Why is Luke Cage hiding in Pop's barbershop?

Question

The newly released Netflix show Luke Cage is another series operating in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it's closely related to Daredevil and Jessica Jones, especially since Luke was a character in the latter as one of Jessica's love interests.

Now, if my memory is right Jessica Jones ends with her and Luke still being together being relatively close, and the settings of Luke Cage take place several months after that episode. This seems to be confirmed when he tells Pop

he got shot point blank in the chin in one of the "JJ" episode that "even now gives him headaches"

But why is he hiding, living away from Jessica, getting paid under the table and struggling to pay the rent? He wasn't exactly poor previously and even if he lost most of his income

when his pub was burned down

he still could get a decent, legal job (even Pop mentions that he could pay him more if it wasn't in cash). While Luke does have a bit of illegal backstory, his current ID had to be at least good enough to give him alcohol license to work in his own pub.

Answer 1

We never get any explanation for what happened during the period between Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, but the best explanation for why Cage was working at Pops is that he had gone into hiding after the Kilgrave affair.

Remember that Cage was a fugitive from the law. He had sunk all of his money into opening his bar and trying to keep a "low profile". Also, when he opened the bar, Reva was still alive, so any paperwork they needed, she could have handled to keep his name off of it.

His bar explodes after Kilgrave had him blow the bar up. Even though he was being mind controlled, that would probably make getting an insurance payout complicated. On top of that, he was becoming involved in high-profile incidents around Hells Kitchen, the kind of thing he was trying to avoid.

Instead, Cage appears to have decided to abandon Hells Kitchen and go back to Harlem. He wouldn't want to take a regular job, lease an apartment, etc. because that would put him "in the system" again, and he was trying to disappear. So he took whatever jobs would pay him under the table, and an apartment that he paid for in cash.