Posted on 12/14/2005 9:56:10 AM PST by sheana
Los Angeles County's underground cash economy is expanding rapidly, eroding the work force and sapping an estimated $2 billion a year from city, state and federal coffers, according to a key finding in a major regional report scheduled to be released today. Driven by what the report authors call economic desperation, the region's cash-only work force has grown about 5 percent in the past four years to nearly 680,000 workers - nearly half of them in the city of Los Angeles alone. They account for about 15 percent of the total Los Angeles County work force, according to the report on a Milken Institute study titled the "Los Angeles Economy Project."
At the same time, payroll jobs in the entire county that contribute with taxes and fees to the social safety net declined by roughly 2 percent - from 3.9 million to 3.8 million.
"Given this large number of informal jobs and the continuing practice by many employers of avoiding legally mandated payroll taxes, there is a real risk that a steadily increasing number of employers will adopt this illicit labor-management practice in order to remain competitive within the Los Angeles region," the authors concluded.
The region's underground economy is now estimated at $8.1 billion a year, siphoning off vast sums of money as workers and employers fail to make payments for Social Security, workers' compensation, health insurance and other social safety-net programs, according to Daniel Flaming, one of the authors of the segment by the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit, public-policy research organization in Los Angeles.
"Over the long term, this trend portends a downward spiral for the regional economy as the low-wage labor force continues to grow, the costs of informal employment are shifted to other segments of society, and the social safety net becomes more precarious," the report says.
In an interview Tuesday, Flaming said many people in the underground economy can't find better jobs.
"There are several factors that create economic desperation: a slow recovery from the 2000 recession, a growing immigrant labor force that in all likelihood includes a growing undocumented labor force. Those workers, in particular, are desperate."
And stemming the trend won't be easy, Flaming said. He believes it will require not only penalties for underground employers, but also incentives, such as technical assistance, for employers who compete legally, as well as efforts by both public and private organizations in education, skill development and citizenship programs.
Robert "Bud" Ovrom, deputy mayor of housing and economic development, said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is embarking on a strategy to address the underground economy.
The study released today - commissioned by former Mayor James Hahn - is part of what will be a more comprehensive blueprint.
"This issue of the underground economy is very much on our radar. ... We are using the report to develop a road map of the kinds of things we should be doing," Ovrom said.
Ovrom said the administration is interested in developing a package that stresses job creation, education and job training to make inroads into an economic system he called inherently exploitive. Cash workers don't have the kind of employment documentation that would allow them to move into the mainstream, he noted.
Underground workers - an estimated 61 percent of whom are noncitizen immigrants - are heavily represented in the garment, restaurant, housekeeping, gardening and construction industries.
"We are going to create more jobs, more opportunity, through work-force education ... (and) work-force investment programs," Ovrom said.
In its segment of the Milken report, the Economic Roundtable follows up on its May 2000 study that estimated there might be as many as 1.5 million workers in the underground economy siphoning off $1.1 million from social safety-net programs.
At the time, economic officials in the Hahn administration said they were working on programs to reverse the trend.
But that never happened to any significant degree, said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the private, nonprofit Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
"It's almost beyond the control of the city," Kyser said, noting that complex regional and state regulations are interwoven into what many employers and workers consider a generally restrictive business climate.
"In many cases, ... regulations are literally driving people into this informal economy," he said.
Kyser said the growth of the underground economy can be reversed only by a fundamental change in attitude.
"There needs to be a change in the mind-set ... that business is the enemy."
Bruce Ackerman, president and chief executive of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, said while the region's underground economy is growing, the 780,000 private, government and self-employment jobs reported in the Valley in 2004 mark an all-time high.
Ackerman said putting Los Angeles' economy on a more formal footing will require education and successful ways to address the culture of fear among illegal immigrants working in the underground economy.
"There's a huge fear factor there," he said.
ping
Yes I'm saying that because most illegals don't have many children as citizens. Most are single, young and middle aged adults.
There are some who do have children here and some have many children, but most are single adults.
Good letter, Exton.
That will take some doing to digest.
Your contentions are contrary to everything I've read. Can you cite a source... any source?
You've already done the reading. I want to see your source.
You made the assertion--can't you back it up?
This is your assertion. I want to see what you have read.
try this link
http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back505.html
In general, it is very negative for immigration with the central tenant being, they get old like everyone else.
But, they do acknowledge this fact
Table 2 shows that in the 2000 Census, 66.2 percent of the nation?s total population was of working age, including immigrants. The working-age percentage for natives is 64.2 percent and for immigrants it was 81.9 percent. Clearly, immigrants are much more likely than natives to be between 15 and 64.
Your turn now.
where is everything you've read ?
LOL. So, you want to come on these threads and post garbage, and have others spend their time refuting your unsupported contentions? I will indulge you this one time. Here is one source. Now... can you provide ANY citation for your contention that most illegal aliens are single and without children?
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research736f
EDUCATIONAL COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS
Because states are required to educate illegal alien students through secondary school under the 1982 Plyler v. Doe Supreme Court decision, taxpayers are saddled with this burden. In addition, advocates for illegal immigrants have mounted a campaign in the state legislatures to allow illegal aliens to receive taxpayer supported post-secondary education at in-state tuition rates.
In our study on “The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians”, we estimated the annual cost of educating illegal alien students at more than $3.2 billion and the cost of educating their siblings who were born in the United States at an additional more than $4.5 billion.
From your link:
"Immigrants and Their Children. Looking at immigrants plus their children is important because it represents the total effect of immigration on the country and its age distribution. Advocates of high immigration often point to the fact that immigrants tend to have larger families than natives as one of the benefits of immigration. "
Since the link you gave deals with TOTAL immigration for most of their information, I can't find anything to support your contention that most illegals are single.
There's a proposal in California to increase cigarette taxes by two or so dollars a pack. The justification? Smokers cost taxpayers too much.
The money will be used primarily to fund health care for children of the poor.
The liberals demanding these taxes say not a word about the taxes lost to the (largely ILLEGAL alien) underground economy and not a word about the ILLEGAL alien demands upon California struggling health care system.
Hmm.. mental illness requires a brain. Liberalism is an emotional illness.
Here's another. Are these all children of "single" people that you weren't counting? Or, are you contending that all children of illegals were born here (refuted by my prior post) so anchor babies don't count?
Question? Have you spent any length of time in Los Angeles? If you had, I think you would know that your contentions appear ridiculous.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1296406/posts
Martin's study looks specifically at the costs of educating illegal immigrants' children, providing medical care to illegal immigrants and jailing those convicted of committing crimes. The report estimates the total cost at $10.5 billion each year, but that is offset by about $1.7 billion in taxes that illegal immigrants pay.
The study assumes that there are about 1 million children of illegal immigrant parents in California, or about 15 percent of the state's K-12 school enrolled population. The estimate is based on a 1994 study by the Urban Institute that concluded there were 307,000 illegal immigrant children enrolled in the state's public schools.
Martin also added an estimate of 597,000 U.S.-born children whose parents are illegal immigrants arriving at a total of 1,022,000 children. Multiplying the number of children by the estimated $7,577 the state spends on average per pupil, the study arrived at the $7.7 billion figure.
Including the number of U.S.-born children in the study is one of the reasons pro-immigrant groups said the study is biased.
Let's try your stat from your link
we estimated the illegal alien population in the state has likely risen to 2.8-3 million persons. That estimate included an estimated 425,000 public school students who were illegal aliens.
This works out to 13.3 kids in public school per 100 illegals.
If you go here
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/age/ppl-147/tab01.txt
you will find for non hispanic whites there are 20.1 children between the ages of 6 and 19 (school age) per 100 whites in the 2000 census.
I believe I have won my point. Illegals have fewer children INITIALLY, than citizens and further they are younger and of working age. This makes them better workers initially than citizens. However they eventually get old and have children too. Further if you exclude people over 75 the data gets even worse for your contention and better for mine.
Now let me see some more stuff that you have read that contradicts my point.
It's insanity! Pure and simple.
Ahhh.... but that is NOT what you said. You said "Yes I'm saying that because most illegals ... are single, young and middle aged adults. "
The methodology is not very good. A lot of estimation and assuming and not much to back up the estimate.
Further my point is that illegals are a plus when they come, but as they get old and have children they become a minus down the road. I see nothing here that disputes that.
Here is my first remark on this subject. I stand by it and the stats back me up.
"I think that is wrong. They are a short term boost and a possible or even probable long term drain.
The drain on the economy comes from kids and old people. Anyone who has a kid can tell you that and that does not even count the 8,000 per 9 months that goes to the public schools. Anyone who has visited a nursing home knows what a drain the old people are.
The illegals are not kids and not old. Later, they may have kids and/or get old and that is where the problem is."
Go try to sell your support of illegals on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1540716/posts
The author is trying to spin the same BS you are.
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