Fuck. We have to stop our addiction to cheap clothes. But how when cheap clothes are the reason people can own more than a few things? That's a tough thing to break.

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The U.S. Department of Labor investigated 77 Los Angeles garment factories from April through July of 2016 and found that workers were paid as little as $4 and an average of $7 an hour for 10-hour days spent sewing clothes for Forever 21, Ross Dress for Less and TJ Maxx. One worker in West Covin ... a made as little as $3.42 per hour during three weeks of sewing TJ Maxx clothing, according to the Department of Labor.

Those sweatshop wages are the hidden cost of the bargains that make stores like Forever 21 impossible to resist for so many Americans.

A knee-length Forever 21 dress made in one of the Los Angeles factories investigated by the government came with a price tag of $24.90. But it would have cost $30.43 to make that dress with workers earning the $7.25 federal minimum wage and even more to pay the $12 Los Angeles minimum, according to previously unpublished investigative results from the Labor Department. cheap knee length dresses

Forever 21 would have had to pay 50% more in order for sewing contractors to pay workers the federal minimum, the investigation found.