4 ms·

This exists in many places, it's not unique to New York City. In general what this means is one of three things: 1. Cash businesses that don't report income f

This exists in many places, it's not unique to New York City. In general what this means is one of three things: 1. Cash businesses that don't report income for taxation, so get to make effectively 40-50% more income from their revenue. In this case, I am using the term "business" to refer any income-generating activity for which you are not employed by another person. Yes, this counts the dude selling loosies. 2. A business which is itself illegal because of the nature of what you are selling. This could be as deep as narcotics, or as simple as trucking in cigarettes from out of state so you can sell them at a street news stand and pocket the difference in what would be otherwise taxes going to the state/city. 3. Being paid under the table, this includes things like illegal immigrants working on construction crews, as hotel maids, and back of house in restaurants, getting paid out at the end of the night on a daily basis ("day labor") in cash, never reporting any income for tax purposes. Generally speaking, when someone says "illegal economy" in a place like New York City, what they mean is the sort of petty tax evasion that naturally occurs amongst immigrant communities and the poor who would otherwise not be able to afford to reside/live there if they paid their taxes in full. New York City is effectively the highest taxation regime you can live in within the US. Major metros in California come close, but are not quite there. If you avoid every tax except sales tax, you can significantly improve your income potential at lower wages. It's the difference between taking home $17/hr or taking home $12/hr after tax, that extra $5/hr is nothing to be sneezed at, and amounts to an extra $10k/yr in your pocket if you work enough hours to be considered "full time" (which in the illegal economy usually means multiple "jobs" or hustles).

PaulHoule 4y ago
[flagged]
- pjc50 4y ago
  > so long as politicians are telling people that we can't afford the welfare state some people are going to be resentful that any immigrant gets a single penny. But if you're an immigrant, and especially an undocumented one, you're not entitled to welfare, are you?
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    In the big picture immigrants contribute more economically than they take by a large margin. People don't get that message. There is this discredited idea https://www.simplypsychology.org/sapir-whorf-hypothesis.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/sapir-whorf-hypothesis.html which holds true in one case that the "left" lost the fight over immigration when the phrase "illegal immigrant" became widespread. The presence of illegal immigrants in our economy has numerous hidden effects: hire a Mexican as a farm hand and you'll get a talented agricultural professional who will save some money so he can start up his own farm back home. You can try to hire an American but you'll have to pay a lot more money than Burger King because Burger King is an easier job -- almost any US citizen will have little experience or aptitude for the work and will see it as a dead end job. Similarly, illegal immigrants greatly help the economics of the hospitality, landscaping, and many other industries in California. The first thing voters hear when they here about this is "illegal" and a little pulse of energy travels in their brain to "illegal = bad" and their attitudes are already set. In principle some normalization of immigration law to take "illegal" out of it would dramatically change the way people think about it. Once you got that electrical short circuit between "illegal" and "bad" out of the way we could have a totally different conversation. It wouldn't be the end of the Republican Party but it would cause a crisis for them and force them to develop new ideology in many areas. Much like the "right", he "left" (the corporate-linked wings that hold power in Washington) doesn't want to bring up the subject of any serious reform of immigration in the US because it opens up this big can of worms because many people are winners or losers or believe they are winners or losers from this situation and since it is all illegal and "undocumented" we've got no data about what the real impacts are.
yamtaddle 4y ago
> 1. Cash businesses that don't report income for taxation, so get to make effectively 40-50% more income from their revenue. In this case, I am using the term "business" to refer any income-generating activity for which you are not employed by another person. Yes, this counts the dude selling loosies. Common out here in flyover country, too. Anyone without a shop sign dominated by a large corporate logo is likely to tell you they'd prefer cash, and may offer a cash discount. Cleaners, mechanics, plumbers, even daycares (this is how poor folks can afford daycare: your cousin's friend is staying home with their kid and will watch yours, too, for 1/4 what a licensed daycare would charge, if you pay cash) all of that sort of thing, tons of people doing a fair amount of off-the-books work. You might have to chat with them a little first, but it's usually something they're interested in. I wonder if there's anywhere in the US this isn't fairly common. I can see how someone might not be aware of it, depending on how they grew up, but I can't imagine there are many places it's rare. [EDIT] Incidentally, in addition to the tax-evasion and benefits-qualification purposes mentioned elsewhere, this tactic is also used to evade child support.

PaulHoule 4y ago

[flagged]

pjc50 4y ago
> so long as politicians are telling people that we can't afford the welfare state some people are going to be resentful that any immigrant gets a single penny. But if you're an immigrant, and especially an undocumented one, you're not entitled to welfare, are you?
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  In the big picture immigrants contribute more economically than they take by a large margin. People don't get that message. There is this discredited idea https://www.simplypsychology.org/sapir-whorf-hypothesis.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/sapir-whorf-hypothesis.html which holds true in one case that the "left" lost the fight over immigration when the phrase "illegal immigrant" became widespread. The presence of illegal immigrants in our economy has numerous hidden effects: hire a Mexican as a farm hand and you'll get a talented agricultural professional who will save some money so he can start up his own farm back home. You can try to hire an American but you'll have to pay a lot more money than Burger King because Burger King is an easier job -- almost any US citizen will have little experience or aptitude for the work and will see it as a dead end job. Similarly, illegal immigrants greatly help the economics of the hospitality, landscaping, and many other industries in California. The first thing voters hear when they here about this is "illegal" and a little pulse of energy travels in their brain to "illegal = bad" and their attitudes are already set. In principle some normalization of immigration law to take "illegal" out of it would dramatically change the way people think about it. Once you got that electrical short circuit between "illegal" and "bad" out of the way we could have a totally different conversation. It wouldn't be the end of the Republican Party but it would cause a crisis for them and force them to develop new ideology in many areas. Much like the "right", he "left" (the corporate-linked wings that hold power in Washington) doesn't want to bring up the subject of any serious reform of immigration in the US because it opens up this big can of worms because many people are winners or losers or believe they are winners or losers from this situation and since it is all illegal and "undocumented" we've got no data about what the real impacts are.

yamtaddle 4y ago

> 1. Cash businesses that don't report income for taxation, so get to make effectively 40-50% more income from their revenue. In this case, I am using the term "business" to refer any income-generating activity for which you are not employed by another person. Yes, this counts the dude selling loosies. Common out here in flyover country, too. Anyone without a shop sign dominated by a large corporate logo is likely to tell you they'd prefer cash, and may offer a cash discount. Cleaners, mechanics, plumbers, even daycares (this is how poor folks can afford daycare: your cousin's friend is staying home with their kid and will watch yours, too, for 1/4 what a licensed daycare would charge, if you pay cash) all of that sort of thing, tons of people doing a fair amount of off-the-books work. You might have to chat with them a little first, but it's usually something they're interested in. I wonder if there's anywhere in the US this isn't fairly common. I can see how someone might not be aware of it, depending on how they grew up, but I can't imagine there are many places it's rare. [EDIT] Incidentally, in addition to the tax-evasion and benefits-qualification purposes mentioned elsewhere, this tactic is also used to evade child support.