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Snippet from my reply to a similar sibling comment: Sorry, I'm not meaning to say that people aren't getting paid enough. My phrasing choice of "actual problem
by gen220 4y ago
Snippet from my reply to a similar sibling comment:
Sorry, I'm not meaning to say that people aren't getting paid enough. My phrasing choice of "actual problem" was poor. I'll leave it up so this thread makes sense.
My intended point was: if we want to understand whether peoples' lives are sustainable with their present wages in NYC, we should be measuring their actual wages, which is inclusive of this grey economy, unlike the reported data source.
The amount of "tax fraud" required to impact the figure is less than one might imagine, because the "living wage" standard is quite low.
- disintegore 4y agoThat's fair, but your post might have been more prescriptive than you intended. Your wording insinuates that New York doesn't actually have a problem with incomes relative to cost of living because most people make up for that through an informal economy. There is ambiguity, granted, but on the surface that looks like a massive stretch. The figure might be impacted, but for it to be completely eclipsed is another order of magnitude entirely.
- gen220 4y agoYou're right! I went ahead and edited it to hem closer to my original intent. I totally agree that NY has a significant (income:cost of living) problem. My main objective was to draw attention to the difficulties in measuring the size and distribution of this problem, caused by the unmeasured informal economy and unbalanced access thereto. I definitely don't think that the informal economy makes up for low reported wages, but it definitely is a ballast that we'd be better off understanding, given its scope and entrenchment.