Not until all Americans who can work have jobs
Is every natural-born American entitled to a job that pays what they want, for the hours they want, in the location they want, regardless of their qualifications for the job?
I would understand logic of bringing people from other countries when there is a shortage of workers but with current market it doesn't seem to be the case.
In the world you're imagining, is x+y potentially infinite?
There is no developed country on earth where labor shortages are addressed by "just increase the salary until you find a native-born person to take the job."
> "labor shortages"
This is a misnomer is _my_ point. A labor shortage has a trivial solution, "pay more". It's intentionally framed as "labor shortage" by capital who would prefer the labor pool be near-infinite so they can pick the best for the cheapest. No, no company is going to like it. And that's okay, immigration, and government policies more broadly, should not be about "what would maximize private capital profits?" They should serve the broader American public.
If companies can't find a farm laborer at 100k/yr then that sounds like it's an *incredible* situation for the average worker.
Whenever you think a solution to a problem that plagues an entire nation (especially one the size of the US) is "trivial", you should ask the question: if it's so trivial, why hasn't it been fixed after so many years? And if your answer depends on some sort of conspiracy, you know you're wrong.
There are so many problems with "pay more". Let's start with a simple one: it's based on the assumption that the employer's only alternative to paying more is going without the output. In a lot of labor markets, this just isn't the case.
Jobs get mechanized/automated. They get outsourced to a different country. The employer reduces output (reduces staff) and in many cases at the same time increases prices. Sometimes, as has been seen with restaurants and retail, hours get cut or they go out of business.
Another problem with your "solution" is that in many markets, especially those related to healthcare, it's not just pay that limits hiring. It's things like caps on residency slots due to Medicare funding, a lack of clinical placements, a lack of faculty, etc. You can't pay more to hire workers that don't exist because the market structure doesn't allow for those workers to exist in the needed numbers.
> If companies can't find a farm laborer at 100k/yr then that sounds like it's an incredible situation for the average worker.
Except this experiment has been tried. Look up the Bracero program, which was terminated in the 1960s to increase wages for domestic farmworkers. I'll give you a hint: a study comparing states heavily exposed to bracero labor against states that used little found basically no wage or employment gain for domestic farmworkers.
The farm doesn't survive with a bunch of recent university grads who studied CompSci picking fruit at $100,000/year. The farm mechanizes, where possible, and switches to crops that require less labor. And the market fills the demand for the crops that were switched out with imports.
And let's also be honest: the average 20-something native-born American doesn't want to pick fruit in 100+ degree heat in dusty small farming towns where there's nothing to do, the male-to-female ratios are out of whack, etc. This too has been tried: UFW ran a "Take Our Jobs" campaign about a decade ago and...wait for it...literally nobody wanted to.
That's because adding people to the economy creates more demand
In times of recession, things might be different - but immigration tends to take care of itself in that regard. When a country has unfilled labor demand, immigration goes up. When it has no labor demand, immigration goes down.
Will I ever be able to retire, doubtful. Have a family, probably not. Are these personal failings I need to take responsibility for, absolutely. Still my expectations are very low and my earnings and lifestyle reflect this.
Where do you want me to move? What job do you want me to take? What more do you want to take from me? Do I deserve less, more, just enough? Why do I have to listen to you about that?
You have _no_ clue what you are talking about.
That's entirely reasonable but for you or anyone else to get such a job, two things are required: you need to have the capability (knowledge/experience/skills) to fill an open role and a prospective employer needs to offer you compensation that you're willing to accept for filling it.
> Where do you want me to move? What job do you want me to take?
I don't want you to do anything. If you want a job, don't you have to figure out what you can do and where you can go to find one? I'm not going to suggest it's always easy, because it's not, but if you can't find a job that can pay a wage that meets your needs and expectations, don't you have to look at what you can offer and/or where you can go to find such a job?
What is the alternative?
> Do I deserve less, more, just enough?
How would I be able to answer that? What you actually get in today's market is a function of many things, including the skills and experience you have, where you live, the demand for what you can offer versus supply, etc.
> What more do you want to take from me?
Please explain how I have taken anything from you.
> Why do I have to listen to you about that?
You don't have to listen to me about anything. I'm not a prospective employer, and I'm not a politician creating immigration policy.
> You have _no_ clue what you are talking about.
With all due respect, you don't know anything about the personal situation of anyone you interact with online. You started your reply out with a discussion of your difficult experience, and while I empathize with your experience and think it's indicative of America's problematic economy, it doesn't make you uniquely qualified to tell other people that they don't know anything.
Demographics are real. Immigration is a given in developed countries with aging populations. The idea that there's ever going to be a way to guarantee every native-born American (or Canadian, or European, etc.) a job before an immigrant gets a job is just fantasy.
There are many problems in today's labor markets. Youth unemployment. Underemployment. Wages that haven't kept up with inflation. The cost of living crisis. But salaries just aren't going to grow without limit until employers find a native-born American to do the job. It doesn't work that way and it never has.
Capitalists come out of the woodwork to denounce things like the minimum wage or unions that distort the fair market value of labor because they want to pay as little as possible and not a cent more. Why do you think automation and outsourcing exist to begin with? Why are we putting Manhattan Project scale effort into AI? Wages are an inefficiency in the market that capitalism has always sought to ruthlessly optimize away.
And it is uncontroversial in most countries that a country should do this.
So this isn't a contradiction. Indeed america is capitalist. And it is also prioritizing its own citizens. There is nothing weird about that.
You must have responded to the wrong post as it has nothing to do with my statement.
That statement is that there is nothing about capitalism that prevents a country from prioritizing its own citizens. That is a perfectly normal and rational thing to do.
Additionally, the exact percentages of unemployement rates also has little to do with capitalism, nor does the uncommonness of fully achieving a lofty but possibly valuable goal also has nothing to do with what capitalism is, nor does it say very much about how valuable that goal is or the value in attempting to aspirationally achieve it.
OK. You can't handle context, noted.
>That statement is that there is nothing about capitalism that prevents a country from prioritizing its own citizens.
The free market is what prevents it. The purpose of capitalism is the creation of capital and its transfer to the capitalist class, and the purpose of corporations is to maximize profits to facilitate that process as quickly and efficiently as possible. Neither capitalism as a system nor corporations have an obligation to improve quality of life for their employees beyond their market value, or to "prioritize" the social welfare over profit, or to hire more people than they need.
It's simple supply and demand and there isn't a demand for American labor.
>Additionally, the exact percentages of unemployement rates also has little to do with capitalism
which is weird because you're arguing that capitalist companies need to prioritize "citizen" labor in order to reduce unemployment, or that governments need to force them to.
If by capitalism as a system, we are refering to countries that are capitalists, it seems fairly uncontroversial to say that such countries can prioritize their own citizens.
It is not weird or controversial to say that countries, even capitalist ones, prioritize their citizens in certain cases, nor is it weird to suggest that they aught do so.
> which is weird because you're arguing that capitalist companies need to prioritize "citizen" labor in order to reduce unemployment, or that governments need to force them to.
I am suggesting that it is compatible with being a capitalist country, and is not weird, unusually, or bad to do such a common thing as prioritizing your own citizens.
I wouldn't say that they need to. Merely that it is a normal and compatible, and in many cases desirable goal for said citizens.
Do you... think that people who are pro capitalism believe that their own ideology is harmful? Obviously proponents of a belief think that their ideas and philosophy help their own citizens.
> I'm all for socialism
Thats only because you have definitionally defined socialism as "When you do things that are good", not realizing that other people think that their ideas are also good.
The reason why people support capitalism is specifically because they think it is a good idea and benefits a country, and its citizens.
Globalism has ruined that entirely, and there’s no amount of implying these people are closed minded or incurious that will make them change their mind on this issue.