“Whoever said crime doesn’t pay is an idiot. It pays great, which is why there is so much of it.”*…
Low-level criminals in the US make an average of $900 per week, according to an estimate published in the academic journal Criminology.
So, people who commit small crimes, like robberies, forge checks, and deal drugs, are making more money per week than the average US worker ($885).
Low-level criminals are also making more money per week than high school dropouts ($504) and college dropouts ($756).
That might be in part because wage growth (in the formal economy) is so sluggish in the US, even though unemployment is low, at 4.4%. Wages grew only 2.5% between mid-2016 and mid-2017. While some analysts would expect it to be growing at 3.5%…
More at Quartz Index.
* Jay Crownover
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As we sigh from the straight and narrow, we might send well-organized birthday greetings to Joseph Michael “Joe Cargo” Valachi; he was born on this date in 1904. A member of Lucky Luciano’s mob family from the 1930s through the 1950s, Valachi was primarily involved in rackets and gambling– until his racketeering conviction in 1959, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in a federal prison.
Valachi attained his notoriety– and historical significance in 1963, when he was the star witness in a government inquiry into the Mob (the McClelland Committee). He provided the Committee with graphic details of Mob life, and named six New York are Crime families. The first member of the Italian-American Mafia to publicly acknowledge its existence, he is credited with popularization of the term “Cosa Nostra.”
After returning to prison, Valachi teamed with appointed writer Peter Maas to craft his memoirs, The Valachi Papers, which were published in 1968.
Valachi testifying