America should prioritize legal workers. Expel all of the illegal immigrants and force corporations to step up and pay livable wages.
And I guess I find it odd that you’ve, apparently, decided that all immigrants have lower expectations and standards of living.
I take issue with the notion that immigrants inherently deserve less because of some perceived expectation of what is good enough for them based on where they came from.
You are if you're implying that wages are somehow unlivable today.
> And I guess I find it odd that you’ve, apparently, decided that all immigrants have lower expectations and standards of living.
No. They decided that themselves when they decided to spend their summer in hundreds of miles away from their family to pick strawberries for the summer to undercut domestic labor. Surely, they're intelligent enough to act according to their best interests.
> I take issue with the notion that immigrants inherently deserve less because of some perceived expectation of what is good enough for them based on where they came from.
I don't think they deserve less. Unlike GP, I'm pro immigration. I just pointing out the incompatibility between both demanding a "living wage" and laxer immigration. The price of labor is determined by supply and demand just as like anything else with a price. Low-skill immigrants consume less than the average resident, so they increase the supply of low-skilled labor much more than the demand.
I’d also point out that immigrants labor isn’t worth less in terms of pure output, but they’re forced to accept less because they aren’t offered the worker protections that citizens get. It’s not a fair supply/demand market.
Reducing all immigrants to strawberry pickers hundreds of miles from their families is also questionable.
The minimum wage is probably somewhat too low for the states, but is far too high for territories like Puerto Rico. Many employers can only afford to pay people less than minimum wage by either employing youths, who can be paid $4.25 an hour or remaining small enough to legally avoid having to pay minimum wage. Even then, labor force participation there is significantly lower than that of the US, which implies that a lot of them are simply working for less under the table.
> It’s not a fair supply/demand market.
We don't live in a perfectly efficient market. An American citizen is always going to have an advantage over a foreigner from a poor country no matter what. However, the fact millions of people work so hard to seek employment here is proof enough that the market is efficient enough to improve people's lives.
I don’t know, your point seems to boil down to ‘it’s just like that because of how it is’. Policy matters and can have an impact on the status quo. Sure, we don’t live in a perfectly efficient market but we can make improvements.
For a large part, it is. The exceptions are very limited in scope. The only reason their economy isn't completely messed up is because the minimum wage isn't enforced very well there.
I'm not sure why you have the impression that I'm in favor of the status quo. I'm explaining why forcing employers to increase wages will do little to help domestic workers unless if you discourage immigration in some way. Even if you're able to double the minimum wage with minimal economic side effects, you would just incentivize even more immigrants to seek employment here.
If my opinion doesn’t matter, my vote and political capital aren’t on the table. If one wants public support for something, the public’s opinion matters. Separately, if you ask a group of New York bankers if $500,000 is a livable wage for them, you’ll get a spectrum of answers.
Put another way, over the long term legislating significant wage increases without also creating incentives to also increase housing supply won't solve the true problem. Sure, you can move to areas with lower housing prices and commute, but the resources (time & money) to commute is a cost as well.
Seems easier to just put real penalties for corporations that exploit unauthorized workers.
Prison population too high? Fix this "supply side", build much much bigger, much cheaper gulags than today's fancy, small prisons - U.S. has a warm climate, that won't be hard or expensive or too torturous - and make sure criminals and delinquents know that these will fit EVERYONE. Make them work (say build roads) to pay for that.
And yes, U.S. needs a 24/7 physically defended border. Russia has it being a much poorer much sparser populated country with a much longer border, so U.S. can too. No "refugess", "asylum seekers" etc. You try to cross border without papers or outside of designated crossing points - you get a bullet.
Oh yea, raise the penalty for hiring illegial, or
at least enforce the laws we alwready have.
I'll probally get hammered for saying this here. HN crowd has this pollyannaish attitude towards problems that don't effect them, exception being Visa workers that are paid less than them, and the price of owning a home.
I guess it's human nature?