The nanny industry is an unregulated "gray market" that predominantly employs women of color who aren't citizens.
Parents who talked to Business Insider say the economics aren't so simple and that if you don't pay under the table, you are effectively taxed twice, adding that the practice allows the nanny to take home more money.In March, when Angela's employers asked her to relocate with them from Brooklyn, New York, to the Hamptons to escape the coronavirus, the career nanny reluctantly agreed. Angela didn't want to leave her family behind at the height of the pandemic.
"There are many, many women like me," Angela told Business Insider. "We keep quiet because we need the money." On top of that, many nannies say they're subjected to racism and other workplace abuses. But they often bear it because they have little, if any, recourse. Besides their immigration status, many said one of the main reasons they stick with it is that they love working with children.
Diamond Knights, who has worked as a nanny for nearly a decade, said expectations have also changed since the pandemic hit. She said parents will say: "'We require you to have a bachelor's degree, play the piano, speak Mandarin." "Black people, in general, do not like it when white people see us as being aggressive," Ronide said. "I always have to police the tone of my voice because I don't want you to think that I'm a threat."
One parent who recently hired a nanny through an agency said she was asked what "size, shape, and age" she wanted her nanny to be, and was presented details about every candidate's personal life, down to whether or not the candidate had children or hoped to have children soon.The pandemic has exacerbated and entrenched preexisting abuses and inequalities in caregiving.
But work appears to have become more scarce. Some nannies said they were notified over text that they'd been terminated as the pandemic spread. Others said they were furloughed at their regular rate or a reduced one. It typically costs about $5 to $7 more per hour to pay a nanny on the books than the alternative, adding thousands to an annual salary of roughly $40,000, based on a $20 hourly rate. These costs can force people, often women, out of the workforce when they have kids, since it can be cheaper to leave your job than to pay for childcare. And given that a family pays its nanny out of its after-tax earnings, paying on the books means the family is effectively taxed twice.
The mother pays her nanny $23 an hour, and her nanny works about 50 hours a week. The employer said she was not worried about getting caught because "everyone is doing it." A nanny who has worked on the East Coast for a decade said online groups were helping nannies organize and alert job seekers of unfair hiring and employment practices. She said the underground network of caregivers in the New York City area, supported by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, has been "on fire" during the pandemic. The alliance, for example, is advocating for caregivers to be included in the next coronavirus relief package.
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