Comment by awinder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by awinder | Hacker News Reader

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You can’t do a rewrite on something involving 10-20M jobs without a migration plan, which is essentially why huge complex problems don’t get solved. When you get into actually coming up with real plans, you end up in webs that just touch too many people. And trust me, these are not problems that are solved by throwing money, they’re deeply serious webs of entanglement that won’t be solved with simplification.

I’ll give you one counterexample, but trust me there’s millions of them. Meatpacking is overrun with off the books labor. You could throw around $15, $30 an hour salaries and it wouldn’t matter because salary isn’t the killer. It’s lawsuits from people falling in the equipment that simply go away when the laborer wasn’t supposed to be here. It’s being able to have something like coronavirus come around and react. I’m not repping the current system but catcalls to just solve it aren’t actually helpful, they’re a big reason why we are here in the first place.

I don't suggest it would be easy. But even the anecdotes from your comment indicate that it should be done.

'Border security' is not what defines migration patterns - its jobs. If everyone in the US must be paid a reasonable wage, irrespective of documentations status - then it's not only moral and fair, it's also civic. The entire system is deeply hypocritical.

A lot of jobs will disappear, some will get more automated, in some cases prices will be passed on.

I'm doubtful any of it will change: 'one side' is addicted to the votes, the 'other side' addicted to the profits, and secretly everyone is addicted to low prices.

Yeah that’s why this isn’t a serious argument, because no one is just going to watch a lot of jobs disappear or become automated etc without a plan. We’ve gone from “hey just do this one thing raise min wage” to “hey you know it’s gonna be painful and I don’t know fully what’s going to happen but you know, fairness”. No one would ever go for it, and for good reason.

There would never be a plan. The system did not plan on getting where it is, and it would not get out.

The best thing the government could do is provided visibility into the policies i.e. 'we're going to require $X min wage on this date, and $Y on this date, and after 20XX we're going to be checking on businesses, starting with fines in the first 6 months, and then more serious.

The system would have to adapt - and it absolutely could.

There is some possibility it would happen in that the notion of providing a 'living wage' to everyone would be popular, and it could by virtue of a Supreme Court ruling for example be extended to everyone. It would be then up to the government to theoretically enforce wages and standards for non-citizens, it comes down to the political will - plus - there will be millions pushing for it, thinking about their own personal gain, not necessarily piecing together the likelihood of keeping their jobs. I bet most undocumented workers, once they find out they are legally entitled to a bunch of things, and would have the protection of the justice system ... would push for their ostensible rights.

It would be a pragmatic solution to the 'gaping hole' in the economy, civility, lawlessness and solve a lot of problems at once.

Instead of ICE kicking out illegals, they turn on their head and start enforcing labour laws ... which paradoxically has a much more powerful effect on the border.

But yeah, very unlikely.

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