Dirt-cheap day labor

By Judi Hasson

The paint is peeling off your front door. There are leaves to rake in the yard. And you desperately need a strong back to help move some furniture.

These jobs are typically too small to attract the attention of a contractor -- but not so small that an entire industry hasn't sprung up to accommodate them. In most cities of any size, there's a ready pool of cheap labor available on short notice, congregating in parking lots near the local Home Depot or a similar store, or at high-traffic intersections.

The catch: There's a chance you could be prosecuted if you pay an illegal worker more than $50 or don't pay your share of Social Security taxes. Beyond that, any work the laborer does comes without a guarantee. And you've invited a stranger into your home.

This underground economy is thriving. A snapshot of one business day last year found 117,600 day laborers working or looking for jobs at 500 sites, according to a January 2006 study funded by the Ford Foundation and other think tanks. Three-quarters of them were undocumented workers.

• Video: A drive-up day-labor center in Herndon, Va.

Almost half of those workers were hired for household chores. The top jobs were construction, gardening, painting and drywall installation, according to the study, "On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States."

About 12 million undocumented workers live in the U.S., 7 million of them working for companies or picking up odd jobs, according to immigration experts.

Some communities, fed up with the inability of Congress to deal with illegal-immigrant problems, have passed their own laws to crack down on hiring day workers. Other towns, such as Herndon, Va., not far from the nation's capital, have set up specific places where day workers can wait for employers to drive by looking for workers.

The legal tangle

"The share of private homes hiring illegals goes up every year," says Steven Camarota, the director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.

"It's hard to find labor on a periodic basis," a Cave Creek, Ariz., homeowner who uses day labor told The Arizona Republic. "There's no other source up here to find someone."

Even though it's just a day's work, you're still considered an employer. As such:

• If you pay a worker more than $50 a month, you must pay the employer's share of Social Security taxes and withhold federal income taxes. These rules apply even if the worker is not a citizen.

• You must fill out an I-9 form, an employer verification notice required by immigration authorities. It is available on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' Web site. You don't have to file it with any government agency, but just in case government officials ever knock on your door to see the form, keep it handy.

• You are required to see two valid identifications from each worker, including one with a photo.

Continued: What are the risks?

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