Under the table workers

Something is being left unsaid in reporting about unemployment benefits, Medicaid, food stamps, and other government aid during this burgeoning Depression. Under-the-table workers, who (according to an older article) may make up roughly 10% of the work force, often cannot apply for any of this aid. If you have to bring in official pay stubs and proof of expenses, and your official income can't explain how you pay your bills, then you've just announced to the government that you've been violating tax laws. You might qualify for food stamps even with your undeclared income, but due to the IRS you can't apply. Should you lose your job, you might be desperate to feed your children and avoid homelessness, but there won't be any unemployment benefits available.

People tend to see undeclared workers as strictly an immigrant issue, which isn't right. It's also a poverty issue. I know 7 people who are regularly paid under the table, and none of them is an illegal immigrant. (One of them is an immigrant, but he came to the US many, many years ago.) All of these people are in constant struggle to keep their heads above water.

I'm not saying that everyone working in the black market is poor, but I would venture that the vast majority are in poverty or close to it. A disproportionate number of them would qualify for food stamps or Medicaid, relative to above-board workers. And given that unemployment has hit less educated workers the hardest, I assume that undeclared workers would find themselves out of work disproportionately often.

So when you read statistics like "38 million Americans rely on food stamps" as an indication of poverty in the US, remember that a tenth of all workers (and sometimes their children) are not represented in that calculation, even though they're more likely to be poor enough to qualify. People ask "What are the jobless supposed to do when their emergency benefits run out?" But the other question is, what on earth do the black market workers do when there are no unemployment benefits?

We assume we have safety nets, that there's a government agency or at least a food pantry somewhere that will take care of these unfortunate souls who fall through the holes in the safety net. This is sometimes known as the "bystander effect," when people stand by and watch a tragedy unfolding without thinking to give any help themselves. Partly, people feel disconnected from the emergency, as if they're watching it on TV. And partly, we've all been taught to trust the experts, wait for the experts, leave it to the cops or the social workers or the nurses. And so, even when we're good people, sometimes we see an emergency and do nothing. I hope we can get past that. There are many people the government can't help -- again, maybe a tenth of all workers and some of their dependents -- and they need somebody's help.

One grim thing to keep in mind in the years to come is that nobody dies of poverty, per se. They die because they're 80 and can't afford to run the AC, and die of heart attack. They die because malnutrition leaves them vulnerable to diseases we thought we'd seen the last of after the previous Great Depression. They die because they drink themselves to death or commit suicide. I recently read somewhere (no doubt in something Dmitry Orlov wrote) that in Russia after its collapse, the life expectancy for men fell to 10 years less than for women, largely due to self-destruction and violence. But no institution counts such deaths as being due to poverty, except in some far-distant academic paper which looks back, years later, and estimates the surplus deaths.

The reason I'm being so terribly depressingly (sorry, Mom) is that -- should we go the route Dmitry Orlov imagines -- the little things we can do for each other might actually save lives, when people have come to the end of their rope. Eggs for the kids down the road, poker with the depressed guy across the street, a little help with an electric bill or a heat bill here or there... that stuff might truly make a difference. Read some novels from the 19th century, and you discover that people acted this way all the time. I don't hold myself up as a paragon, I just think that we'll have to make a mental shift toward providing more charity. You know, the strong caring for the least among us. I think some religions used to talk about that, back before charity got replaced by judgment.