I didn't have to sneak the tips. I simply walked up to them and paid. The boss wouldn't care. He was tipped too. Of course, we don't show the boss how much we tipped the workers.

When it comes to insurance, yes, that sucks, this is where we need one-payer system, which will make insurance available to everyone. Also, the current Affordable Care Act does not require a company less than 50 people to provide insurance to employees. I also do not believe half of the "professional" local contractors have more than five full-time employees if I were to bet. The ones we did hire (because we couldn't find a qualified one in our Chinese community) run the business with at most 2-3 guys, and are usually family-owned. Subcontractors are hired if the contractor is given a bigger job. You don't need twenty people to renovate a house or fix a sewage pipe. It is not economical for most contractors to have too many full time employees waiting around. The competition is huge.

Also, I think these workers aren't always underpaid. Freelancers can make good money. I don't have any evidences to prove, but if they work 5 days a week, and make $200 per job, they can make $4000 a month. See, the pair we got had two jobs in one morning, so they probably made more than $200 that day along with some tips. I am not defending underpaid, but I am sure these movers make good money in the end. Extremely hard work, but they can make good money. Walnut can't even exist if there were only a hundred jobs a day in NY. I pass by a barn truck lot everyday, and I can say with confident at least 3-4 days a week the lot is mostly empty, so there must be enough demand for a barn truck business to survive. So should the moving industry.

Why in the US do you have to rely on the employer to provide health insurance? So weird.

A couple of pieces of legislation in the 1940s and 1950s had the effect of encouraging companies to offer health benefits in lieu of others forms of compensation. Seems to have just snowballed from there.

That doesn't make it right.

We're working on getting it fixed. Pardon our dust.

No one said it did, the question was why was it this way. This person explained.

Everyone agrees that it's terrible, but it's hard to change anything without screwing over at least one huge industry in some way, plus now the question is totally politicized and everyone assumes the worst about everyone else's intentions.

It is absurd; its roots lie in world war II wage controls and then once the interests were entrenched, it stuck. Plus a change in the rules on health care profits in, IIRC, the 1980s.

About half of the US gets government-sponsored healthcare (via Medicaid, Medicare, or one of the state-run programs). The other half don't, and getting it via your employer is generally a win-win (they are providing a benefit that costs them nothing [0], and you get to pay for healthcare via pre-tax income). You certainly don't have to rely on your employer for healthcare, you can buy any legal health insurance you like with your own money.

[0] Yes, it is extremely common for employers to pay for healthcare in full or in part (and the ACA complicates this a little), but there is no reason employers have to pay anything in order for employees to realize the tax benefit.

It helps large firms maintain a captive workforce.

> Many of the people in these systems are likely underpaid

This is largely anecdotal, but back when I was doing landscaping over summers in high school and college (2002-2005). For some tasks (installing sod grass, for example), I'd pick up undocumented Central American day laborers^. They would not even get into my truck for less than $14 per hour plus lunch. There's fewer of these laborers around the Atlanta area these days, but from I hear, they still require well over minimum wage.

^ We did our best to avoid hiring from this pool but finding reliable day labor from any legal source was nearly impossible at any price.