E-Verify mandate: A 'pain in the neck' for Main Street

[The Straight Story]

As President Barack Obama called on the House to pass a comprehensive immigration bill, which includes expanded employment verification rules, you could have heard an audible groan from some small-business owners.

An immigration measure passed by the Senate last month would have far-reaching effects on Americans looking for work and on employers seeking to hire them.

Some smaller companies say that meeting employment verification requirements would be costly and add to their uncertainty, which has hampered job creation. The bipartisan bill that cleared the Senate says that within five years all employers must use the system called E-Verify to check the legal work eligibility of every job candidate, including U.S. citizens.

"We expect it to be a significant fixed cost," said J. Kelly Conklin, president of an architectural woodworking firm in Bloomfield, N.J. "It's going to be a complete pain in the neck."

A small business would likely pay about $3,000 or less to meet E-Verify rules, according to an estimate from Jeff Vining, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. Vining's ballpark estimate includes dedicated equipment, software and payroll system modifications.


http://www.today.com/money/e-verify-mandate-pain-neck-main-street-6C10669674

[Cal Carpenter]

1. Sounds like a fucking racket to me

To pad the profits of some electronics company, or maybe even the whole thing will be privately run.

It's a lot more than a 'pain in the neck' for truly small business people who manage to have an employee or three. What the fuck. More squeezing out the little people.

[Phentex]

2. We didn't have any costs associated with E-verify...

Dedicated equipment? Software? We log into a website and click. I am not sure what Gartner is referring to.

[sharp_stick]

3. That's what I thought

I don't know what "costs" he's talking about.

[Phentex]

4. I will answer myself after googling...

I always forget the definition of small business could mean hundreds/thousands of employees.

Googling stated this:

$1,254 to $24,422: The average first-year startup costs for running E-Verify per small business. The average cost for running E-Verify per small business after the first year is $435. First-year costs include the cost to take time from work to sign the appropriate memorandum of understanding with the government, review contracts and the 80-page field guide, and start verifying all of your employees. From then on employers only have to put new hires through the system.


----------------------------------------

The cost to our company: about an hour's time. In any case, we did not have to buy any equipment or software.

[Igel]

5. And we heard the same about I-9 forms.

That it would be difficult, time consuming, costly.

In fact it was neither. Nor was it very effective. But it did take up room in the filing cabinet.

[1StrongBlackMan]

6. Those start-up costs are grossly misrepresented …

It’s like claiming thousands of dollars for “start-up cost” whenever an employer changes payroll systems or insurance carriers or has employees sign off on new training or policies.

No these “small employers” are grousing because once e-Verify is mandated, they can no longer hire (easily) undocumented workers … and once that pool dries up, they will be forced to pay prevailing wages (and taxes on those wages) since threats to call immigration will no longer be effective to keep the workers quiet.