Illegal Immigartion: "Jobs that would otherwise not be filled"

[Fight_n_back]

The conventional wisdom is that illegal immigrants fill jobs that no real American would want. These are the jobs "we" used to do before FDR fucked it up for everybody by developing a social infrastructure where everyone in the US got access to a real education.

But if we demanded that these jobs paid a living wage, i.e. a wage an "American" could live on, would "we" fill these jobs? Would people who are currently on welfare bus dishes and pick oranges if the jobs were affected by market forces that the corporations preach endlessly about?

I don't know the answer. What do you think?

[coloradodem2005]

1. At the wages that those people are willing to give that is true.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[losdiablosgato]

5. The Velocity of Money

This is a concept that states the more money in an economy the faster it is spent. A dollar will change hands many time buying many things, ergo more get the uses and the prosperity of it.

[Fight_n_back]

7. I think that history proves

that the fastest way to grow the wwealth of a society is to raise the florr rather than raise the ceiling.

Making the poorest people richer will make a far bigger impact than making the rich richer.

[losdiablosgato]

8. That basically is part of it

Henry Ford, a man that by no means was a huge friend of labor. He raised his salaries to $5 a day and in doing so got other industrialist to do the same to compete for the best labor. This was done for two reasons, one he got and kept the best and two they were able to buy cars. And if you worked for ford you better buy a ford. If not he fired you, like I said not a friend of labor. But his doing this did nore to start the blue collar middle class then anyone I have ever heard of.

[EC]

9. I don't know how much pickers get paid now, but I did know

many college kids in Mich. that would pick apples and cherries through the summer for college money...

and when a sweat-shop employee gets paid by the piece and is paid 12 cents for a sweatshirt that sells for $20.00, I think there is enough profit that it shouldn't be passed on to the consumer...

[amandabeech]

13. I'm from Michigan and I picked cherries in junior high and part of

high school.

The Pew Foundation put out a study recently that showed that farm labor was a small percentage of the jobs that illegal immigrants now take--less than 10% for certain.

Remember, illegal immigrants are not only coming across our southern border, they also fly in on tourist, business or student visas from all over the world, and don't go home. It's insanely easy to get a fake ID, and employers must accept anything that's not a really bad hack job as valid.

The others do work in construction that used to be done by native born and legal immigrants, but for a decent wage. Many of the guys I knew in high school started their working lives doing construction in Michigan in the summer and fall, and construction in Florida in the winter. People still lived in decent houses, but no one thought that they absolutely needed 3,000-4,500 square feet. Someone we survived and there were fewer people living on the edge.

Food processing of all kinds used to be done by natives and legal immigrants for a decent union wage in many places, but they were forced out in favor of illegals who work for peanuts and don't file workmen's comp claims.

Believe it or not, folks in landscaping used to be native/legal, too. More were college students or young people just starting out after high school.

High school and college kids used to wash dishes and bus tables, work in McDonald's, staff parks and resorts, and pick up odd jobs. Fewer people spent their summers in internships, but instead, worked to make money for college and to have a little beer money. Believe it or not, colleges and employers looked favorably on young applicants who had these experiences.

[losdiablosgato]

4. Exactly

There are no jobs Americans will not do, but there are jobs we will not do for minimum wage.

[EC]

14. Not just the minimum wage, but since it is paid under the table

so to speak, it's not even minimum wage...and how many of us would work in the meat packing industry- that doesn't comply with OSHA or pay workmen's comp. I've read reports of people seriously injured and afraid to report it because they aren't legal...these companies pry on them, and seek out the employee that would be afraid to report any hazards that could involve fines or spending money to bring up to code...

[Fovea]

2. for these jobs to be attractive

they would need to be underscored by a real safety net, real medical care, real educational opportunities. Right now we are the pride of the rest of the third world when it comes to our working class.

But that is not saying much for the richest nation on earth.

In essence, it would make the value of American citizenship worth the eflabor. Those who come here now do so to escape poverty so crushing that even our below min wage jobs look good.

You will note that most of the folks who preach about the nobility of work do not work anywhere near as hard as a field hand, and get more in value in job benefits than field hands have in total wages.

This country is so out of whack in income distribution that even republican economists like Kevin Phillips are screaming about it.

[EC]

6. Sure, I would, if it paid enough to support me

yes, in a New York minute, a job - where I could work outside, on my feet, and forget about when I go home? It would be a dream come true. The best job I ever had was when I was in college, couldn't live on it now, but it was fun, got my exercise for the day and freedom from thinking about it when I went home - it was as a cocktail waitress...

[SoCalDem]

10. Would YOU pick peaches for $10 an hour? Babysit for $8 an hour?

SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Wed Apr-27-05 03:51 PM
Original message

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3555870
Would YOU pick peaches for $10 an hour? Babysit for $8 an hour?

Edited on Wed Apr-27-05 03:53 PM by SoCalDem

The little troll on Lou Dobbs' show today flatly stated AGAIN (for the umpteenth time) that "there are just some jobs that Americans just WON'T do".. He claimed that "the 18 yr old at Starbucks would NOT pick peaches at ANY pay rate"..

I disagree. there are always people who WILL do menial labor, stoop labor, and repetitive type labor. They cannot AFFORD to do it at $5 an hour though.

The dilemma we have is this..

IF we assume that fruit/vegetable pickers are at the bottom of the wage-ladder, and prices have escalated to the level of today, is it because the workers have started to get MORE in wages, or that the companies HIRING them have just taken a larger and larger cut of the money generated from the sale of that fruit?

Oil companies have presented us with the same issue. Last year when oil was $50 a barrel, and prices climbed to "near $2.00", they raked in PROFITS up 50-60% over previous year levels...and now that oil is considerably higher, they are making even MORE OBSCENE profits.

Higher prices seem to have little if ANY connection with supply and demand. The only demand, is that the CEOs DEMAND more money.

But I digress...

Are there jobs that Americans won't do??

We have had septic tanks cleaned before..by Americans..

We have had plumbers crawl into spidery-filthy crawl spaces..Americans again

We have had concrete work done in August..by Americans

We have had babysitters..Americans

In fact, I personally, have NEVER hired a non-American to do ANY job I have ever needed done.. and I have never had ANY trouble finding someone to do whatever job we needed done..

I just wish that more people would call these guys on their coded diatribes.. There are jobs to be done, and there are people who would do them..but they expect to be paid..

How many CEOs take NO compensation for their work??

[damntexdem]

11. Let's see, in Dallas many of these jobs involve ...

pushing carts around the streets, selling paletas -- Mexican ice cream treats. Not only would pushcart vending be unlikely in the absence of immigrants willing to do the job, the product itself would be absent from the economy.

Special case? Maybe so, but there are still many jobs, particularly in restaurants, now filled by immigrants; and over the decades we not only failed to demand a living wage for these jobs, we exempted some of them from minimum-wage requirements. The same holds for much farm work. So there it is: we could have made your demand for many decades, but we did not. So now those jobs are filled largely by immigrants. I'm just not swayed very much by the argument that these jobs would have been filled by domestic workers had 'we' demanded that the jobs be upgraded. Consider further that were domestic workers to demand most of these jobs, they would have a natural advantage over many immigrants: their ability to speak English.

Now, what about the claims that immigrants impose costs on our society but don't pay taxes to cover those costs? In fact, many such workers DO pay taxes but because they do not have legitimate ID, they will never get back what they might: excess income taxes paid; any Social Security taxes paid, and so on. Likewise, immigrant workers are likely to spend more of their income on consumer goods for which they pay sales taxes, so likely pay proportionately more in sales taxes than do domestic workers.

So, no, I don't think that immigrant workers are hurting domestic workers, the American economy, nor American governments. In fact, they are contributing disproportionately to the American economy.

So, is there a reason to slow immigration? What we have to look at are the effects in Mexico. Yes, there are positive effects: money sent back by workers in the U.S. is the second-largest source of income for Mexico after oil. Housing has improved considerably, funded by funds sent from the U.S. But there are problems as well: families split up, particularly extended families; communities made up largely of grandparents, mothers, and children; or, as wives and children have increasingly been included in immigrants, older people living alone (a previously unheard-of situation in Mexico). The solutions need to involve the creation of adequate employment in communities, large and small, in Mexico and in other countries.

[NMMNG]

12. Well you do realize the purpose of Chimpy's "Guest Worker Status" scheme?

By giving a chunk of desperate illegal immigrants "Guest Worker Status" he ensures a steady, legal continum of dirt cheap labor for his Rethug buddies. Then the cries for livable wages can continue to go unheeded--after all, if the "Guest Workers" are willing to work for slave wages, there's no need to consider raising the minimum wage, right? Then we continue to suffer while the fat cats just get richer and richer off our backs.