I really do think, that if there are indeed jobs Americans won’t do, not even the low skilled, the temporary, the high school/college students, etc. -
that employers should raise the wage offer until someone does want to do it. Also, improve working conditions, etc.
That is how the free market is supposed to work.
Yes, our lettuce may cost more. But, we will have tax paying Americans picking it, which saves lots of money on lots of things. Whether it all breaks out evenly, who can tell?
But this is how the free market works! Not by importing “slave labor,” an insulting term to those who have really been slaves, but still.
If we’d paid doctors $10/hr, we’d have no doctors. We have to pay what they are worth. Likewise your skilled contractors, your cops, whatever - we pay what the market will bear. We don’t import illegal immigrants to get them all for minimum wage.
Actually, we'll just import lettuce from Mexico.
I don’t know any Americans who would bend over in the hot sun and bugs and sweat to pick crops as fast as they can all day. I can’t imagine many Americans who want to kill and gut chickens all day (as immigrants do around here). Anyone strong and healthy and dependable enough to do these jobs could find other, more pleasant work. I would not kill and gut chickens all day for $20 or more, and about 2 days picking crops would probably have me at the chiropractor or the morgue. Unfortunately, immigrants have moved into other industries due to the comparative “laziness” of the locals. One carpet factory manager in north GA said “I love my Mexicans, they work hard all day, are never sick and never complain. The young people around here just quit or called in or demanded something else. They wouldn’t do the work.” It’s the same with roofing and construction; you see these Hispanic crews that can strip and roof a big house and clean up and be on to another job in a few hours. They got those jobs because they worked harder and cheaper. That is unfortunately capitalism, although if they are illegals, it is still not right.
I disagree with you. The Free Market is supposed to employ worker, not pay them to sit home.
Cut back welfare, Unemployment, Food stamps and Disability for those not disabled and you will find plenty of Americans willing and able to work.
When we are paying millions of people to sit hoime for 2 years on unemployment, and encouraging generations of welfare recipients, whe people run out of unemployment and go on disability instead, why should they work?
That isn’t free market, it’s buying votes with my tax money.
We both know people who say they will not work for less than they made before they were laid off.
Well: Stop giving them free Gubmint money and when they get hungry they will work./
I am not in any way saying that we should not help people who get laid off for a while, but these people are sucking off the government and it has to stop.
I agree. In the present economy there are no jobs that Americans won’t do. There are jobs that Americans won’t do as cheaply as illegal unskilled labor. But in most cases the higher paid labor can be utilized so as to match the output of the lower skilled illegal labor by proper organization, innovation and planning so that improved productivity keeps the cost about the same.
Case in point: when the Left’s much praised United Farm Workers strike to force legalization of illegals a California lettuce farmer developed a lettuce picking machine that allowed more skilled American workers to pick lettuce in a far more productive fashion.
This thesis was proven during the George W. Bush administration with pork product producers in Virginia and North Carolina.
“I really do think, that if there are indeed jobs Americans won’t do, not even the low skilled, the temporary, the high school/college students, etc. -
that employers should raise the wage offer until someone does want to do it. Also, improve working conditions, etc.
That is how the free market is supposed to work.”
Of course, we could also lower welfare payments, food stamps, housing assistance and free cell phones. Then folks might be more interested in working to provide for themselves.
I heard a while back that the labor for picking lettuce is 3 cents per head. So with Americans it might go to 5 cents a head, big deal. I will pay 2 cents more for a secure border. The social programs alone cost us more.
(One more time.) The disconect here is those who grow and get the lettuce picked do not set the price; the commodity market does.