Were did we get labor before illegal immigration?

my thoughts | 8-24-11 | BUGSWOL

[BUGSWOL]

I was listening to a story on NPR this morning. The story that caught my ear was about a small farm in Alabama that was going out of business. The reason given; they couldn't get any illegal aliens to work cheap due to Alabama's new immigration law.

The gist of the story was we need more non-Whites to help the economy. Well last time I checked Alabama has plenty of non-Whites who were born there and more than half of them under the age of 25 are unemployed. Or better yet, back when I was a young man in Kentucky farmers harvested a lot of tobacco. Most of then hired a lot of college and high school students for the very labor intensive harvest. Schools adjusted their schedules to accommodate the harvest. These young men were paid well for their hard work and many used their "tobacco money" to pay their college expenses. Now college students labor in the collage financial aid office filling out financial aid forms

[BUGSWOL]

I hate to do a vanity post, but it was the only alternative yelling at the radio.

[Tigerized]

My first job at the ago of 14 was cleaning horse stalls for the princely sum of 50 cents apiece. It was hard, dirty, smelly work, punctuated by kicks and bites from unappreciative prima donna thoroughbreds.

Today, ALL of this work is done by illegals, who promptly take the cash and send it out of this country.

What’s wrong with this picture?

[Baynative]

Part of the point of the liberal mantra "doing the work Americans won't do", was to subliminally plant the idea into the dependent class that farm labor is beneath them.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I’ve always heard that crops rotted in the fields and hundreds of thousands of Americans starved to death until we were saved by the Noble Illegals.

[svcw]

When I was in high school I cleaned apartments and picked fruit for a job. Hum? Could that be where.
Also immigrants (legally) could get worke permits for the harvest season, they would come in do the work and go home. Once that stopped, they appeared to come illegally and stay.

[SampleMan]

THE SYSTEM:

1. You get into country illegally with support of Democrats.

2. You work for low wages until you are eligible to vote Democrat.

3. You cease working and go on the gubmint dole.

4. More future Democrat voters are recruited to enter the country.

[cripplecreek]

There has always been some migrant labor but a great deal of the farm work was done by high school kids. I know I did my share of picking rocks and bailing hay. My sisters both worked at the local ice cream parlor.

Factory work was always done by Americans unless there was some kind of labor shortage like during WWII. At that time, women entered the workforce, a lot of people came north from Appalachia to the factories and a lot of people were allowed to come from Mexico for the duration of the war.

[Joann37]

I think they’ve always been around, but are just more vocal now. When I was in Georgraphy or Social Studies classes (~1967 or so), I remember hearing about them as “migrant workers”.

[Little Ray]

We used teenagers (entry level job /work experience) and the classes of people who now fill our welfare rolls and make up part of the parasite class.

[faucetman]

When I was a kid I picked apples and cherries for cash and bought some of the fruit to take home. No insurance or workers comp. No taxes (paid in cash). I could make as much money as I wanted. The harder I worked, the more I made. What a concept? I was outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine. I was getting healthy exercise. I rode my bike to get there, without a helmet.

I also stacked bales of hay & straw for cash. I collected bottles & cans from the ditches for the deposit refund. I had a 60 daily and 100 Sunday newspaper route.

I washed dishes at 15 and bussed tables at 16.

Work is there for those who want it, or at least it used to be, before government interfered.

[SMARTY]

You forgot, Liberals and their supporters are perpetually demanding an increase in the min. wage... so those who DO work at these entry level and unskilled jobs, can receive MORE and MORE.

If it is possible to make your scenario worse, this will do it.

[Vide]

The most shameful thing about American immigration policy is its asymmetry. Members of the political classes are probably attorneys by trade, their houses are cleaned by Brazilians, their lawns are mowed by Mexicans, depending on their field of practice many of their clients may be illegals. But, they have absolutely no threat of competition from illegal immigrant attorneys.

Native born non-whites are most likely not attorneys and, if they lack qualifications, they face intense pressure for employment from competing illegals.

Liberal apologists for illegal immigration are invariably from the privileged class that benefits most from cheap labor.

[snowrip]

My first job was at age 15, washing dishes from 5am-noon at a bakery. I also mowed lawns, starting a couple of years before that.

Had more money than I could spend at that age.

Through high school and college I usually worked two jobs, unless I was working construction (which started at 5:30am and went until 7pm most nights). I stayed fit, lived on pasta and beer, and loved it.

There are PLENTY OF JOBS OUT THERE, if you are willing to work. The problem is that we’re coming into a generation of college-age kids who think they should be making ten million a year as a rap mogul or movie star. They’re not hurting for work... yet.

[BUGSWOL]

I think you are on to something deeper and wider than you may realize.

[Polybius]

I’ve always heard that crops rotted in the fields and hundreds of thousands of Americans starved to death until we were saved by the Noble Illegals.

Actually, from 1942 to 1964, many crops were harvested by workers in the Bracero Program.

These legal contract workers were NOT immigrants. They were contracted for certain jobs and, in the off season, returned home to Mexico to enjoy their earnings with their families. In 1959, the Bracero Program used 444,000 contract workers.

The Bracero Program ended when Ceasar Chavez and the unions targeted the program.

[mbynack]

I picked strawberries, blueberries, and potatoes when I was about 14 or 15. We got paid by the quart for the berries and by the bushel for the potatoes. It’s a good lesson. The harder you work, the more you got paid.

[kabar]

We bring in 1.2 million LEGAL IMMIGRANTS every year. They fill many of those jobs "Americans won't do." 25% of the adult legal immigrants lack even a high school degree.

The latest data show 22.1 million immigrants holding jobs in the U.S. with an estimated 8 million being illegal aliens. By increasing the supply of labor between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by an estimated $1,700 or roughly 4 percent. Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the estimated impact was even larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent. The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status.

The Bureau of Labor statistics for July 2011 show a national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, including 15.9 percent for blacks and 11.3 percent for Hispanics. 25 million Americans are seeking full-time employment. Despite the economic downturn, the U.S. continues to bring in 125,000 new, legal foreign workers a month. This includes new permanent residents (Green Cards) and long-term temporary visas and others who are authorized to take a job. This makes no sense.

[dila813]

The business is going out of business because of it’s location and the fact that it’s competitors are using illegals.

What happened .... Democrat entitlements, education bubble, anti-sprawl zoning/laws, and subsidies for urbanscapes have depopulated the country side and resulted in super dense cities.

The labor in the cities needs higher pay, the number of people in the country side is insufficient.

Of course, when the economy does completely collapse, my theory is all this city labor is going to be unlocked.

[Tupelo]

“Well last time I checked Alabama has plenty of non-Whites who were born there and more than half of them under the age of 25 are unemployed. “

Well. You are sure as hell ain't gonna get them to work in the fields. In the hot sun. Five days a week.

[kabar]

A Drought of Summer Jobs: Immigration and the Long-Term Decline in Employment Among U.S.-Born Teenagers

• The summer of 2009 was the worst summer ever experienced by U.S.-born teenagers (16-19) since citizenship data was first collected in 1994. Just 45 percent were in the labor force, which means they worked or were looking for work. Only one-third actually held a job.

• Even before the current recession, the summer labor force participation of U.S.-born teenagers was deteriorating. Between the summers of 1994 and 2000, a period of significant economic expansion, the labor force participation of U.S.-born teens actually declined from 64 percent to 61 percent.

• After 2000, the summer labor force participation of U.S.-born teenagers declined from 61 percent to 48 percent by 2007. Thus even before the current recession fewer teens were in the labor force.

• Teen unemployment — the share looking for a job — has also tended to rise somewhat over time. But the big decline has been in the share of teenagers who are looking for work.

• The number of U.S.-born teenagers not in the labor force increased from 4.7 million in 1994 to 8.1 million in 2007. In the summer of 2009 it stood at 8.8 million.

• The severity of the decline is similar for U.S.-born black, Hispanic, and white teens. Between 1994 and 2007 the summer labor force participation of black teens declined from 50 to 35 percent; for Hispanic teens from 52 to 37 percent; and for whites it declined 69 to 55 percent.

• The fall-off is also similar for U.S.-born teenagers from both high- and low-income households.

• Although a larger share of teens are enrolled in summer school, the fall-off in employment is similar for those in school and those who are not. As a result, the overwhelming majority of the decline in labor force participation would have occurred regardless of the increase in enrollment. • Immigrants and teenagers often do the same kind of work. In the summer of 2007, in the 10 occupations employing the most U.S.-born teenagers, one in five workers was an immigrant.

• Between 1994 and 2007, in occupations where teenage employment declined the most, immigrants made significant job gains.

• Comparisons across states in 2007 show that in the 10 states where immigrants are the largest share of workers, just 45 percent of U.S.-born teens were in the summer labor force, compared to 58 percent in the 10 states where immigrants are the smallest share of workers.

• Looking at change over time shows that in the 10 states where immigrants increased the most as a share of workers, labor force participation of U.S.-born teenagers declined 17 percentage points. In the 10 states where immigrants increased the least, teen labor force participation declined 9 percent.

• We also find that, on average, a 10 percentage-point increase in the immigrant share of a state’s work force from 1994 to 2007 reduced the labor force participation rate of U.S.-born teenagers by 7.9 percentage points.

• The most likely reason immigrants displace U.S.-born teenagers is that the vast majority of immigrants are fully developed adults — relatively few people migrate before age 20. This gives immigrants a significant advantage over U.S.-born teenagers who typically have much less work experience.

• The labor force participation of immigrant teenagers has also declined, though it was low even in the early 1990s. This along with the similar decline for U.S.-born teens from all racial and income backgrounds supports the idea that the arrival of so many adult immigrants, who work at the kinds of jobs traditionally done by teenagers, crowds all teenagers out of the labor force, both U.S.-born and foreign-born.