A friend who has slipped into the bottom of the workforce and has been long unemployed answered a Craig’s List ad for painter’s helpers. The guy told him right up front it’s $13 per hour and it’s cash. He can pay the money but all the state and federal employment rules make it impossible to have him as an employee.
Not to mention the fact that he can make us much on SSI, welfare and EBT as he could making $13 an hour on the clock at work and he gets free Medicaid, too.
Where’s the incentive to do back-breaking work? Oh and Obama will veto the restoration of the 40 hour workweek.
His circumstances are what they are. If this is the only opportunity he can find at present, he should take it. The consequences of being employed off the books aren’t his unless he chooses to remain so himself.
Excellent observation. Anyone who works “off the books” is
certainly working and being paid. But, they are not part of the labor force as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.