New York City Considers Tax Funded Hiring Halls

"A New York City panel is examining whether the city should subsidize job centers for day laborers to link this overwhelmingly immigrant work force to prospective employers and curb wage and workplace abuses. The job centers would bring a measure of regulation to an informal economy that involves throngs of immigrants gathering on curbsides and in parking lots each morning waiting to be hired for work doing light construction, landscaping or domestic chores," the New York Times writes. "A handful of other major cities, including Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix, have given public funds to day labor centers, but efforts in other locales have drawn fierce opposition from groups that favor tighter immigration controls. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, appointed the commission, which held its first public hearing on Wednesday evening. Its goal is to evaluate the legal issues surrounding the job centers and determine whether public financing and oversight would be feasible."

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