Ariel Jurow Kleiman (USC; Google Scholar) & Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis; Google Scholar) present Taxing Nannies, 110 Iowa L. Rev. 111 (2024) (with Emily A. Satterthwaite (Georgetown; Google Scholar)) (reviewed by Michelle Layser (San Diego; Google Scholar) here and Susan Morse (Texas; Google Scholar) here), at Missouri today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by David Gamage:
Nannies in the United States often work long hours for low wages and fear retaliation if they complain. This precarity is exacerbated by nannies working informally, or “off the books,” keeping their work secret from state and federal tax agencies, as well as employment and labor agencies. Yet we have little understanding of how nannies navigate the tax reporting that renders them formal or informal.
This Article investigates nannies’ preferences for or against formal employment and tax reporting, the reasons behind such preferences, and how such preferences correspond to nannies’ relationships with their employers and legal institutions more broadly. The Article employs a multi-method research approach that includes an original and innovative survey of nannies and an analysis of nannies’ tax-related posts on the online forum Reddit. To supplement this research, the Article also discusses interviews with fifteen subject matter experts regarding industry norms, common challenges nannies face, and policy reforms.
This multi-method approach reveals three key takeaways. First, surveyed nannies express a strong preference for and experience with formal employment. However, this Article cautions against extrapolation—a subset of nannies, often undocumented and working more informally, is missing from surveys and the literature. Second, the formal/informal dichotomy so prominent in the discourse is inaccurate. Rather, nanny pay arrangements exist across a spectrum, with some compensation both on and off the books to accommodate hirers’ and nannies’ complicated interests. As a consequence, the Article’s third takeaway is that simple calls for increased enforcement may not accomplish their intended goals, given the heterogeneity of nannies’ tax lives. Instead, other legal institutions must first be reformed to better support vulnerable nannies and align incentives for formality across key systems such as tax, immigration, and public benefits.
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