Nowadays, “under the table jobs” are becoming immensely popular across America.
The reason is simple. Millions of people that don’t have skills to work online or whose nature of work doesn’t require working over the Internet have no options than to take under the table jobs.
Actually, several under the table jobs pay well too. If you’re unemployed for any reason or would like to find fulltime employment or even part-time work, you can try any of these top six under the table jobs near you.
But let’s begin by understanding what exactly are under the table jobs and what they involve.
Definition of Under the Table Jobs
Broadly speaking, an under the table job means employment that doesn’t appear on regular payrolls of any organization or business or even expenses on work done by someone for an individual.
They will pay you from the organization’s petty cash or operating overheads. Generally, nobody will transfer your wages for an under the table job to your bank account.
And as a rule, under the table jobs are never reported to the government and especially the Internal Revenue Service. This means, you won’t figure on any list of the Federal government as an employed person.
Furthermore, the money you make from under the table jobs is not taxed since the IRS doesn’t know about it unless you report it while filing Income Tax returns.
However, you could land in legal trouble if you hide the income or don’t report the job in some cases. Usually, illegal migrants as well as those wanting to make some extra money from a side gig take under the table jobs in USA.
Another hazard of under the table jobs is that you might not get any compensation for workplace injuries arising out of any hazards. That’s because you wouldn’t have much rights since the employment is hidden from the government and IRS.
Top 6 Under the Table Jobs in USA
Despite these risks, if you still wish to find an under the table job, here’s my list of top 6 legit under the table paying jobs you can find.
However, for such an under the table job to be legit, you should be a legal resident of USA. This means, you should hold American citizenship or a work visa or Green Card.
If you’re illegal migrant, doing such jobs can land you in jail. The same holds true for visitors to USA who’re on tourist visas and have no rights to work legally in America.
Now let’s get down to top six legit jobs that pay under the table in USA.
1. Babysitter
Babysitting is one of the best under the table jobs that you can get. It usually doesn’t matter whether you’re female or male.
What matters is your ability to handle babies, who could be anything from infants to toddlers and in some cases, pre-teens.
A babysitter in USA earns median pay of $26 per hour, though in some cases, the rates can go higher or lower depending upon your location, the number of kids you’ll manage and your own skills.
Generally taking care of infants fetches you higher pay. However, you’ll need superb skills to handle newborns and infants.
Tasks involve playing with babies, feeding them on time, keeping them entertained in different ways as well as bathing them and giving medicines as directed by their parents.
This isn’t an easy job by any standards because you need to handle children very carefully. Meaning, they shouldn’t get injuries or sick while under your care.
2. Kitchen Helper
Kitchen Helper is one of the easy finding jobs that pay under the table.
If you’ve excellent skills in cleaning vegetables, know various spices and recipes, can chop meat, boil eggs with perfection and do ordinary tasks at your home kitchen, try this superb under the table job as kitchen helper.
It can fetch you as much as $25 per hour.
Generally, restaurants from various ethnic communities as well as those who do not have table space but can offer only take away food hire kitchen helpers.
If you’re fortunate enough, you could land a kitchen helper’s job fulltime at some renowned or popular restaurant too that receives a lot of guests.
Your work would include packing food as per order to hand over to customers, chopping vegetables, meat and poultry, cleaning the kitchen and various equipment as well as utensils, kneading dough or blending spices, all under directions of the chef or cook.
3. Janitor
Indeed.com, one of the highly respectable job boards in the world says that janitors in USA earn a median pay of $12.83 per hour. And often, the wages can go as high as $18.09 per hour.
This figure doesn’t include tips that you would get from owners of apartments or offices of buildings where you work.
Working as a janitor or janitress isn’t very easy. You’ll need a lot of energy for this job.
Because it involves sweeping floors, dusting and mopping everything from furniture to windows, separating and dumping garbage in appropriate trash cans and disinfecting the premises.
However, this is a wonderful under the table job for anyone that doesn’t have enough educational qualifications to find other work.
Janitors in USA are very important because Americans love to maintain a very high level of cleanliness at their apartments and offices.
4. Laundry Helper
A laundry helper in America gets a median wage of $26.09 per hour, according to Salary.com. This makes it one of the top under the table jobs in USA. You don’t need any special educational qualifications to be a laundry helper.
However, you should have sufficient skills to operate washing machines, iron and some knowledge about how to wash clothes made with different kinds of fabrics. That’s because some garments require extra care while washing.
Generally, the laundry owner or laundryman would guide you on the type of detergents and other cleansers to use when you wash garments.
Other tasks of a laundry helper includes ironing clothes, wrapping them properly, keeping tabs on which garments belongs to which customer, labeling garments according to the nature of service and customer, operating industrial type washing machines and keeping stock of detergents and other cleansers that the laundry uses.
Sometimes, you might have to accompany the laundry van to collect garments from customers. This can be a go to job for you if you are searching for under the table cash jobs.
5. Ghost Writer
A ghost writer is generally a content writer or author or even a poet. They write content and other articles, stories and poems for others.
Many of the times you do not even need experience for getting into such jobs. As there are many entry level content writing jobs available online which can help you make good money.
Their name never gets published. Instead, their works will be published under the name of someone who’s paying them for their writings and poems.
On average, ghost writers make $26.88 per hour but the pay scale can go up to $80.77 per hour if you’ve superb writing skills, according to Payscale.com.
As a rule, you would have to sell all copyrights to your works by signing an agreement with the buyer of your works. That means, you lose all legal rights to claim that these are your works and were published under someone else’s name.
Broadly speaking, ghost writers create content for websites on behalf of wealthy individuals and millionaires for their personal blogs, write speeches, create scripts for movies, write stories from facts and fiction, author scripts for porn films and content for any other purposes.
6. Handyperson
And finally, you can also opt to work as a handyperson and earn a minimum median pay of $23.91 per hour. Again, you don’t require any special educational qualifications to work as a handyperson.
Both women and men can work as handypersons. However, you would require some skills at moving homes, packing furniture, helping to paint house interiors and exteriors, wood works, repairing stuff, some level of plumbing and electrical works and so on.
There’re countless jobs available as a handyperson if you know where to look for them. Taskrabbit.com and Gigwalk.com are two superb websites to find handyperson jobs.
All you need to do is register on their apps and give some details about your skills or tasks that you can perform efficiently.
These apps have a superb feature. They will show you tasks in the area where you’re at the moment. You can choose to take them. You also get to quote own price for the work.
Customers of your work as handyperson will pay you through the app and you can collect the money upon completing the task satisfactorily. Generally, these apps pay you twice every week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Finding Under the Table Jobs in USA
As I mention earlier, finding under the table jobs in America isn’t difficult. But you need to know where to look for them. Therefore, I will write about some resources from where you can easily find under the table jobs at your location.
- Newspaper Classifieds
- Community Centers
- Craigslist.com
- Indeed.com
- Monster.com
- ZipRecruiter.com
- Glassdoor.com
- Notice boards at stores and restaurants
- Facebook.com Jobs
Getting Paid for Under the Table Jobs
Generally, payment for all under the table jobs is made in cash or through PayPal. You can retain the money on your PayPal wallet. Some under the table workers ask their employers to remit the money on their prepaid debit cards.
This often ensures there’re no official records of the transaction. Hence, the money you earn doesn’t get recorded on payrolls of a business or individual.
Instead, they reflect as personal expenses. For you, this translates as money that cannot be counted by the taxman.
In Conclusion
All the under the table jobs that I mention above are suitable for women and men. In fact, some are more suited for women. You can take any of these jobs. And if you wish to work part-time, it’s possible to hold two or more such jobs.