How does this company ever find people? Are they just all mathematically illiterate? No. People are poor and a lot of jobs aren't willing to work around a seco

How does this company ever find people? Are they just all mathematically illiterate? No. People are poor and a lot of jobs aren't willing to work around a second job. These companies (unsurprisingly) are not upfront about the way you'll be treated. This isn't just these companies: Low-wage jobs commonly misrepresent things like this. Having a right to a job contract (regardless of being 'employee' or 'contractor') would help with this a little - at least it would be upfront, theoretically. Or heck, simply being really strict about labor laws would help, alongside fines/punishments that make skirting labor laws unprofitable. You would do better scavenging for refundable bottles. Not in a lot of places. I lived in Indiana. There weren't a lot of places that accepted bottles at all. A few places accepted aluminum cans, but you really needed a large amount. Getting enough for transportation costs was an issue. Realistically, you might have been OK when I was a child in the 80s because you got a deposit: Otherwise, I didn't have refundable bottles available until I moved to Norway in my 30s.