fragment, if we really care about theft
Doubtless for some cohort of employers you are correct.
Unfortunately your statement is painted with a wide brush, covering everyone from Jeff at Amazon to the owner of a corner grocery store. Everything from profitable FAANGs, to VC funded startups with hypergrowth ambitions, to small, finally profitable, boot-strapped endeavours.
Clearly among that group there are some who have embraced late-stage capitalism, who are milking their custoners and employees at every turn.
However, I would suggest, that many more have spent a life-time working harder, with less income security, doing what it takes in good times and bad. Looking after employees, treating them, and customers, fairly.
If after all this time they become well compensated, perhaps even rich, calling them "theives" belies the effort, and sacrifice, to reach that place.
To respond briefly, [Jeff at] Amazon has been convicted of being one of the leading wage thieves, and small business owners like the corner grocery store are also frequently accused and caught for wage theft. It is a pretty wide brush that's needed to evaluate the majority category of theft in the US.
I haven't mentioned anything about the effort or value employers provide. I don't think hard work from owners is relevant to the amount they thieve. And I wonder why you don't mention anything about the hard work provided by the labor who are victims to the largest category of theft, who by definition do the majority of the work obligated in business to begin with.
Why don't you go start a business and become one of these rich employers you speak of? If taking such risks wasn't rewarded accordingly, then I don't think people would be nearly as eager to start a business.
I'm talking about a system at scale, not individual actors. You don't know what I'm doing as an individual and it's not relevant to a discussion of material reality as observed. If your solution to this problem at scale is for everyone to become a rich employer in order to avoid wage theft, I don't know what to tell you
Re: risk staked, I will add that for many business owners their greatest risk and fear is simply having to work for a wage themselves.
The owners are now billionaires.
(They sold the company to a Fortune 100 about 18 months later.)