“Illegals reduce job opportunities and lower the wage scale for low-skilled labor.”.......
While true, tell me how many of the potential “workers” currently un-employed, would actually take the jobs now being done by migrant workers? I did NOT say illegal migrants workers, I have great respect for the “legal” migrant workers who are working instead of collecting welfare. Illegals on the other hand need to be deported and, should they desire to return, come here the LEGAL way.
I have no trouble with migrant workers, as long as those jobs are first offered to US citizens. Keep in mind that migrant workers if it's done right don't have much freedom in the US. They live in provided housing, and at the end of their working season, get transportation back home, with a salary that's not paid under the table. The total cost of employing migrants should not be less than what would be a fair wage (probably more than minimum wage) for US citizens to do the job.
Our labor-supply “shortage” is not a shortage of bodies, but a mismatch of incentives. If we had no immigrants at all, companies currently employing immigrants would have to resort to some combination of higher pay and automation. The extent to which a business would automate would depend, in part, on whether it could hire sufficient, suitable employees at any wage.
Would there be a wage at which currently unemployed Americans would take on construction jobs, landscaping, housekeeping, restaurant gruntwork ... if they still had the option of living on the dole, more years of school attendance, or living at their parents’ house while “looking” for the “ideal” job?
"tell me how many of the potential “workers” currently un-employed, would actually take the jobs now being done by migrant workers?100%, if we stopped paying them not to work.