Paying a "living wage" for menial jobs

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This whole "living wage" argument has been in the news lately, so I figured I'd start a thread about it. First, there have been a number of fast food strikes where the strikers are demanding better conditions and a pay raise to $15/hour.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...

Now, Washington DC's city council is seriously considering passing an ordinance that would force big box stores like WalMart to pay a "living wage" of least $12/hour:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2...

I'm torn on this. Having been a retail peon in college (which wasn't nearly as bad as being an Army peon but still sucked), I get the push for better conditions and slightly more pay. Demanding rather high salaries for what essentially unskilled labor is what I have a problem with. A lot of these jobs aren't supposed to be something you can raise a family on. And the higher the wages go, the more it causes unintended consequences such as seniors on a fixed income not being able to afford the price hikes, or actually killing job opportunities for the working poor as companies do more with fewer employees. Not to mention that a lot of fast food restaurants are owned by smaller franchises where the owner is not some fat cat 1 percenter but a middle class guy or gal who makes a decent living but works probably 60-80 hours/week and could not afford to pay those rates.

Final point and I'll /rant. It took me until I was 30 before I made over $15/hour. Granted, I was in the military and then went back to school late in life, but I worked my tail off doing dangerous and complex work for a lot less than the "living wages" being demanded in these cases. My wife is an editor and experienced pretty much the same thing - her early career was really low paying yet she was doing hard work that required a lot more skills than flipping burgers or folding clothes.

It's pretty simple to me. Do you want people on welfare and assistance or do you just want to pay them enough to live above the poverty line?

jdzappa wrote:

Demanding rather high salaries for what essentially unskilled labor is what I have a problem with. A lot of these jobs aren't supposed to be something you can raise a family on.

The question is whether without these jobs being something you can raise a family on, if there are enough jobs at this point for all the people who want to raise families to be able to do so. We may have to face the possibility that changes in technology and the concentration of wealth mean there are not enough skilled jobs to go around. If that's the case, the choice is whether we pay high salaries for unskilled labor, or we divide into Two Americas: one America of the skilled & successful that have families, and another America of an underclass of people child free not by choice, but because they were out-competed in the market for one of those skilled jobs.

Also, older folks aren't leaving the job market the way they used to, and delaying retirement for all kinds of reasons. Opportunities for non-menial labor or entry-level jobs just aren't what they were 20 years ago, unless you want to start your own business. More people are going to have to support their families on these jobs, or delay starting families.... both those things are already happening. It's just the way the demographics are shaking out.

Well I'm for it. While it would create some economic inefficiencies as mentioned (fewer unskilled jobs, higher costs/prices, etc.), it would also create some nice incentives, such as to improve automation or to increase organisational efficiencies. Maybe this would even be another step towards a guaranteed basic income.

So what I'm saying is this will help me get a robot butler sooner rather than later. I want my robot butler.

jdzappa wrote:

It took me until I was 30 before I made over $15/hour.

Is this adjusted for inflation/cost of living? Minimum wage where I live is $9.19/hr.

If companies pay a living wage, there is less relience on the state to top up those wages with benefits. Therefore in one move, there is a huge amount of relief on the welfare system (something that our government is determined to rip apart anyway), that money can then go to the people that need it, the unemployed, disabled, pensions ect.
But then again that would require a political party that isn't in the pockets of big firm lobbyists so it is never going to happen.

CheezePavilion wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Demanding rather high salaries for what essentially unskilled labor is what I have a problem with. A lot of these jobs aren't supposed to be something you can raise a family on.

The question is whether without these jobs being something you can raise a family on, if there are enough jobs at this point for all the people who want to raise families to be able to do so. We may have to face the possibility that changes in technology and the concentration of wealth mean there are not enough skilled jobs to go around. If that's the case, the choice is whether we pay high salaries for unskilled labor, or we divide into Two Americas: one America of the skilled & successful that have families, and another America of an underclass of people child free not by choice, but because they were out-competed in the market for one of those skilled jobs.

Having a family is a choice, not a right. For that matter, I don't think that society owes you a good living just because you exist. I do grant your point that technology and globalization may change how we employ people, but I find it very sad that we'd be willing to hurt the up-and-coming small business starters and entrepreneurs who could possibly break the cycle of a few good jobs at the top and McJobs for everyone else. It's those smaller players who will bore the brunt of having to pay much higher wages for new employees as their franchises/new restaurants/stores grow. WalMart will find a way to weasel out of the regulations, hire fewer workers, or just pass the costs on. I'm also afraid of skyrocketing costs of goods and services if we set a wage that's double the current minimum.

Finally, I see this as the height of entitlement attitude. If you want a better job, make yourself more marketable. Or work longer hours - if you took on say 2-3 jobs and were willing to put in 60 hours a week, then you could make a decent living at $9/hour.

-This might be naive, but if we can provide an easier living wage for people then crime would become a lot less attractive. Combine that with less people on welfare and the savings to the average citizen could be huge.

-Costco is able to pay their employees living wages + benefits and keep costs down, so it's hard to believe this will lead to businesses shutting down or massive price hikes.

-I'm more concerned about money spent on wages on the top of the hierarchy than I am at the bottom.

I don't think the point is that society owes people who don't work goods and salaries. The question is, should unskilled laborers be condemned to poverty or childlessness, regardless of how well they do their jobs? The implication is that the answer there is "yes," and that it is acceptable to create a virtual caste of second class citizens.

LarryC wrote:

I don't think the point is that society owes people who don't work goods and salaries. The question is, should unskilled laborers be condemned to poverty or childlessness, regardless of how well they do their jobs? The implication is that the answer there is "yes," and that it is acceptable to create a virtual caste of second class citizens.

THIS.

Edit: One more thought: turnover is very expensive. Investing in your workers and giving them a reason to stay long term pays off. It's another foundation of Costco's strategy.

SixteenBlue wrote:
LarryC wrote:

I don't think the point is that society owes people who don't work goods and salaries. The question is, should unskilled laborers be condemned to poverty or childlessness, regardless of how well they do their jobs? The implication is that the answer there is "yes," and that it is acceptable to create a virtual caste of second class citizens.

THIS.

Edit: One more thought: turnover is very expensive. Investing in your workers and giving them a reason to stay long term pays off. It's another foundation of Costco's strategy.

I'm not talking about third world workers making a dollar or two a day working in far more dangerous and exhausting conditions than your average retail clerk/burger flipper. Also, we're not talking about people being consigned to working these jobs forever. So I'm not seeing the "condemned to poverty" angle.

As far as Costco goes, I have several family friends who work there and it's not actually that easy to get hired. They want quality people with several years of experience already in the field. But how do you give new people that first break if the labor costs is so prohibitively high that you can really only afford somebody with experience and a strong work history?

Final point - the starting wage at Costco is $11.50/hour, still lower than the WalMart mandate in DC and way lower than the $15 being demanded by fast food workers.

-I'm more concerned about money spent on wages on the top of the hierarchy than I am at the bottom.

Bingo. This a million times over. Let's talk about how damaging "living wages" would be to companies when we stop paying CEOs like this...

http://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-income

(The Google one is clearly not accurate, as I'm sure Larry Page is paid in plenty other other ways than salary.)

EDIT: Similar story from Bloomberg: http://go.bloomberg.com/multimedia/ceo-pay-ratio/

jdzappa:

I think the disconnect comes from the assumption that you're supposed to "move on" from these sorts of low wage positions, like a paid internship or something. What if the worker can't because he or she doesn't have a skill set to develop or has no opportunities to do so for some reason (like a prolonged recession)? What then?

There seems to be good reason to suppose that these are more permanent jobs for older folks in some if not many cases, particularly if they have difficulty finding a position that suits their skillset. What of them?

jdzappa wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Demanding rather high salaries for what essentially unskilled labor is what I have a problem with. A lot of these jobs aren't supposed to be something you can raise a family on.

The question is whether without these jobs being something you can raise a family on, if there are enough jobs at this point for all the people who want to raise families to be able to do so. We may have to face the possibility that changes in technology and the concentration of wealth mean there are not enough skilled jobs to go around. If that's the case, the choice is whether we pay high salaries for unskilled labor, or we divide into Two Americas: one America of the skilled & successful that have families, and another America of an underclass of people child free not by choice, but because they were out-competed in the market for one of those skilled jobs.

Having a family is a choice, not a right. For that matter, I don't think that society owes you a good living just because you exist.

I'm not talking about rights vs. choices or someone being owed a good living. I'm talking about the America you want to live in. I'm talking about us facing a situation where someone who was talented enough and a hard enough worker to have a family and a good living in a previous generation cannot in this generation. That sounds like the opposite of what we think of when we think of America: we think of opportunity increasing with each generation, not decreasing. It's that old line from BioShock: "we all make choices; but in the end, our choices make us." In the end, if we stay with the choice we have made regarding unskilled jobs not paying enough to have a family and a good living, we may wind up in an America where a family and a good life is a luxury, whereas before it might not have been a right, but it sure wasn't a luxury either.

I do grant your point that technology and globalization may change how we employ people, but I find it very sad that we're willing to hurt the up-and-coming small business starters and entrepreneurs (who will bear the brunt of having to pay much higher wages for new employees as their franchises/new restaurants/stores grow). I'm also afraid of skyrocketing costs of goods and services if we set a wage that's double the current minimum.

I just see the law of unintended consequences all over this.

Maybe. Then again, maybe it will be easier for the up-and-coming small business starters and entrepreneurs to make it in an environment where the employees of the big businesses are paid well. I'm far from an economist, but my impression is that if we're talking about SBS&Es, they draw the bulk of their customers from the middle class. In a world split between rich and poor, SBS&Es won't have to worry about paying higher wages: they won't have the customers to pay anyone anything. In a world where there's a middle class, they'll have the customers to pay those higher wages.

edit:

jdzappa wrote:

Also, we're not talking about people being consigned to working these jobs forever. So I'm not seeing the "condemned to poverty" angle.

Actually, I think we are talking about that. Maybe the issue here is a disagreement regarding the premise?

jdzappa wrote:

Having a family is a choice, not a right. For that matter, I don't think that society owes you a good living just because you exist. I do grant your point that technology and globalization may change how we employ people, but I find it very sad that we're willing to hurt the up-and-coming small business starters and entrepreneurs (who will bore the brunt of having to pay much higher wages for new employees as their franchises/new restaurants/stores grow). I'm also afraid of skyrocketing costs of goods and services if we set a wage that's double the current minimum.

I just see the law of unintended consequences all over this.

So $12 an hour for maybe 30 hours a week is you consider a good living these days? That will barely get you above the poverty line. You'd have to work two or more of those jobs to come anywhere near enough money for a "good life" and the trade off for that is that you'd never have time to see your family or friends.

I'm completely OK with hurting up-and-coming business starters and entrepreneurs, especially the ones who have such shaky business models that they need dirt cheap labor. I'd gladly sacrifice the 99 cent value meal to make sure people get paid enough to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Ultimately, those higher wages will help the overall economy because the people who now make more are going to spend that money. Which means they're going to buy goods and services that another company has to provide and when demand for said good or service increases, that company will have to hire someone new who, in turn, will spend the wages they earn. What's good for our economy right now is to increase that amount of economic activity.

Here in Australia the Federal minimum award wage in $16.37, it has just been increased from $15.98. So that is the guarenteed minimum anyone over 21 can expect to be paid, under 21 it is scaled down based on wage.

A lot of "unskilled" labour, for example concretors have an expectation to earn approx 425 an hour casually.

We also have a social welfare system to support principal parents with no obligations to look for work until their youngest child turns 6 and to support the unemployed while they are looking for work and until they are earning a minimum of about $480 a week.

Economically Australia has come through the last five years better than a lot of other first world countries while maintaining this welfare system as well as socialised healthcare.

I would agree with the people above who have made arguements about decreased crime, also consider, the more disposable income that is available will increase the marginal propensity to consume and stimulate the economy.

So we're in agreement that having some sort of minimum wage is alright, and are debating on exactly how high it should be?

Seems like the sort of problem that demands an empirical solution.

OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Having a family is a choice, not a right. For that matter, I don't think that society owes you a good living just because you exist. I do grant your point that technology and globalization may change how we employ people, but I find it very sad that we're willing to hurt the up-and-coming small business starters and entrepreneurs (who will bore the brunt of having to pay much higher wages for new employees as their franchises/new restaurants/stores grow). I'm also afraid of skyrocketing costs of goods and services if we set a wage that's double the current minimum.

I just see the law of unintended consequences all over this.

So $12 an hour for maybe 30 hours a week is you consider a good living these days? That will barely get you above the poverty line. You'd have to work two or more of those jobs to come anywhere near enough money for a "good life" and the trade off for that is that you'd never have time to see your family or friends.

I'm completely OK with hurting up-and-coming business starters and entrepreneurs, especially the ones who have such shaky business models that they need dirt cheap labor. I'd gladly sacrifice the 99 cent value meal to make sure people get paid enough to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Ultimately, those higher wages will help the overall economy because the people who now make more are going to spend that money. Which means they're going to buy goods and services that another company has to provide and when demand for said good or service increases, that company will have to hire someone new who, in turn, will spend the wages they earn. What's good for our economy right now is to increase that amount of economic activity.

OG, I think you mentioned before you have a pretty well-paid corporate job. What did you have to do to get that job? Work more than 30 hours/week (I'm betting so since you work in tech right)? Go to college? In other words, study more, work harder and smarter, etc? So why are you defending to your last breath people not willing to do these things? As a guy who regularly works 50-70 hours but still has time for the family, volunteering and GASP gaming, I also don't buy that you can't work hard and have a life.

It's easy to hate on business owners without realizing the chances they take, the hours they work, and the opportunity costs they give up if their labor costs have to double.

BTW, I'm not advocating eliminating the minimum wage nor am I defending abusive employers. I'm pushing back against the idea we need to double it, which will have the cascading effect of forcing everyone's wages up by significantly more. Unless we're all cool with set wages based on your experience and education - which worked out great in Maoist China and the USSR.

There is, once again, an unspoken assumption that the only reason a person would be forced to work an unskilled position is because they were unwilling to work hard enough. What if this assumption was not true? Are you willing to question its validity?

So is the "getting starting" age range now up to the 30s? It used to be in your teens...

jdzappa wrote:

OG, I think you mentioned before you have a pretty well-paid corporate job. What did you have to do to get that job? Work more than 30 hours/week (I'm betting so since you work in tech right)? Go to college? In other words, study more, work harder and smarter, etc? So why are you defending to your last breath people not willing to do these things? As a guy who regularly works 50-70 hours but still has time for the family, volunteering and GASP gaming, I also don't buy that you can't work hard and have a life.

It's easy to hate on business owners without realizing the chances they take, the hours they work, and the opportunity costs they give up if their labor costs have to double.

BTW, I'm not advocating eliminating the minimum wage nor am I defending abusive employers. I'm pushing back against the idea we need to double it, which will have the cascading effect of forcing everyone's wages up by significantly more. Unless we're all cool with set wages based on your experience and education - which worked out great in Maoist China and the USSR.

My bit about 30 hours a week has nothing to do with the work ethic of minimum wage workers. It has everything to do with how many hours the business will let the worker have. Since the law says additional benefits kick in when workers work more than 30 hours a week, businesses almost universally cap their employees' hours just shy of that mark.

I'll defend those people to my last breath not because they aren't willing to do those things as you say, but because they might not be able to those things.

Not everyone can afford college. Me? I had parents who viewed higher education as being essential and something that they had--and could afford--to provide their children. Not everyone has parents like mine. Nor can everyone afford to take on loads of debt to get a degree. Even more, not everyone has the ability to get a college degree. And without that piece of paper your economic potential is sharply curtailed.

Your work schedule is likely much more consistent than someone who has to work several different minimum wage jobs. It's easy to work more than 40 hours a week when that just involves going in a bit earlier or staying a bit later. It's a lot harder when that involves juggling constantly changing schedules from two different managers who don't give a f*ck that you have another job. Add to that the challenge of actually having to get to those jobs, relying either on public transportation that eats up even more of your time or a less-than-reliable car if you're lucky.

And I'm going to bet that you have a wonderful wife you and, even though she likely works, is still around to handle your kids when you're working late. Now imagine trying to work 70 hours a week if you were the only parent as many minimum wage parents are.

All I'm saying is that it's a very different world trying to get by on minimum wage. I have a close friend who, for various reasons, is doing just that now and sh*t that I never even think about are major disruptions to her life simply because of how little money she has.

BTW, I'm not hating on entrepreneurs, either. You want to create the next Google, go right ahead. You'll create some very nice, well-paying jobs. I simply don't think we need to keep millions in poverty because fast food franchise owners don't want to raise their prices.

Your fears of a minimum wage increase resulting in America going the way of the Soviet Union and Maoist China are entirely misplaced. Having that wage increase cascade up through the economy would be a fantastic thing because rampant capitalism has kept workers wages flat since the 70s.

Forty years of productivity gains haven't gone into worker's paychecks. They've gone into dividend checks. And that has resulted in a level of income disparity in this country that rivals that of the worst of African dictators.

High levels of income disparity are terrible for our economy: people don't have enough money to spend so the economy slows or contracts and, most importantly, people begin to lose their faith in and trust of economic institutions. And, even worse, high levels of income disparity is corrosive for our society and democracy.

That dovetails into another unstated assumption - that the capital outlays of small and even big investors are what drive job generation and the economy. The truer reality, as any entrepreneur knows, is that demand and markets are what fuel business. More demand means more jobs and more economic activity. It is not the entrepreneur that generates this demand. It is the marketplace where people have money to spend. Where money is distributed widely, demand for mass market goods rises and demand for labor in businesses catering to those products also rises.

Where money is concentrated in the hands of the few, demand is funneled into the whims of the rich and the powerful, generally leading to strange and fickle market demands as the fads among the rich rise and fall. This generates a secondary "gentry" class of specialists whose job is mainly to cater to the demands of the rich and the powerful. If US income disparity has had a long enough history, this process may be observable already.

OG_slinger wrote:

And I'm going to bet that you have a wonderful wife you and, even though she likely works, is still around to handle your kids when you're working late. Now imagine trying to work 70 hours a week if you were the only parent as many minimum wage parents are.

Or imagine that both parents are working 60+ hours a week to keep themselves and their kids housed, clothed, and fed.

Hypatian wrote:

Or imagine that both parents are working 60+ hours a week to keep themselves and their kids housed, clothed, and fed.

Yup, you're absolutely right. A little more than 4 in 10 households with children that are under the poverty line are two-parent households.

So $12 an hour for maybe 30 hours a week is you consider a good living these days?

This contains a point I see under represented. It is not only necessarily that minimum wage is low. It is that on top of that, plenty of retail or menial jobs only give at best 24 scheduled hours. A lot of them only give 12-16.

So that means holding more than one job which increases all kinds of costs of being employed.

LarryC wrote:

There is, once again, an unspoken assumption that the only reason a person would be forced to work an unskilled position is because they were unwilling to work hard enough. What if this assumption was not true? Are you willing to question its validity?

Adding to this - there's an assumption that, just because someone is "underneath" another in skillset or "lower down on the ladder" they are worth less.

I'd love to see all those rock stars lugging around their own amps and equipment. I'd love to see CEOs of companies making and selling their products or cleaning the factories and offices because everyone was able to quit because of poor treatment... The point is that when you're on top, you're standing on the shoulders of everyone else beneath you - if they're not doing a good job, you can't either.

jdzappa wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Demanding rather high salaries for what essentially unskilled labor is what I have a problem with. A lot of these jobs aren't supposed to be something you can raise a family on.

The question is whether without these jobs being something you can raise a family on, if there are enough jobs at this point for all the people who want to raise families to be able to do so. We may have to face the possibility that changes in technology and the concentration of wealth mean there are not enough skilled jobs to go around. If that's the case, the choice is whether we pay high salaries for unskilled labor, or we divide into Two Americas: one America of the skilled & successful that have families, and another America of an underclass of people child free not by choice, but because they were out-competed in the market for one of those skilled jobs.

Having a family is a choice, not a right. For that matter, I don't think that society owes you a good living just because you exist.

Articles 16 and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights disagree with you.

jdzappa wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Having a family is a choice, not a right. For that matter, I don't think that society owes you a good living just because you exist. I do grant your point that technology and globalization may change how we employ people, but I find it very sad that we're willing to hurt the up-and-coming small business starters and entrepreneurs (who will bore the brunt of having to pay much higher wages for new employees as their franchises/new restaurants/stores grow). I'm also afraid of skyrocketing costs of goods and services if we set a wage that's double the current minimum.

I just see the law of unintended consequences all over this.

So $12 an hour for maybe 30 hours a week is you consider a good living these days? That will barely get you above the poverty line. You'd have to work two or more of those jobs to come anywhere near enough money for a "good life" and the trade off for that is that you'd never have time to see your family or friends.

I'm completely OK with hurting up-and-coming business starters and entrepreneurs, especially the ones who have such shaky business models that they need dirt cheap labor. I'd gladly sacrifice the 99 cent value meal to make sure people get paid enough to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Ultimately, those higher wages will help the overall economy because the people who now make more are going to spend that money. Which means they're going to buy goods and services that another company has to provide and when demand for said good or service increases, that company will have to hire someone new who, in turn, will spend the wages they earn. What's good for our economy right now is to increase that amount of economic activity.

OG, I think you mentioned before you have a pretty well-paid corporate job. What did you have to do to get that job? Work more than 30 hours/week (I'm betting so since you work in tech right)? Go to college? In other words, study more, work harder and smarter, etc? So why are you defending to your last breath people not willing to do these things? As a guy who regularly works 50-70 hours but still has time for the family, volunteering and GASP gaming, I also don't buy that you can't work hard and have a life.

Why aren't people "willing to do these things"? For every corporate job there must be 50? 100? 200? unskilled jobs in the economy. How exactly is everyone, no matter how hard they work, going to become an investment banker? And yet the world is still going to need street sweepers, fruit pickers, meat plant workers. It literally wouldn't take a fortnight of those kinds of jobs not getting done for society to collapse. Shouldn't we be mindful of ensuring that that kind of actually critical job gets done?

jdzappa wrote:

It's easy to hate on business owners without realizing the chances they take, the hours they work, and the opportunity costs they give up if their labor costs have to double.

Oh, boo hoo hoo. You do realise what a mind bogglingly privileged position it is to have the chance to start your own personal private business? I'm broadly for appropriate, transparent state aid to encourage useful business but in the end of the day the brunt of the chances that are being taken need to fall on the shoulders of such entrepreneurs. I don't really see why private concerns should get undue state aid that other private citizens aren't being handed

jdzappa wrote:

BTW, I'm not advocating eliminating the minimum wage nor am I defending abusive employers. I'm pushing back against the idea we need to double it, which will have the cascading effect of forcing everyone's wages up by significantly more.

Citation needed. OG-slinger has somewhat dealt with this but with almost no exception most of the research done shows that the narrower the wage disparity in a country the better it performs on just about every metric of social and economic health. I doubt you'll read it but The Spirit Level by Pickett and Wilkinson gives a very readable summary of what research is out there on this

Fundamentally, if private businesses pay below living-standard wages then the welfare state ends up paying to make up the difference. This means that these businesses are externalising their costs to society, and this means that the state via private taxation ends up subsidising these businesses costs in order to keep such businesses running. It's simply not clear why businesses should receive this "stealth" subsidy? It's not especially clear why everyone's tax should be used to prop up private concerns. And if we do believe in the "fairness" or markets then businesses that aren't competitive without such subsidies should be allow to close.

Personally I've yet to read a solid, substantiated reason why businesses should be allowed to externalise their costs in this way but I'm all ears.

Here's the thing: Society has changed such that what the average man had to offer in the middle of the 20th century is now simply worth less here in the U.S for a variety of reasons, two of them being that the top tier jobs of today tend to be fairly demanding cognitively and require an education background and IQ that's simply beyond what the average person is capable (not everyone can be a programmer or video game designer) . Secondly, mechanization is taking over many of the roles those average people use to perform -- teller, cashier, etc. Even lawyers have been undermined by computer software, but on the whole, if you're cognitively gifted and aren't abnormal in any other way, you will find success in America. Before the 70s, average and below average people could also find the good life. Now these people are struggling more than ever.

At the same time here in the United States, the business class is absolutely determined to keep wages low, and one way they've managed to do this is to support the supply of huge numbers of unskilled immigrants, mainly from the southern border. This makes even unskilled and lower tier jobs somewhat more competitive, which by necessity keeps wages low.

Imagine if the United States implemented a policy that said: Any dentist or doctor of medicine from a first world nation (or at least earned a professional degree from a reputable university) and who speaks English may immigrate to the U.S and practice their profession without hassle. I don't think American doctors and dentists would like that very much -- they'd face more competition and would have to be content with lower pay (actually I really do think the U.S should do this, it will bring health care costs down.) But the point is, American society is simply content with subjecting its poor and underclass to a similar competition from South America's poor and unskilled. It's simply supply and demand, and the business class is using the supply of illegals coming through the southern border to keep demand down and hence the pay down.

runeba wrote:

It's simply supply and demand, and the business class is using the supply of illegals coming through the southern border to keep demand down and hence the pay down.

No such thing as an illegal person.

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