“Kalmes is among the 4.8 million unemployed Americans — 40 percent of all those jobless — who have been out of work for more than 27 weeks, even as the economy has been growing since June 2009 and the job market shows recent signs of healing. As her unemployment benefits have run out, she has entered the informal economy to make ends meet. America’s shadow economy includes activities that are actually illicit — prostitution and drug dealing — and more benign jobs like working construction for a day for cash, or even the $2 per child that Kalmes gets for walking neighborhood students to the bus. Economists estimate $2 trillion could be involved.”
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/03/underground-economy-helps-account-for.html
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