[DTogo]

Maybe if there weren't 20 million or so illegals and their kids flooding the job market, we wouldn't need minimum wage increases, because in a real job market supply and demand would work to keep wages adequate.

BINGO!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!

[arnoldfwilliams]

Maybe if there weren't 20 million or so illegals and their kids flooding the job market, we wouldn't need minimum wage increases, because in a real job market supply and demand would work to keep wages adequate

Why, knowing as I do that 819,000 Americans are unemployed who might get minimum wage jobs, do I look at an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent and say that it would be bad FOR AMERICA to send the 11-12 million "illegals" back? Perhaps because I know that 12 million is a much larger number than 819,000.

It really is. And it doesn't matter if that 819,000 does two jobs: they still won't replace the ones you kick out. In addition, you assume that you would have all the jobs still in place without them here.

What we see, instead, is American businesses which sell, for example, groceries in some towns with a higher hispanic population simply close when they leave because they are afraid. Those are Americans you've added to unemployment: and ones with OK jobs (I've worked at Albertson's -- it wasn't the limit of my ambitions, but it was a good job).