Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I know for a fact that it's not uncommon at all for illegal workers being paid under the table to *also* be paid more than minimum wage.
Cite?
Yes. Because such information is readily available on the internet.
Quote:
Or is this one of those Gbaji-Facts that you just know in your heart is true but can't actually support?
I live in an area with a lot of illegal immigrants? I know people who've hired them for day labor? Heck.
I've hired one (sorta). Waaaaay back about 20 someodd years ago, a friend and I decided to do a little side work over the summer moving houses. All of it was under the table, btw. We'd just rent a truck for a day, and move someone's house for them. All word of mouth, friends of friends kind of stuff. One time, we had a largish house to move, so my friend hired an illegal to help out. We paid him $50 for the day's work, which was probably about 7-8 hours total. That was well more than the minimum wage of the day.
What do you think those guys get paid by the folks who pick them up to do random yardwork and whatnot? While I'm sure sometimes it's less than minimum wage, sometimes it's going to be higher. They usually hire by the day. And it's usually some set round amount like $80 or $100 or whatever. If the work is done in 5 hours, they get paid the same. That's how day labor works. You pay by the job for the day. And since it's all tax free, they get 100% of it. It's a pretty good deal for both parties.
But hey, you're free to do the google thing if you want. It's luck of the draw work Joph. Sometimes, it's good pay. Sometimes, it's not. I think that the larger point is that it's not "zero", or even close to it. I honestly suspect that one of the reasons some people on the left so vehemently oppose any sort of normalization of the current labor situation is that it might just weaken their long held positions on wages and taxes. When tons of previously illegal workers are now working legally and they don't end out getting ripped off, or taken advantage of, and perhaps even worse, report that they like the way things are, it'll tear a bit fat hole in a largish component of the liberal labor position.
And we couldn't allow that, could we?