Nik Theodore Quotes (5 Quotes)

The goal was to document a population that, though quite visible on the corners of U.S. cities, is poorly understood by the public and by policy makers. We hope to inform policy debates so that decision-makers can devise thoughtful and effective strategies for resolving many of the problems that day laborers face.

Coming into the study, we knew that the low-wage market is rife with violations of basic labor standards, but we still found the statistics shocking and disturbing.

We found that the spending of undocumented immigrants in the Chicago metro area accounted for about 31,000 jobs every year.

Employers are often able to deter workers from contesting labor violations by threatening to turn them over to federal immigration authorities. Even when employers do not make these threats overtly, day laborers, mindful of their undocumented status, are reluctant to seek recourse through government channels. We want to change that.

This really is a nationwide phenomenon. We found the presence of day labor in every region of the United States.