Minimum Wage Crack Dealers

Throughout corporations in America, there is an obvious hierarchy of employees. There are huge gaps between low level employees and high level employees, including importance of job and also salary.  From an excerpt of Freakenomcis by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, we see that this hierarchy exists in crack gangs as well.  Is it worth it to be involved in this illegal business?

Before and after crack use

In other words, a crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: you have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage. Notwithstanding the leadership’s rhetoric about the family nature of the business, the gang’s wages are about as skewed as wages in corporate America. A foot soldier had plenty in common with a McDonald’s burger flipper or a Wal-Mart shelf stocker. In fact, most of J. T.’s foot soldiers also held minimum-wage jobs in the legitimate sector to supplement their skimpy illicit earnings. 

The leader of another crack gang once told Venkatesh that he could easily afford to pay his foot soldiers more, but it wouldn’t be prudent. “You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig?” he said. “So, you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain’t no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit.”

This crack gang was run almsot exactly as a big corporation like McDonalds.  There are the CEOs/bosses or gang-leaders as well as minimum wage burger flippers or the street crack dealers.  Business hierarchies contain huge gaps when considering there employees and crack  gangs do as well.  The gang leader even makes so much money off his employees that he admits to not paying them enough even though he easily could.  However, this is also a way to assert his dominance over other gangs and even lower level gang members who may be plotting against him.  He also keeps his dealers in check by threatening and sometimes performing beatings on them if they begin to use the highly addictive crack themselves.

The results are astonishingly bleak. If you were a member of J. T.’s gang for all four years, here is the typical fate you would have faced during that period:

• Number of times arrested 5.9
• Number of nonfatal wounds or injuries 2.4 (not including injuries meted out by the gang itself for rules violations)
• Chance of being killed 1 in 4

The most risky job in America is a timber cutter coming in at a 1 in 200 chance of being killed on the job.  When being involved in J.T.'s crack gang you nearly have a 25% chance of being killed.  Further it is almost certain you will be arrested and suffer at least a few injuries while on the 'job'.  Some might even be willing to take these risks for a hefty profit; however, low level street dealers don't reap in the biggest profit when compared to other gang members.  In fact, some even have to take part in legitimate minimum wage jobs in addition to their  $3.30 an hour crack dealing job. Some people have different standards and morals, but this is not enough pay for the risk involved.

Future research: More about the higher end members of the drug trade.  Maybe find a primary source of someone in the drug trade.