[heartwood]

Problem: Shortage of cheap labor.

What could possibly be the solution?

Economics 101? Raise wages?

Nah. Raise labor supply! Immigration! Naturalization! Dream Act! Health care and food stamp costs passed to the taxpayer, because God forbid, God forbid, the Walmart shopper should pay 10 cents more for a bottle of shampoo!

[Hildred Castaigne]

Problem: Shortage of cheap labor. What could possibly be the solution? Economics 101? Raise wages?

If you raise wages, then you're not showing ever-increasing profits, which means the shareholders boot you. Gotta make that quarterly. Gotta worry about the "bonus situation". It's corporate suicide to do otherwise.

Some try to maximize profit by not having adequate staff. Better profit, higher individual bonus.

Some? Try all...or at least, all who want to keep their jobs.

Perhaps if businesses didn’t pay such abysmal wages that living off of welfare was an actual viable alternative...No, that just makes too much sense. The invisible hand of the free market will fix it. Right?

Yes, it will. Frankly, most Americans get paid too much. I believe that if you're not a tech or management, then you're worth about as much as a Bangladeshi in a sweatshop over there - and should be paid the equivalent.