Jan

11

Illegals Immigrants and the Minimum Wage

Posted by Little Miss Know it All

January 11, 2007 |

littlemissknowitalld1.jpgTime for Round Two.  Ready?

So, are you incensed about illegal immigration?  Then you should be for a rise in the minimum wage.

Here’s what I think.  First, I believe we need the immigrant labor, and we should make it easier for them to come here legally.  Truth is, without them our economy would crash, as they do jobs, very cheaply, that are gross, hard work, and mostly would go unfilled without them.  Without their cheap labor, housing would cost more, groceries would cost more, much of the things we enjoy in life would cost a lot more.  If we make a temporary worker program for them (one that doesn’t have completely unreasonable caps on it like we do now), they could come in legally, work, pay taxes, contribute to the system and then go home. 

Second, they enjoy our minimum wage, while most americans shun minimum wage jobs unless they just don’t have a choice.  As I showed before, why work at minimum wage when you can take welfare instead and be in the same living conditions?  Raise the minimum wage, you’ll have more Americans filling those jobs.  And you wouldn’t have as many openings for illegals.  If all the jobs are taken by Americans, who’s going to be climbing that fence across the border?

There are many that shout out that we can’t raise the minimum wage without hurting small businesses and losing jobs.  I’ll agree, its tougher on small businesses when wages rise–especially if they are providing decent health care coverage for their workers.  But lets be realistic–just how many small businesses pay minimum wage and provide good health care coverage?  Most of the time minimum wage workers don’t get insurance through work.  Small businesses who pay the minimum wage have a high rate of turnover, because workers leave looking for better pay and benefits.  A higher minimum wage, historically, has been shown to increase job levels, as more Americans go out and take advantage of the higher wages.  They also lead to higher job stability rates. 

Not to mention that its the ethical thing to do.  How many of you want to tell someone to go after the American dream, knowing full well that our most basic, minimum wage won’t provide it?  How many of you want children to continue growing up on welfare, on food stamps, on free lunches in schools even though their parents both work full time?

Not Little Miss Know it All.

So, what do you think?  Are the two tied together?  Or completely separate beasts?


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