People of color not wanted in Georgia (Jersey: low income, how much)

[Caltovegas]

Is that the message being sent?

Perdue sees 'consequences', Deal 'encouraged' by new ag workers | 11alive.com

[ecuresident]

No, Purdue needs to keep his mouth shut, he messed enough things when he was in office. As someone of color I see no problem with this law. AZ passed it, and Alabama just passed the strictest law, so are there now 3 states (and most likely more) that "dont want colored people"? No, if you are legal you have nothing to worry about, its not like the police are just going to stop every colored person on the street and ask for id. We have plenty of unemployed people that could use this work, and would get off unemployment benefits as well as pay back some money for services used (taxes). The problem we have, is that a lot of Americans have become lazy- hence immigrants being better workers, and leaching off unemployment. I know at least 2 people myself that were offered jobs (as secretaries- not picking fruit in a hot field) that turned them down because they were being paid more in unemployment benefits once they figured in their driving, expenses, etc.

[afonega1]

Originally Posted by ecuresident

No, Purdue needs to keep his mouth shut, he messed enough things when he was in office. As someone of color I see no problem with this law. AZ passed it, and Alabama just passed the strictest law, so are there now 3 states (and most likely more) that "dont want colored people"? No, if you are legal you have nothing to worry about, its not like the police are just going to stop every colored person on the street and ask for id. We have plenty of unemployed people that could use this work, and would get off unemployment benefits as well as pay back some money for services used (taxes). The problem we have, is that a lot of Americans have become lazy- hence immigrants being better workers, and leaching off unemployment. I know at least 2 people myself that were offered jobs (as secretaries- not picking fruit in a hot field) that turned them down because they were being paid more in unemployment benefits once they figured in their driving, expenses, etc.

Truthfully its not about the bill.Its the image of a down south state (seemingly real,imaginary or whatever) going out of its way even when the economy is bad to enact a law during the most precarious of times aimed more at one group.Arizona,Alabama are NOT states that I want Georgia to be thought of in any category!It's not me but many people see the states as being backwoods.These laws dont help business to convince there people to relocate here.A change in law whereas at best will impact the state in more negative ways worth less than any gains in supposed employment gains at the lowest of levels.Are we actually applauding this law because some ex convicts can work picking fruit off a tree in South Georgia as opposed to more manufacturing jobs which typically pay more that the state is loosing (and could loose more due to this law)?

The fact that wages are not increasing as much as they should for someone to have to turn a secretarial job down should show you just where we are at that someone has no choice but to stay on welfare because its more profitable.

Virginia,Maryland,New Jersey, Massachusetts,Pennsylvania,and even N.Carolina are states that economically are doing fine without such laws but Georgia made this a priority?What do we know in Georgia that none of the countless states that are doing better or equal that other states are just too "dumb" to figure out?Where is the wisdom of rolling out such massive measure that proponents admittedly say will cost precious scarce dollars to implement?

Forget the issue where or not this is morally right.More like is this necessary right now?and why?

[ecuresident]

Well when you compare states like Virginia, etc you also have to look at the number of people in the undocumented work force. Pulling numbers from Bloomberg business Arizona, California, and Ga have the highest number all around 10% (which I am sure is higher in reality). States like Maryland are at half that. So we need to do something more urgently than other states. And this is the most important time; all states are having deficit problems and need to find ways to cut spending, we could cut services, raise taxes, or find places where we are leaking money. At least we werent like Jersey and waste $1.7 billion before stopping halfway through their hudson channel project. States like Jersey, Penn, Virginia have overall tax rates that are a lot higher than GA, thats why so many people from the East Coast are moving down here. I think GA is trying to find other ways before raising taxes and cutting services which is stopping the moochers, these undocumented workers use services for free, and dont pay taxes.

While I agree with you that adding some jobs at the bottom level isnt going to help much, I dont really see it as a threat for major companies moving here. Most CEO's arent going to think twice about this, because it doesnt affect them (except maybe Walmart-haha), what they look at or at least what is more important are location/ease of transportation (aka Hartsfield), cost of living (cheap), and tax incentives (very good compared to other states). The nice climate relative to other states like Jersey also doesnt hurt. Now true we may have some competition with North Carolina and S. Carolina as they offer some of the similar benefits. I think Porsche and Delta moving more of their offices and workers here demonstrates that compared to other states we still have quite the appeal. And while I agree with you- some people look at Ga as a backwoods state ( I did when I moved here as I am originally from Chicago), I dont think it has to do as much with laws like this as some of GA's other policies such as gun laws, people refusing to raise taxes to better the public schools and then complaining or spending much more sending their kids to private schools, the whole church thing in the rural areas, and the liquor laws.

Where it might help is our hospital system, which is already in big trouble in GA. How many people are we treating for free everyday? AZ said a whopping 100K people left when the law was enacted! Imagine if we are just treating 1/4th of those people for free and how much burden that puts on hospitals like Grady.

Regarding Welfare/Unemployment, I think the fact that they turned down the jobs shows how greedy we have become, and how lazy. We complain about how we are massively losing jobs to foreign countries, but then arent willing to take the jobs when they are offered here because the "wage is too low". Hey, we chose to live in a free market society, and are trying to get the rest of the world to adopt it too, but then complain when the free market dictates that wages are cheaper somewhere else. We then fuel that even more, by buying cheaper stuff made in the foreign countries. Even though the average US family income is only 40K which a lot of people say they cant live on, that is 10X the average income in Mexico, 3X Greece, and almost 2X Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, UK, etc. So how come the rest of the world can get by, but we cant? It shows you how much our welfare system is screwed up and not the other way around. I routinely volunteer medical services at a low income facility. I also see a lot of those people that have cell phones nicer than mine, can somehow not pay for medical procedures, but whip out $100 because they want a gold tooth on their denture, pay $5 a pack for cigarettes everyday, have cable tv, etc. While this is a broad generalization, because there are plenty of people that legitimately need the help, there are a lot that just take advantage because they can. Ever frequent a business owned by a foreigner here? A lot of them work 80+ weeks, and are some of the nicest people you could meet, because they know how much better it is here in the US and are grateful, they also know that you have to work hard to succeed. Examples I could point out are the Korean Laundrymat I go to down the street, several Indians I know that started working at Gas stations and now own them, and the list goes on. Then walk into a Mcdonalds or similar establishment and it appalls me at the service I get sometime. Tons of people are without work and would love to have your job and you are rude, on your cell phone the whole time, etc.

[stvincent]

Originally Posted by afonega1

The fact that wages are not increasing as much as they should for someone to have to turn a secretarial job down should show you just where we are at that someone has no choice but to stay on welfare because its more profitable.

This is where the problem lies. Love this insight. Notice one of the solutions to this labor shortage is NOT raising wages. Rather, just to find another group who they think will be desperate enough to work for low wages, or because they're on probation, maybe force them to work for low wages. Does anyone know if these programs are on a voluntary basis or not?

[Box]

Originally Posted by stvincent

This is where the problem lies. Love this insight. Notice one of the solutions to this labor shortage is NOT raising wages. Rather, just to find another group who they think will be desperate enough to work for low wages, or because they're on probation, maybe force them to work for low wages. Does anyone know if these programs are on a voluntary basis or not?

So forcing the working poor into doing these jobs is the solution? We would have been better off leaving undocumented folks alone, and just begging mcdonalds to bring more jobs to Georgia if this is the case lol.

[ecuresident]

Originally Posted by stvincent

This is where the problem lies. Love this insight. Notice one of the solutions to this labor shortage is NOT raising wages. Rather, just to find another group who they think will be desperate enough to work for low wages, or because they're on probation, maybe force them to work for low wages. Does anyone know if these programs are on a voluntary basis or not?

I dont see this as a problem, but as the free market. If there are another group of people "desperate enough" to do it than great (as long as it is not forced- although I assume if you are on probation you are either doing this or some other type of community service aka picking up trash off the highway for a set amount of time, it is not like you are being enslaved for the rest of your life) so it doesnt really matter. I think the AJC story was more sensationalized than anything. True, there might be a short term shortage as all of these illegal immigrants left all of a sudden and it takes some time to hire people, but in the long run, people need jobs or the farmers will have to raise wages. Having a constant rotation of new Probationers is just inefficient as you would have to keep training them and it takes a little time to get good at anything, so I would think the farmers would want to raise wages a little to get a set group of employees. A lot of states have farms where picking is needed in addition to the southern states, but they seem to not have a shortage. Could it be because they didnt allow (or have) a large number of illegal immigrants, causing them to have higher wages? This is the fundamental problem with illegal immigrants, they took over certain jobs and allowed the wages to stay low because the farmers had a choice and got used to that. There are plenty of other "crappy" jobs, but a lot of them ended up with higher wages, because they didnt allow this undocumentation of workers to exist- aka garbage man, etc.