Right but, as far as the law is concerned, shorting you $100 is not the same as stealing it from you, because you did not possess it until it was given to you. But that does not mean it isn’t a crime, it’s just considered a different type of crime.

Stealing from a tin is theft of money in someone else’s possession to which you have no right to.

You are owed your wages. It would be a crime not to pay what you are owed, to fullfil their binding legal obligation. We call it theft (because it is) but the distinction is that it’s a failure to deliver something in your possession.

And the reason the punishment isn’t the same is because if we jail people for failure to pay money they owe someone else, it is going to hurt the poor faaaar worse than the wealthy or the business owners.

It’s just not a good analogy.