Construction crews not showing up

[Cob]

They pay illegals from cash which they then do not report to the IRS. EZ PZ. $4,021 gross receipts. Pull a $50 out of cash to pay illegal, then report gross receipts of $3,971 to deposit in bank.

This is how it may have been done up until the 1970's or 1980's, I can tell you that about 90% of the time, they are using someone else's S.S. # and they get paid with a check, which they typically cash, it's WAY harder to do what you are claiming in 2025 at a restaurant as compared to a construction job.

Undocumented immigrants' payments into Social Security detailed in report

Undocumented residents paid £25.7 billion into Social Security funds and $6 billion into Medicare in 2022.

www.newsweek.com

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

they know it's going to cost 3 to 5 times more than if they make it at home

When I was a kid, we had a local DQ type burger joint and for $1 you could get a burger, fries, and medium drink (burger basket). In college, I worked summers hauling hay with a cousin and a friend. My friend and I owned the truck and we charged 12 cents per bale. It was split 4 ways. The 3 of us got 3 cents and the truck got 3 cents which my buddy and I split and paid the gas and oil (it used about equal parts some days - But we ate in town for lunch. $1.15 was Doris's cafe which was a Coke and Fried chicken a la carte fries. Even as late as 1973, I ate lunch in Shreveport at a small airport cafe for $1 for lunch and 15 cents for tea.

That first burger joint is still in business - I ate there for the first time in 3 years or so last weekend. It was $16 and change. Same burger basket being served since 1957. I ate an omelet at the local cafe "Ms. Mary's" a week before - $15...basically with tip $20. Before my favorite cafe closed in Covid (and never reopened) an omelet was $7 with coffee. Coffee is now $3. In 1980 it was still 15cents here. No one is going to convince me that coffee beans are 20x more expensive than they were 40 years ago.

So, the question is what are we paying for? Apparently, we are paying for high utilities, high labor, high liability insurance, and high rents. (Ms. Mary mentioned she paid around $3,000 a month for rent on a building I know didn't cost $500,000 to build, including the land when it was created about 15-20 years ago.)

So, you are exactly right. I cannot afford to eat out on a daily basis like I used to. I could easily spend $1,000 a month eating in a restaurant, yet 20 years ago I probably ate out almost every day at least once and did so until about 2020 and Covid. We've seen a lot of places double in price since 2020. Wages? Fees? Not so much.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I can tell you that about 90% of the time, they are using someone else's S.S. # and they get paid with a check,

We had a huge spate of fake IDs and SSN's locally. One that was found out was when someone who produced these was caught because he wasn't changing the SSN. So, when one "planter" (chicken workers in the processing plant are called planters usually) had to go to the hospital and another planter working for a different chicken company was already there having a baby with the same SSN and name. ICE came thru and Tyson's and Geoge's hastily compared notes and run a bunch of folks off which led to ICE finding the counterfeiter in Ft. Smith.

 

[Dublin ohio]

I have worked in the restaurant/bar business of and on since 1990, I have NEVER heard of restauarnts using an employment agency to hire people for front of house or back of house, I live in Texas and I can tell you from experience, it all matters where you live, because here, there are PLENTY of people who work the front of the house that do not speak a lick of English, I know that may not be the case in Ohio or the Midwest, but it's VERY common in Texas. There are restaurants I go to where NO ONE in the entire place speaks English, I don't know how, but they manage, you will hear a lot of broken English/Spanish being spoken and I lot of pointing and hand gestures.

Make sense that in an area with a large Spanish speaking population. But you are right, not going to work in most parts of the country

I have NEVER heard of restauarnts using an employment agency to hire people for front of house or back of house,

Here is how it works, at least around here. The "agency" sets the illegal up with the proper paperwork and off they go. So it's not really and "employment agency" but it serves the same purpose.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Make sense that in an area with a large Spanish speaking population.

Almost any area where new construction is on-going, where food processing plants exist (Guymon, OK; Springdale, AR; etc.) there are a huge influx of Hispanics - legal and illegal.

 

[Fernando]

I'm going to see my go to handyman later today. He does charge more than I like.
He can speak Spanish so he can find young guy workers to help him.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

 

[George Hatch]

Restaurant dining in decline demonstrates what happens to discretionary spending when times get tougher. And it's not just the restaurant trade that will take the hit. The bar trade and the alcohol sales businesses are doing less business. Recreational travel is in decline. A lot of cars that were financed by UBI payments are in arrears and getting repossessed. A lot of new vehicles are sitting at the dealerships without any buyers. Etc

Hierarchy of needs. This isn't a good time for a psychologist to be setting up shop to provide counseling and therapy. Those patients have to hustle to pay the rent.

 

[Sandra Koutsopoulos]

I have worked at a friends waiter part time for 2+ years now as a waiter, I work with young people (20-26 years old) a LOT and I can honestly say that I do TWICE as much as them, sometimes more, ALL they do is complain about EVERYTHING, they're constantly on their phone and at the end of the night, when we have to mop the place, that's when the REAL complaing comes out, you would think we're asking them to work in the fields for 12 hours a day.

That's my personal experience as of this week.

For most of my parenting years, I worked 2 jobs: waitressing nights and weekends, doing bookkeeping or real estate sales/appraisals during the day. The old saying goes that if you work in a restaurant, you won't starve. That being said, it was long hours on my feet, and after a busy Saturday night, it was hard to stand up on those sore feet Sunday morning. Tips: OK to terrible. PPL behavior: lovely to loathsome. Hard work, but ya do what ya gotta do. I have noticed that the front of house ppl today are on their phones and texting a LOT while "working", and try to push off the physical floor cleaning or kitchen clean-up onto whoever they feel are 'less than' them. And they expect a LOT: tips for everything, tips for taking money at the cash register, tips to hand over a pre-packaged 'to-go' order. Well, good luck to them. Life is full of lessons to be experienced.

 

[Sadie]

This is how it may have been done up until the 1970's or 1980's, I can tell you that about 90% of the time, they are using someone else's S.S. # and they get paid with a check, which they typically cash, it's WAY harder to do what you are claiming in 2025 at a restaurant as compared to a construction job.

Undocumented immigrants' payments into Social Security detailed in report

Undocumented residents paid £25.7 billion into Social Security funds and $6 billion into Medicare in 2022.

www.newsweek.com

And they won't get the benefits from paying into SS.