>>>>>>It is that “college education” mentality that brings us the pseudo-problem of “needing” illegals to do the jobs “Americans won’t do”.<<<<<<
This is not true.
The fact is that the average wage rate for the unskilled and semi-skilled trades (which are heavily staffed with illegals) has not increased at the same rate as all other compensation rates in America.
To be in line with **any** other American compensation scale or index over the last 30 years, those guys making $12 on the construction site *should* be making $22 to $28 per hour.
So the “jobs Americans won’t do” are really the jobs that have been stolen from Americans for substandard wages ($12 versus $24) by illegal aliens.
They simply underbid American workers, because they could afford to.
Believe what you want. I know people who have started at Tyson plants (non illegal employee... they kind of stuck out), who simply (and without a college degree), raised a family by simply working hard, and doing their job. They didn’t stay a line employee forever.
The problem that you apparently would like to ignore - is that we have so blurred the line between “support a family” with “having everything your heart desires”.
Nothing in the US Constitution or any other legal document says that we are entitled to a brand new car, LCD HD TV, XBOX 360, Fridge full of booze, and a cushy job to support that.
We have made the “other jobs” so stigmatized that folks don’t want to do them. I personally don’t understand what is so ugly about cleaning tables, butchering chickens, picking up trash, washing cars, digging ditches, painting homes, laying brick, etc. Not a one of those jobs requires a college degree (or at least shouldn’t). And I know people who have done all of the above and not considered themselves to be “poor”. They didn’t have “walking around cash” or the nicest possessions in the world - but they lived happy and content lives - because their priorities were on living a life of love.
I always use my Father In Law as an example - he has spent his entire life as a farm hand. From the age of 12... He and my Mother In Law raised two children on one income - and it blows my mind when I think about how little they had... yet my wife and her brother never lacked necessities - and even had some “luxuries”. Oh - and my in-laws didn’t get their first credit card until just a few years ago. About 50 years on the farm - making what most people would consider poverty-level wages. Yet they survived. Their priorities were different.