Most of society would like to pretend that sex work isn’t legitimate, and that in terms of the national economy it doesn’t even exist. But the reality is that in US about 15% of “law abiding citizens” pay for sex at least 6 times each year. So regardless of all the empty moralizing the demand isn’t going away, and neither is the labor force.
But the lack of serious public policy and overall criminalization means that it’s hard to do any serious study of prostitution & prostitutes that delievers accurate & consistent data.
One source estimates that there are between 1 – 2 million regular sex workers in the US:
https://prostitution.procon.org/questions/how-many-prostitutes-are-in-the-united-states-and-the-rest-of-the-world/
Other vaguely credible salary surveys claim that average annual earnings for a full time escort/prostitute are over $75,000.
https://www.simplyhired.com/salaries-k-prostitution-jobs.html
What’s missing from almost all reports that claim to assess the economics of sex work are standardized methodology and long term follow ups, along with missing calculations on the extremely high overhead costs professional escorts & street prostitutes pay to carry out their business (up to 50% of earned income taken by pimps & agencies).
But assuming available information has at least ballpark accuracy, a reasonable guess is that sex workers contribute roughly $76bil in total dollar value to the US economy each year. And because there’s no 401k retirement plan for the women (and men) who provide these services, the only way for them to build any long term security for themselves is to find a way to legally report and pay taxes. And as others on this thread have suggested, there are in fact accepted methods to do just that.
Because even if God doesn’t love hookers the IRS does – as long as they file their returns.