“First, dump the minimum wage — it is the equivalent of a respectable middle-class wage south of the border, and illegals’ legal competition for those jobs is made up of teen-agers and unskilled, uneducated folks who mostly have a bad work ethic. The minimum wage both invites the illegals here and employers to prefer them because they have a better work ethic. I know because I’ve worked beside illegals and will tell you outright that many times, I’d rather have the illegal alien who had a good attitude, showed up for work every day, was honest and trustworthy, and VALUED HIS JOB, as a co-worker, than a legal co-worker who was a drop-out with zero skills, an entitlement mentality, showed up for work sporadically, and was too young and/or stupid to value his job.”
So what you are saying is that in open competition, the folks who are working harder and doing a better job are getting the jobs? I don’t have a problem with this.
If you’re one of the entitlement mentality folks, then by all means. The reality is that the cost of labor would immediately spike, and businesses would simple close rather then hire these folks. Especially if they need to get more productivity per worker just to close the gap between what they now need to make.
Eliminating the minimum wage wouldn’t have the effect you desire. The same people who are working these jobs now, would stay in these jobs, and the people who are out of work would stay out of work.
What would happen is that even more people would want to come and there would be even more opportunities in America to get these positions ahead of the folks who aren’t willing to work.
Dumping minimum wage (along with reducing or eliminating all kinds of other regulations employers have to observe with regard to employees) would work MIRACLES in every aspect of the economy. Teen employment would boom. Employment of unskilled but intelligent Americans would boom. Employers could afford to pay workers what they were worth. Have you ever been to Mexico and seen the cities of cardboard boxes? Whole suburbs? A hardworking Mexican kid18 or 20 who snuck up to the states, rent a super-cheap motel room with two friends, and get -- and hold on to -- a 40-hr-week job as a dishwasher in a Denny's -- you had better bet your ass that that kid is going to show up for work. Chances are he and his roomies are sending most of the money back to Mexico to their families.
Their competition for those jobs is dominated by immature kids, drop-outs, unskilled, who hate being a dishwasher, think it's beneath them, keep the job for maybe four months before quitting, because minimum wage to them is nothing. Drop that minimum wage (along with the freebies), and the illegal Mexican doesn't have nearly the motivation to come here. And the employer sure as hell doesn't have the motivation, especially if the INS is on his back, to hire illegals. He can hire American kids. If minimum wage went down, the price of EVERYTHING would go down. So a teenager working for what he was worth, would have money worth something.