I never said that many were not paying taxes. I just take issue with the word "most." Certainly, only a minority are paying income taxes due to their low wages. 80% of Americans pay more in payroll tax than they do in income tax.
Businesses are both victims and abusers. They have pushed for a never ending supply of cheap, exploitable labor. Unfortunately, people are not widgets or units of labor. They bring their own culture and world view to our society.
The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 90 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.
Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in a net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 310 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by an additional 130 million to 440 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.9% (2012 estimate,) principally due to immigration.
The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached 40 million in 2010, the highest number in our history. The U.S. immigrant population has doubled since 1990, nearly tripled since 1980, and quadrupled since 1970, when it stood at 9.7 million. Of the 40 million immigrants in the country in 2010, 13.9 million arrived in 2000 or later making it the highest decade of immigration in American history, even though there was a net loss of jobs during the decade. Growth in the immigrant population has primarily been driven by high levels of legal immigration. Roughly three-fourths of immigrants in the country are here legally. With nearly 12 million immigrants, Mexico was by far the top immigrant-sending country, accounting for 29 percent of all immigrants and 29 percent of growth in the immigrant population from 2000 to 2010. The median age of immigrants in 2010 was 41.4 compared to 35.9 for natives.
And this increased immigration has had an electoral impact. 87 percent of the 1.2 million legal immigrants entering annually are minorities as defined by the U.S. Government and almost all of the illegal aliens are minorities. By 2019 half of the children 18 and under in the U.S. will be classified as minorities and by 2042, half of the residents of this country will be minorities. Generally, immigrants and minorities vote predominantly for the Democrat Party. Hence, Democrats view immigration as a never-ending source of voters that will make them the permanent majority party.
the small contractors are just trying to get folks to do the damned work. I will assure you of one thing, the American blue collar work force sucks. It just does. And govt policy is a big part of that. All of this is tied together with welfare reform, regulation, unions, etc.
So the solution is to bring in more unskilled and uneducated workers? 25% of the adult legal immigrants lack even a high school degree. More than 50% of the illegal aliens lack a high school degree. There are an estimated 22 million immigrants in our workforce with 7 million of them being illegal. We are importing poverty with immigrants, legal and illegal, using our welfare programs to a much higher degree than the native born.
Illegal immigration is costing over $100 billion annually, and that just covers the costs of education, health care, and incarceration. Our government refuses to enforce its own laws. Instead, we have the ludicrous case of the Federal government taking legal action against the states of Arizona, South Carolina, and Alabama for enforcing federal immigration laws and ignoring states and municipalities that violate federal laws by establishing sanctuaries for illegal aliens. We have 12 to 20 million illegal aliens present in this country violating our national sovereignty and committing crimes that have resulted in deaths and injuries to tens of thousands of our citizens. Over 50,000 Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants since 9/11.
And our legal immigration policies are importing poverty, taking jobs from Americans, and depressing wages. Moreover, they are changing the electoral landscape that will lead to the Democrats becoming the permanent majority party. The vision and values of our Founders will be lost and America risks being Balkanized along cultural and linguistic lines.
If the "the American blue collar work force sucks," then what should we do about it? Displacing them with foreign workers and creating a permanent underclass more reliant on Big Government and the welfare state will destroy the country. Wages have been going down for over 40 years. If we truly had a labor shortage problem, wouldn't the market market force wages to go up, i.e., supply and demand? In fact just the opposite is happening. And labor participation rates are declining.
The Rubio-Schumer bill will increase both unskilled and skilled labor immigration. Initially, we were told that immigrants will do jobs Americans won't do (a falsehood) and now we are being told by our corporate masters that immigrants will do jobs Americans can't do. What do you think this massive increase in labor will do to American wages and the 22 million Americans who are looking for full-time employment?
The 2007 bill was defeated in part due to widespread concerns over the increase in the number of guest workers. While the sponsors of S.744 have suggested that this bill more responsibly manages the number of guest workers than the rejected 2007 proposal, it allows for dramatically more guest workers than the 2007 plan did. Such a large number by definition will displace American workers and the chronically unemployed. It will also reduce job opportunities for legal immigrants. By any measure, S.744 is worse for workers, at a worse time, than previous attempts at comprehensive reform. As Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently put it in an interview, "This is a massive effort to attract cheap labor, a great disservice to American workers."
Are you picking veggies or making beds today? Is anyone you know doing it, or willing to do it? Just something to think about. This bill sucks, and the Dems are playing the GOP for suckers ,but this is far more complicated than your realize.
No, but I did plenty of menial labor and had a job since the age of 12 when I started out as a paperboy. I am retired now.
Most of the jobs like making beds are still being done predominantly by Americans. If you truly want to understand the immigration issue's effect on the American worker please read this piece entitled, Immigration and the American Worker by Professor George Borjas of Harvard. The issue may be more complicated than you realize.
"For American workers, immigration is primarily a redistributive policy. Economic theory predicts that immigration will redistribute income by lowering the wages of competing American workers and increasing the wages of complementary American workers as well as profits for business owners and other “users” of immigrant labor. Although the overall net impact on the native-born is small, the loss or gain for particular groups of the population can be substantial.
The best empirical research that tries to examine what has actually happened in the U.S. labor market aligns well with economy theory: An increase in the number of workers leads to lower wages. This report focuses on the labor market impact of immigration."