Posted on 06/24/2025 9:24:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
At base, a "fair" wage is one that will attract people to do what you need them to do.
It isn't $20, $30, $40, or $1, $3, or $10 an hour. It is the wage at which people think they are better off taking than not. There is no non-artificial minimum wage, and no absolute limit to the size of the wage either. The way wages should be set is through market mechanisms.
Here in the United States, we even have an implicit minimum wage on top of the ones set by law: people have an alternative called the welfare state, along with various types of public and nonprofit support that enable individuals to live on what amounts to a basic income. Advocates of a so-called "Universal Basic Income" seem not to notice that we have something that amounts to that already, although it doesn't go out to everybody. In the US, you have to work hard at ruining your life to wind up homeless and hungry.
That's why the whole "immigrants do the jobs Americans won't do" argument is ridiculous, and Trump's mass deportations are proving that right before our eyes.
A meatpacker in Nebraska has developed a "novel pitch" to attract more American workers: competitive pay, predictable shift scheduling, and better workplace ergonomics. pic.twitter.com/GW4Y1Nbzt8— Daniel Kishi (@DanielMKishi) June 23, 2025
The Journal looked into how industries that have (illegally) relied on illegal aliens to do the work are adjusting to the new reality, and they have discovered something that any economist could have told them: Americans will do these jobs if you pay them better.
People will do things if they believe that doing them will leave them better off than before. Illegal aliens are leaving poor, poorly run countries. As Trump would say, "Sh**hole countries," so working at even low wages in the United States will make them better off than remaining at home. They are willing to be cheap labor here because the alternative is worse.
The same isn't true for many Americans, so they pass over these jobs. For many, even being unemployed is a better alternative to doing backbreaking work in poor conditions for low pay, so they won't do the jobs.
But make it lucrative enough? That's a different story.
NORTH PLATTE, Neb.—Angela Jones feels fortunate to have landed a job at the new meatpacking plant in this stagnant prairie town she’s long called home. She earns $24.50 an hour—far more than she made as a convenience-store clerk, custodian or construction flagger—and has health insurance for the first time in over 20 years.
But she’s also felt stress learning her quality-control duties, such as scrutinizing meat cuts moving down the line and ensuring workers properly sanitize their tools. Days before the May opening, she confided her concerns to the human resources and safety manager, who tried to buck her up with a pep talk.
“I just don’t want to disappoint the company,” Jones, 58, said from under her yellow hard hat. “Or myself.”
A similar mix of optimism and nervousness grips North Platte as the roughly $400 million Sustainable Beef operation roars to life.
Meatpacking is one of the jobs we are told "Americans won't do," but it turns out that they will. You just have to pay them well and have decent working conditions.
It's not that immigrants aren't part of the workforce at the new Sustainable Beef plant in North Platte--since legal and illegal immigrants are the most experienced and skilled at cutting up carcasses due to prior experience, they are part of the mix they are an important part of the mix.
But the Sustainable Beef plant proves that Americans WILL do the work if you make the working conditions good enough and the pay lucrative enough. Make the dirty job attractive enough with good pay and working conditions--and respect--and Americans will flock to do the work.
The new facility is airier and more spacious than typical meatpacking plants, many of which came online in the 1960s. It provides workers with more space and reduces movements that can cause strain—one of its employment ads touts “no overhead throwing.”
Unlike traditional plants with dual shifts that require some employees to work late into the night, Sustainable Beef said it wanted to promote quality of life and family time for its workers, so it operates on a single, daytime shift.
It has sparkling stainless steel equipment and features technology such as artificial-intelligence-enabled systems to maximize the meat taken off a carcass and track workers’ efficiency.
At the plant, labor roles have split informally along racial and ethnic lines. Most production-line workers hired so far are Hispanics new to North Platte, according to employees and company officials.
The reason: The operation prioritizes industry experience for the dangerous jobs of killing and cutting up carcasses quickly, and Hispanics are more likely to have that. White locals, meanwhile, gravitate toward positions in areas such as shipping, maintenance and cattle receiving, which don’t involve knife work, said Ashley Henning, the human resources and safety manager. She attributes this to unfamiliarity with production-line work.
The massive influx of immigrant labor has obviously served to depress wages for Americans who would compete with immigrants for jobs. Illegal immigrants, in particular, compete with blue-collar native-born workers, but not with the laptop class. Hence, open borders have created a massive redistribution of wealth from the working class to the laptop class, creating our populist moment.
For all the talk of relieving inequality, the policies pursued by Democrats have exacerbated it. Wealthier Americans enjoy low-cost services subsidized by government-imported cheap labor. Blue-collar workers, in turn, see their wages depressed, turning them into a servant class competing with those flowing into the country.
LOS ANGELES WOMAN SLAMS ICE: "I have friends texting me...my gardener didn't show up, housekeeper didn't show...farmer's market is closed...everyone's scared...you're gonna have to do your own dishes, clean your own house, mow your own lawn!"pic.twitter.com/yLQPoCUS6d— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 15, 2025
The adjustment, should Trump succeed in drastically reducing the number of aliens in the country, will be a bit rough for the laptop class. They will no longer have nearly unlimited access to cheap labor, which is why you see all those liberals bitching that their gardeners will disappear and that nobody will be around to "wipe our asses."
Do we really need illegal immigrants to "wipe our asses"? We do according to congresswoman Becca Balint. pic.twitter.com/UIFitGYUNg— Vermonster 🇺🇸 (@pnshdvermonster) June 4, 2025
It's the logic of the confederacy, which I suppose is appropriate for the Democrats.
No. Americans would do the jobs Americans won’t do if you stop paying them for sitting on their asses!
Cut way back on free s**t and suddenly you have Americans doing those jobs.
Robots will do two and a half of those jobs.
A dishwasher will do the dishes, there is a robot lawn mower that will map and cut your lawn and a roomba that will clean all your floors.
Invest about $4000 (far less then you would pay a human to do those jobs even an illegal) and you can still be a slob.
Incorrect: “Americans Will ‘Do the Jobs Americans Won’t Do’ If You Pay Them a Fair Wage”
Correct: Americans will do the jobs Americans won’t do if all welfare would be stopped, in other words, no free cell phones, no free food stamps, no free rent, no free credit cards, no free anything and those jobs would be filled in 24 hours.
They will do the jobs if they aren’t encouraged to sh*t and sit on their asses.
The first thing that comes out on these types of jobs is wages. But the wages are not determined by the job. They are determined by how little the employer can get away with to cover his cost of goods. And that includes almost everything that is not within his power to determine. So earning the wage consistent with the job is not the problem. It’s the greed and need of those down the ladder to stay up with those that force the action.
wy69
Exactly.
How about that!
No. I think many modern younger American will instead riot, loot and shoplift. And instead of paying rent, they'll squat. And they'll steal electricity and vandalize copper wires.
You have to simultaneously curtail entitlements and get tough on crime.
Repeat a lie often enough, it eventually becomes the accepted truth. A Goebels tactic.
Back in the 1990s...when the minimum wage should have bumped up two or three times....nothing happened, and jobs went to illegals.
Over the past 25 years....in virtually all urbanized zones, you see the effect. In a place like SF or LA...all of the low-end jobs are held by illegals...making $10 to $12 an hour. But to rectify this (dumping illegals)...the business operations will have to move toward $18 minimum...probably onto $25. All of this means that a $15 pizza will be non-existent in a year...priced at probably $25.
I used to live in the Arlington, VA area (2010-2013) and at the local Papa Johns...the entire staff (except the Manager) were El Salvadorian illegals.
Companies that play by the rules simply cannot compete with illegal alien companies that do not.
Legal companies with something to lose that play by the rules pay the outrageous taxes and workers comp, maintain outrageous insurance premiums and performance bonds, comply with all the expensive work rules, pull permits and pay fees, comply with environmental and waste disposal rules and guarantee their work.
And if they don't, things like California compliance officers come down on you with fines and sanctions.
This makes it very expensive and complicated to business.
And your play by the rules and comply with regulations companies are competing with Illegal alien companies that do none of this since the laws do not apply to them and nobody even tries to enforce the laws on them and the illegals have noting to lose if they do try to enforce the laws.
They start phony companies under phony illegal identities.
They do not play by any rules, they do not pay taxes, they do not pay workers comp, they pay their workers cash under the table wages a far below legal minimum wages and they can get away with it because all their illegal alien workers are getting government subsidized food stamps/SNAP benefits, free Medicaid health care, the qualify for all kinds of welfare since they qualify for below poverty level because cash income never get reported to the government.
Illegal alien companies do not pull permits or pay fees, they use substandard raw materials, they dispose of their garbage and waste by dumping it on the side of the street or out in the country fields and they do not pay for insurance because if they get caught or have any claim against them , they roll up the company and start a new one under a new illegal identify that they buy from the huge illegal alien false identity industry.
How can any real business compete with that kind of rigged system.
The free market was always intended to work both ways - not just in favor of corporations and the wealthy.
Letting in hordes of illegal alien cheap labor is not the free market - its rigging the game to favor corporations and the wealthy.
Its true that there will be some inflation if illegal aliens are deported in mass and companies have to start employing Americans and paying American wages.
Then again.....we built houses and had maids and lawn services and meatpacking plants etc before the 80s when we didn’t have millions and millions of illegal aliens. In fact our standard of living was pretty good when you consider you used to be able to buy a home and support a middle class standard of living for a family on one solid blue collar manufacturing job. You can’t do that now. You can’t even come close to that now.
Correct. The wealth of our former middle class went somewhere; to somebody. Where did it go? Who has it? Can it ever be restored? These are both literal and rhetorical questions.
Post 2. You missed the point. Jeez
It appears most freepers do not believe in the free market for labor. Sad and pathetic.
The managerial class (slavers) chimed in early. The writer is spot on .. simply stating the law of supply and demand.
The relative pay for low-skill jobs has plummeted over the past 40 years of mass legal and illegal immigration, such that those workers in practicality can’t support themselves in many markets.
That is what we need to undo by repatriating illegals.
Any price increase will be based on productivity. Paying Americans will increase prices pennys on the dollar.
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