Hello Austin!

CultureMap: Live in the ATX

The Culturemap Austin team: Kevin Benz, Caitlin Ryan, Arden Ward, SamanthaPitchel, Michael Graupmann, Jessica Pages and Veronica Castelo

Hello, Austin! It's great to see you!

CultureMap is here, and we hope we will rise to your high expectations.

Austin is a special place, and CultureMap covers the people, places and events that keep us living in one of the world’s great cities. Our city embodies a vibrant, colorful and weird culture; it’s inspiring and we hope our magazine will reflect it. We want to celebrate our collective victories and will work tirelessly to help make our community a better place in which to live.

We’ll do that both on our site and in the real world. We hope to meet you in person, share meaningful conversations and collaborate with you as friends and members of the community.

We at CultureMap are of and from Austin--we live here, we party here, some of us raise families here--we love Austin and we want to share that passion with you.

We also hope you’ll follow us on Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and Gowalla. We’re all about the conversation and we want you to be part of it.

The site is full of surprises, so please take some time to surf around a bit. Here are some tips you can share with your friends:

Our City Guide is fully curated. Finding a good, new restaurant should not require a gastronomical experiment. If we have it in our guide, we think it’s worth trying.
The same can be said for our Events Calendar. No, it’s not a complete list of all 400 things happening tonight; it’s a fully edited guide with complete descriptions of each event. Basically, we include an event because we think it’s worth your time.
Check out our CultureLists. They’re fun listings of places that have something in common, and they’re our choices for the best Austin has to offer. You'll find lists like “Que Bueno Queso," “Karaoke Cornerstones" and "What the What?" Have some fun exploring places you’ve never been.

While these things are fun, our mission is to deliver the best news and information about Austin’s culture and quality of life. In doing so, here is our promise to you:

We will tell you the truth, as best as we know it.

We will provide honest and authentic and sustained coverage of issues affecting our culture and quality of life.

We will remain independent.

We will cover stories we believe are important to Austin because they are important, not because someone wants us to promote them. Our sponsors are also valuable, and we hope you’ll support them, but we won’t pretend to be something we’re not.

We will listen to you and be accountable.

If you take the time to write or call, we will take the time to listen. If we make a mistake, we’ll admit it and correct it. Send us your ideas and your feedback; there is no better constructive criticism than from you. Keep in mind, what you see today is just the beginning. Like Austin itself, CultureMap will evolve; we plan on more creative features, series and functionality to come.

We at CultureMap are of and from Austin--we live here, we party here, some of us raise families here--we love Austin and we want to share that passion with you. We hope you will find us to be authentically Austin—honest, witty, irreverent at times—and always distinctive. We want you to see yourself reflected in our coverage.

We’re excited to be here, and we’re ready to start the conversation! Don’t hold back. Tell us what you think; we’re here to serve you and celebrate this incredible place we call home.

Kevin Benz

Editor-in-Chief

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Don't Toss That Dough

15,000 Texans have unclaimed wages: How to find out if you're one

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There's a new tool online for checking for owed wages.

On December 3, the U.S. Department of Labor announced via news release that about 15,000 Texans are owed more than $11 million in unclaimed wages. In Austin, approximately 450 still have unclaimed wages, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Austin community outreach and resource planning specialist, Rogelio A. Colón, who explained some details in a call with another regional representative and CultureMap.

Luckily, the Department of Labor has a new user-friendly program called Workers Owed Wages online tool (WOW), so you can easily find out if you're one of the Texans owed money. The tool works in both English and Spanish, and the release encourages users to submit their information before the end of the year. A step-by-step guide is available below.

When companies don't properly pay their workers’ wages, they may be investigated by the Department of Labor. If the Department of Labor finds that back wages are due, the company must generally resolve this by mailing out a check to employees' last known address. If they can't find a worker, though — maybe they moved — the money goes back to the Department of Labor to be held.

If the money isn't claimed within three years, it goes to the U.S. Treasury, and ultimately into the pockets of Congress to spend.

"We don't want this money," says deputy regional director of the U.S. Department of Labor Public Affairs Office Juan J. Rodríguez. "Let's be honest. This is a drop in the bucket for the Treasury Department. We don't want them to have it; we would rather the workers get it, because it's their money."

Across the nation there's more than $150 million in back wages due to about 145,000 workers, according to Colón. In the Austin area alone, about $550,000 still remains unclaimed.

"It's a lot of money," says Colón. He adds that many of the workers missing these wages are the ones who need it most. Oftentimes these are people in the construction or food industries, without a permanent residence.

"We really want to ensure that they hear about this, and they claim their money," says Colón. "They've earned it."

Here's how it works:

Search for your employer: Enter your present or former employer's name in the WOW application to find your company. Note: Not all companies are going to populate here; just the ones who have paid back wages that weren't received.
Verify your name: Type your full name into the system. WOW will confirm if wages are owed to you.
Submit your contact information: Add your contact details and email address so the Department of Labor can send you the Back Wage Claim Form and instructions.
Upload signed claim form and documents: Check your email for the Back Wage Claim Form (WH-60). Complete and sign it, then create a login.gov account to upload your form. You'll need to include a photo of one of the following to verify your identity:
- Social Security card
- Individual Taxpayer Identification (ITIN) card
- Driver's license or State ID
- W-2, pay stub or other documentation
Processing and payment: After you submit your Back Wages Claim Form, the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) will process it and send you a check for your owed wages.

Even though the instructional video on the website indicates you may "find extra money just when your family needs it," it will likely take about six weeks to receive payment.

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