I thought it needed to be called out in the case of illegal hiring and paying under the table.
Some of the controversy around "undocumented workers" has to do with the illegal workers contributing, both to the tax base and to the general economy. If they are taking money under the table, they are likely also not paying taxes and are remaining on the government dole. It is illegal for a reason...it feeds into more illegal and costly scamming of the system. It encourages a subculture lifestyle of illegality which has undue influence on personal judgement in all other aspects of living and associating with others. The noble course is to encourage living a principled life, which includes at the foundation a life lived according to the laws of the land, providing they are by design decent and just. Even if you choose to "look the other way," I have a hard in supporting you going to the next step of condoning such practices. It is costly, illegal, and not in the long term personal best interests of people engaging in such a lifestyle. In general it also floods the system, making the desire and opportunity for legal immigration much less tenable. Which makes no sense because there is a long waiting list of people who would choose legal immigration if it were available.
Taking the easy path or the cheap way has been the ruin of many a poor soul.
Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue:
* Direct benefits. These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.
* Means-tested welfare benefits. There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
* Public education. At a cost of $12,300 per pupil per year, these services are largely free or heavily subsidized for low-income parents.
* Population-based services. Police, fire, highways, parks, and similar services, as the National Academy of Sciences determined in its study of the fiscal costs of immigration, generally have to expand as new immigrants enter a community; someone has to bear the cost of that expansion.
The cost of these governmental services is far larger than many people imagine. For example, in 2010, the average U.S. household received $31,584 in government benefits and services in these four categories.
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