What jobs are illegals taking?? (minimum wage, generation, Mexicans, accuses)
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Ok, first let me give you a bit of background on me because I ask this question honestly to understand this issue better.
although I live in a major US city, we are not on a border with Mexico (which I know is not the only country we supposedly have immigration issues with, just using it as an example). so while we have an nice hispanic population I really could not tell you who is "illegal" or not. I've never heard of Philadelphia having a huge "illegal" issue. So I totally own up to my ignorance in this area,
I do have two good friends who own their own restaurants and one is a farmer. All three are very vocal about the fact that trying to hire folks for the wages they can pay is an issue. my one friends says any person he hires he helps to get work authorization. I cannot prove he does but I have no reason to doubt him. any hoo, for his kitchen staff (washers, bussers, cleaners) he claims even at 7.00 bucks an hour (which is more than the servers make) after a year of heavy advertising he got no takers.
Like most restaurant owners he cannot pay everyone $15.00 hour. He simply would not survive because the bottom line is the cost would be passed onto the customer who would squawk?
So my question what is the market where immigrants are replacing American workers (not talking about companies moving to another country). lol that's another question.
Do immigrants take jobs from Americans and lower their wages by working for less? Some probably do. Many of these immigrants are unauthorized and do not speak English well. As such, they tend to work in different occupations than U.S.-born workers — often, occupations that require little interaction with the public, that do not require licensing, and that do not require supervisory skills.
And since the number of U.S.-born workers with no college education has declined by almost 5 million since 2007 (Census data) . That means fewer U.S. born workers are competing for jobs requiring less education, the kind immigrants generally get. So immigrants are replacing, not displacing U.S. born workers.
The arrival of undocumented workers with limited English skills frees up low-skill American workers who can then specialize in tasks that require better English.
However, when the supply of workers goes up, the price that firms have to pay to hire workers goes down. So, who is affected? - low-skilled American workers, including many Blacks and Hispanics, who suffer most from this wage dip. But then we need to seriously think about who we see doing roofing at 100+F, pawing roads, washing dishes, cutting lawn, picking cotton or produce? For some low skilled Americans it's easier to apply for food stamps and low cost housing than do all that low pay, hard work.
Immigrants ( those documented and undocumented) don't just increase the supply of labor, but also simultaneously increase demand for it, using the wages they earn to rent apartments, eat food, get haircuts, buy clothes, cellphones, etc. That means there are more jobs building apartments, selling food, and so forth.
"Undocumented illegals" fill jobs lazy low-skilled Americans never would and despite the rhetoric spewed by clueless conservative politicians, that's the facts Jack. They are filling essential jobs like picking fruits/vegetables (they don't magically pop out of the fields and into supermarkets), performing low skilled construction jobs at $8-$10 an hour versus $15-$20, washing dishes in restaurants at minimum wage, cleaning offices and hotel rooms for $8 an hour and the list goes on. Anyone who states they're stealing American jobs is talking out of their backside, as it's well documented Americans won't work at those wages and if they're not...who will? Critical thought is a fun tool that really needs to utilized much more than it is...
The question is much like asking if taking manufacturing and IT jobs offshore - and then bringing the products back into the U.S. to sell (with no tariff) actually costs jobs? After all, companies are able to outsource the work for less than they would have to pay in the U.S.. Of course, they don't sell their products for less, which means that U.S. companies who hire American labor are less competitive or less profitable).
The alternative would be for U.S. citizens to pay more for products produced in the U.S. --- at least until companies learned how to work smarter, rather than send the work offshore.
Back to the initial proposition, as long as there are people available who are willing to work for far less (undocumented, un-taxed, under the table), there is no incentive to use 'American ingenuity' to get the work done with American labor. Perhaps we need to re-institute the CCC's (Great Depression) for people who "can't seem to find any work", but, have no compunction about living off the work of others.
Americans pay the higher rate through increased taxes to cover hundreds of billions of dollars of services extended to undocumented workers. There is a reason for having immigration laws and protecting one's borders. All of the countries EXCEPT the U.S. seem to understand this ... which is why the U.S. has such enormous immigration problems.
"Undocumented illegals" fill jobs lazy low-skilled Americans never would and despite the rhetoric spewed by clueless conservative politicians, that's the facts Jack. They are filling essential jobs like picking fruits/vegetables (they don't magically pop out of the fields and into supermarkets), performing low skilled construction jobs at $8-$10 an hour versus $15-$20, washing dishes in restaurants at minimum wage, cleaning offices and hotel rooms for $8 an hour and the list goes on. Anyone who states they're stealing American jobs is talking out of their backside, as it's well documented Americans won't work at those wages and if they're not...who will? Critical thought is a fun tool that really needs to utilized much more than it is...
Mayhap, if there weren't illegals to take those jobs that Americans won't do for the money.. You might not have a "Fight for $15" now, because those people would be forced to pay the higher wage to attract people? i'm not saying $15/hr.. But I could certainly see the restaurant worker making $9 to $10 now.
I don't see how someone can be on both sides of this. Complaining that wages are too low, but OK with turning a blind eye towards the illegals who take those jobs, thus keeping the wage low.
There have been famous cases that went to court, when chicken processing companies (the name Tyson Foods pops into mind) actively recruited in Mexico and brought illegals to staff their plants, when workers in the local community (families with a long multi-generational history in the US) needed and wanted the jobs. It was a HUGE deal at the time, that made nationwide news.
I've been shocked to find out, also, that even back in the 40's and 50's, the auto industry hired illegals. I'd have thought that the unions would have put a stop to that.
In the Southwest, landscapers hire cheap assistants working in the US illegally. The option for cheap labor allows one guy with some skills to become a company overnight, with a couple of workers, whereas otherwise, he'd just be one guy, free-lancing. I met a guy who had a Mexican assistant, who lived in his car for 6 months, saving all his earnings to take back home, where he had a nice spread, a little farm and a nice house with southwest-style drip irrigation he'd learned to install in the US. He never could have improved his situation like that, if it weren't for living in his car for 6 months (in killer heat, I might add), being a landscaping assistant. The things you learn, when you talk to people!
Mayhap, if there weren't illegals to take those jobs that Americans won't do for the money.. You might not have a "Fight for $15" now, because those people would be forced to pay the higher wage to attract people? i'm not saying $15/hr.. But I could certainly see the restaurant worker making $9 to $10 now.
I don't see how someone can be on both sides of this. Complaining that wages are too low, but OK with turning a blind eye towards the illegals who take those jobs, thus keeping the wage low.
Or conversely if we had open borders and forced employers to pay illegal immigrants the minimum wage American workers would be much more competitive against foreign labor, the demand for foreign labor would decrease and fewer people would immigrate.
Obviously that would be in a purer market as social programs complicate things a bit.
Pretty hard these days for high school students & college students to find work because
of competing with illegals willing to do the jobs for low wages.
"Undocumented illegals" fill jobs lazy low-skilled Americans never would and despite the rhetoric spewed by clueless conservative politicians, that's the facts Jack. They are filling essential jobs like picking fruits/vegetables (they don't magically pop out of the fields and into supermarkets), performing low skilled construction jobs at $8-$10 an hour versus $15-$20, washing dishes in restaurants at minimum wage, cleaning offices and hotel rooms for $8 an hour and the list goes on. Anyone who states they're stealing American jobs is talking out of their backside, as it's well documented Americans won't work at those wages and if they're not...who will? Critical thought is a fun tool that really needs to utilized much more than it is...
A sneering commentary by someone who accuses others of talking out of their backsides when they have no clue themselves.
What bubble do you live in? You sound as though you have no experience in the real world, where people work with their hands. Take a look at all the trades.....construction, roofing, masonry, welding, landscaping, irrigation, etc. Mostly done by crews of illegals. And yes, they HAVE taken work away from American citizens who formerly did this type of work, and would still, if they could get it or weren't constantly getting underbid by illegals.
In Washington state the huge influx of Mexican labor over the years has yielded a strange situation--the Mexicans of today aren't interested in farm labor, that's for the folks moving THROUGH Mexico from southern nations. Today's Mexican laborer can become invested in the trades pretty easily, welcomed as a superior work force (defined as cheap and silent) they are "movin on up" just as the blacks did in the earlier part of the American manufacturing days. The poster above has brought up the other side of all that foreign labor---America loves cheap stuff, including the labor of their fellow men.
So, yes, the Mexicans are taking work from the American laborer. The more valid concern isn't that we have a large foreign labor presence here, it's the fact of our infatuation with high tech and the college education necessary to acquire those tech jobs. This phenomenon has brought us to a far different work paradigm in which the lowly trades jobs are not good enough for little Johnny or Suzy college dropout, no, the family shame of it all would require a different path for Johnny and Suzy, mainly the clean jobs of retail and restaurant server were english is their one advantage---for now..Yeah, there are some people who would bristle at the thought of having to do real hard work after a life of ease, but that's the truth of things for now and that truth is one of those inconvenient truths which can be hard to swallow..
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