Holy shit can people still pay employees less than 4 dollars an hour in the US??
Cause the guy gets tips grabbing a bag at an airport? I've never tipped anyone at an airport. He would get what 5 bucks a shift if lucky?
Of course. It's normal if you work in child care, food service, food preparation, health care, farm labor, retail sales, or as a domestic cleaner.
?? do you mean illegal under the tax radar positions ??
No, I mean there are entire sectors of the economy where the law simply doesn't apply. Employers are exempt from having to pay minimum wage.
Tipped employees make only $2.13 an hour. When their tips, added to this amount, do not match the federal minimum wage, in theory the employer must make up the difference. In practice, employers do their very best to gouge the employees for shrinkage, theft of meals, uniforms, and other clawbacks. Employers may require employees to pool their tips to be shared with other employees and with managers, including people who do not earn tips to contribute to the pool. The practice is not illegal everywhere.
Besides tipped employees, workers in some sectors do not get minimum wage protection. Farm workers don't get minimum wage, overtime pay, OR child labor protection. Workers at resorts, seasonal and recreational tourist-type establishments, and such don't get minimum wage or overtime pay. Same goes if you're a "babysitter", which is code for any kind of nanny or child care worker. If you have a disability, or if you work a fishing boat, or if you're doing elder care, you don't get minimum wage.
It's legal to discriminate by age and pay people under age 20 only $4.25 per hour (compared to $7.25 per hour for other adults) for the first 90 days of employment. This means you can force college students to work for less. Supposedly by doing this the employer isn't "displacing" other employees. But as long as you make sure nobody lasts longer than 90 days all you have to do is kick the old ones out or make sure they're signed on just for "temporary" or "seasonal" work.
Then of course there are people who are forced to work extra hours without pay, such as chefs, sous-chefs, and other kitchen workers in restaurants. Retail workers who work on commission earn zero when they're stocking shelves, and if you average the mandatory off-the-clock work in with the commissioned sales work, frequently the number comes in at below minimum wage. On paper that's illegal. In practice, it's situation normal at Wal-Mart and the other giant big-box stores until somebody slaps their fingers for it, at which point the Waltons and the other rich shareholders shriek, wail, and bribe until they can find enough people whose hours they can cut to make up the loss for the fines they had to pay. The American public loves this and continues to buy there... of course they frequently have no choice once all the other local grocery stores have been driven out of business.