Recession?

While we were driving around north of Loop 410 in San Antone, I noticed a sign on a big-barn restaurant looking to hire line servers. The wage on offer was $9/hour. Despite that, there are panhandlers on a lot of street corners with whiny signs soliciting handouts. Nine bucks an hour is really pretty good pay for a job that almost anyone is equipped to do. Does panhandling pay better than that?