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And the government isn't exactly helping.
On February 2, 2009, NumbersUSA with the Coalition for the Future American Worker launched the above "elevator ad" in an extended nationwide educational campaign on cable TV.
The purpose of the ad is to inform the public of two government statistics that, when placed together, show an outrageous participation of our federal government in increasing the numbers of unemployed Americans.
The two statistics from last year?
- 2.5 million Americans lost jobs
- The federal government brought in 1.5 million new foreign workers to take jobs
NumbersUSA has been doing everything in its power the last three months to persuade the nation's political leaders and media leaders to address this incongruous policy. Yet to date, there has been no indication whatsoever of a slow-down in importing an average of 138,000 new foreign workers each month -- even as half-million Americans a month are losing jobs.
This tells only part of the story, of course. Part of the problem is that employers want to hire the cheapest workers they can, even if they're not the best. Part of the problem is that sometimes they ARE the best, because US schools aren't graduating enough qualified engineers and other technical professionals.¹ Too many people want the "easy money" careers like law practice and banking.² On the lower end of the scale, most of the Mexican migrant workers that people complain about are doing menial jobs that the complainers aren't willing to do in the first place.
[1] The truth of this claim is hard to ascertain. There are documented claims asserting both its truth and its falsehood.
[2] Lawyers are perhaps the most egregious example. The United States has 5% of the world's population, and 70% of the world's lawyers. The United States has slightly under 2.4 times the population of Japan, and 30 times as many lawsuits per year. The US has three lawyers for every doctor, five lawyers for every four police officers, two lawyers for every three engineers.
Re: She's still there, last time I looked --
I know that seasonal jobs in Maine go begging every year -- the Bar Harbor tourist-trap folks import labor from the Caribbean and ex-Soviet bloc, to flip burgers and clean hotel rooms. Always stirring up the congressional delegation for more work visas. And several apple orchards have shut down because of a chronic shortage of pickers each fall.
Re: She's still there, last time I looked --
o not just mexican, but especially brazillian, and lately, other cultures are just pouring in. oddly, i don't see many folx from india doing these sorts of jobs - don't know why.
o in "expensive to live areas", which are typically summering areas, but not always, for tourists, you cannot LIVE there on the wages they pay, unless you are already living there year round with family/etc, let alone endure the commutes that are probably when you can find a place to live...
the wages are the lowest possible usually, for long days, and sometimes hard work. they cannot afford to pay more, and have gotten used to for years not paying more...
thus, very hard to find workers generally speaking... the cycle is broken. "back in the day", they could rely on locals childrens and such to do work, but a lot of those moved out when taxes to live in their long time ancestral homes became too much of a burden to pay: i met someone living on one of the boston islands. they've had the property a LONG time, the property/shack is easily worth a million plus now. it's a cottage really. beach house. small. they have neighbors building illegal (installing tiered retaining walls for instance) multistory minimansions next to them that just jack up the values more and more... they're holding out, but they will have to sell eventually. they LIVE there, most of the others just visit - but those others expect to be able to hire services...
o in most of the other areas, like one's local neighborhood, any jobs at any place like mcdonald's, or food courts, office cleaning, grounds crews, lawn work, etc, is largely dominated by certain groups. they work hard, and deserve it. except if they are illegal, imho. there are a LOT of people who would do that work, if they could get the jobs... but they can't. it's very very difficult to get in. i know carpenters that can't get work, because a GC can hire 8 semi-skilled guys for the same pay, and get a lot more done, even if it's sloppy and needs to be redone. cash. no taxes. illegal. that's how they play it.
o another issue is that a lot of the money is sent "home" to support out of country families/etc. that doesn't help our economy at all. much of this money is not getting taxes payed properly on it, or worse, ID thieves are causing OTHER people to accept the burden of these false taxes... yikes.
o free medical care and other drains on services from non-citizens... i don't even want to get going on that one.
imho, we need to immediately suspend H1B and other work import programs, ENFORCE existing laws really, including "no papers == no work" and FINE the crap out of businesses that overlook this, lock the borders down from illegals coming in, get rid of these stupid laws where it's wrong/immoral/whatever to ask a potential immigrant for their proof of citizenship/id (course, it's okay to ask a citizen for id)... and boot them out.
yes, there's a ton of issues to work out here, but we can figure it out. the majority of other countries have, and don't tolerate what is happening here. no papers? no work, no housing, no money, they leave on their own.
THIS would probably do wonders for the economy in short order.
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Re: She's still there, last time I looked --
Re: She's still there, last time I looked --
Re: She's still there, last time I looked --
That said, I haven't looked at the current CA state budget to see what the actual breakdown of the red ink is. So take it as hearsay.
ETA: According to this article, the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants (including the cost of incarcerating illegal-immigrant felons, who make up 11% of the California prison population) is about $5 billion a year.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-cap2-2009feb02,0,4875070.column
That's a lot smaller chunk of the state's budget shortfall
than it used to bethan I remember it being (trying to be accurate here), but then, when I was last paying close attention to it seven or eight years ago, my recollection is the budget shortfall was somewhere around the $10 billion mark, not $42 billion.