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Low-wage workers are consistently denied proper payment—some paid less than minimum wage, and some not compensated for overtime—a new study found. 68% of workers interviewed in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago reported a pay-related violation in the previous week.

The New York Times reports that the study’s authors were surprised by the prevalence of the violation.

“The conventional wisdom has been that to the extent there were violations, it was confined to a few rogue employers or to especially disadvantaged workers, like undocumented immigrants,” said Nik Theodore, an author of the study and a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.”

Also surprising is the extent to which the bad practice affects women and especially immigrant workers. African-Americans had a violation rate almost triple that of whites.

The report brings up the fact that employers often discourage workers from filing workers’ compensation for missed days and medical care: only 8% of workers who suffered injuries on the job did so.

Low-wage workers take a 15% hit to their salaries due to these violations, but the economy suffers too:

“These practices are not just morally reprehensible, but they’re bad for the economy,” said Annette Bernhardt, an author of the study and policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project. “When unscrupulous employers break the law, they’re robbing families of money to put food on the table, they’re robbing communities of spending power and they’re robbing governments of vital tax revenues.”

Read the full NYTimes article here.