this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't understand. Is the statement incorrect? Or are you hoping that the wages for pickers will go up enough for "real Americans" to take the jobs?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm hoping the wages will go up, yes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

why hope when you can vote for people who will pass laws to make the wages go up?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

True, I should correct my statement: more people who voted did than didn't.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Did they though? Will we get laws to raise wages?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah.

Notably there’s these promises from Trump:

  • mass deportations of illegal immigrants
  • tariffs
[–] [email protected] 0 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Neither of those things are laws that raise wages.

The first one will reduce supply of all sorts of things, which will raise prices. And it's back to hope again that the suppliers raise wages.

The second one is a tool to raise prices, with no direct way of raising wages so that's kinda the opposite actually.

Any Republicans out there putting forth laws that directly raise wages?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

You're half right. Tariffs are likely to lower wages actually. But deporting illegal immigrants would probably raise the average wages of the people working in the fields that had those displaced jobs, either through supply and demand (few employees so there's more money to go around), or by citizens replacing non-citizens and getting paid full wages as a result.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

All of that is in the realm of "hopefully" and none of it is in the realm of "will happen because a law says it must."

If citizenry is the magic spell that makes employees pay people more money, why not make all the undocumented citizens with jobs citizens?

Creating a sudden and violent work shortage across a large swath of industries sounds like blowing a hole in the country's foot when the requested results is just a few dollars higher wages. Why not make those industries pay higher wages by law? You could even mandate that those industries verify citizenship before hiring new people if you really wanted to, and provide a path to citizenship for the people who are already here and proving they can do a job and pay taxes.

Paying more wages is going to raise prices in either case, why choose to leave positive outcomes to chance when lawmakers can literally mandate the positive outcomes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

See and you're wrong here too because minimum wages are higher than the wages illegal immigrants get paid. Hiring illegals is illegal, there's no incentive for the company to hire them over citizens unless it saves them money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Wouldn't it be in everyone's best interest to make those workers legal and pay them a fair wage? They're already doing the job, so if they're bad at it and not worth the wage increase to the business owner, wouldn't that mean other people could now out compete the immigrants for those same jobs?

Doing this would avoid a sudden labor market upset, extend amnesty to the businesses AND their underpaid employees (avoiding violence and suffering for everyone involved), guarantee a fair wage for all the workers involved (current and future), and make those positions competitive on the market.

The only downside is an increase in prices which is going to happen in every other case anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

This is why I support amnesty for nonviolent illegals.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Good! But do the people you vote for support that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Not enough of them do. It's hard to find pro-amnesty folks on the right.

To be clear, it's not that I oppose deporting illegals, I just think amnesty is better. And I'm not a single issue voter, so amnesty honestly wasn't a factor in my voting decisions this time around.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah, so you're back to hope, got it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Oh my gosh y'all are so ridiculous 😂😂

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is it a likely progression? And how long do you believe it will take? Also, I'm curious what you are basing your hope on and what the you believe the knock-on effects will be. It would be good to know if something similar happened in the US or another country in order to compare.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm not an psychic, but I'd imagine the more we deport, the more wages will go up. Hopefully in 4 years, we'll be in a much better place.

The biggest side effect would be higher rates for fruit/veggies and for landscaping. But I'd pay extra for fruit I know is grown ethically. I already do, as much as I try.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Setting aside all the other issues, if you think creating a worker shortage (which might increase wages short term) will do anything good for your economy: it won't.

Historically economic growth is pretty closely tied to population growth. More hands create more value. Removing hands will make the remaining hands more valuable but there is still less value created. And the people that hold economic power aren't going to give up their share easily, so one way or another it will eventually mean even less for the workers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There was population growth in the late 1800s, it wasn't until the population got paid more that the economy took off.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While that's true, the capitalists where getting richer and richer even before the big economic growth. They don't really care. Also, the wage increases had to be hard fought for by a united working class. I don't see american workers unite right now to fight the rich.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Without exploitable labor employers will have to pay employees more. Workers won't have to fight, they can do nothing and wages will still increase.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They can move production to places with available labour. You know for example the places you deported all that labour to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Which is where the tariffs come in. Helps balance everything out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

By making the products more expensive while your wages stagnate? How's that balancing anything out?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why will wages stagnante?

A rising tide raises all boats or in this case wages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not if the work follows the workers outside of the US

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I read your non-response, which is why I asked how wages will stagnate to your response to tarrifs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The argument was that wages rise if labour is scarce. My counter is that labour will just be moved outside with the people, thus countering the scarcity, thus making wages stagnate rather than increase.

Somehow tariffs are supposed to balance this out. Which is really the nonsense in all of this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Somehow tariffs are supposed to balance this out. Which is really the nonsense in all of this.

So you have no rebuttal to tarrifs stopping companies from moving manufacturing outside the US.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yes, to some extend they can achieve that, if they are high enough to cancel out the wage differences.

But they have a lot of additional effects. Companies with small margins that import ressources will have to raise prices to stay profitable, others will do it because they can riding the wave of those that must. All in all tarrifs just raise prices.

Thus the nominally raised wages stagnate in buying power.

So either the wages stagnate without the tarrifs because the work follows the cheap labour or they stagnate because tarrifs raise the prices alongside with the rising wages. The tarrifs achieve nothing for the buying power of consumers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

You don't have to completely offset wages with tarrifs just make the ROI on moving take 10 years.

The steal tarrifs Trump used led to increased production in the US while Europe production stayed the same. Tarrifs do not have to hurt buying power.

Based on your arguments I assume you're against minimum wage too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

Based on your arguments I assume you're against minimum wage too.

That wouldn't be accurate. I am for global taxes and minimum wages to stop the whole "we'll just move the company elsewhere" bullshit all together

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Yes, the buying power of consumers will take a hit from tariffs.

At first. But many of those consumers will benefit from increased wages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Creating an under class of people doesn't help. Look at the South vs the North. The south had slaves, the north largely did not. The north has much more industry.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

I'm not an psychic, but I'd imagine the more we deport, the more wages will go up

I think it's a reasonable assumption, but the reason I was asking for the basis for that hope is because I was hoping you had done some research and found some data to base that assumption on. It could have been a solid basis for it. In the UK, where Brexit was touted to achieve the same goal, the wages did go up (not a very good source, but well) however they ended up asking for the pickers, truck drivers, and handiworkers to return (EuroNews 2021, BBC 2023, Le Monde).

If you were to take a look at Germany (3rd biggest economy in the world), it struggles to get workers for elderly care and instead of increasing wages to attract more people, they are instead making easier to hire abroad e.g India.

The biggest side effect would be higher rates for fruit/veggies and for landscaping. But I'd pay extra for fruit I know is grown ethically. I already do, as much as I try.

I agree that the cost of food and landscaping will go up, which could be troubling for some who hoped for the opposite. Given how wages have not risen at the same rate as inflation, it is difficult to share your hope for increased wages - be it for the pickers and landscapers or the people paying for the produce and services. But, I may be wrong, I'm not a psychic either.

I do commend you for willing to pay more for ethically grown (and harvested) fruit. Whether your fellow countrymen and women are is yet to be seen.


In conclusion, my fear is that while there might be mass deportations and a real chance of wages going up, IMO the most likely outcomes are

  • a drastic labour shortage in under-regulated and low-wage jobs previously held by the deported
  • a quick increase in products and services of said jobs
  • following options:
    • lobbying to simplify and speed up the return of said workers to keep wages / costs down
    • prison workers being forced to do the jobs (some places already do that) --> prison industrial complex growth
    • wage increases starting from minimum wage to attract US citizens to do the jobs
    • lots of businesses going bankrupt followed by consolidation by larger businesses and acute risk or establishment of monopolies

Whether those are all good, whether they happen together or separately, I don't know, but my hopes aren't very high that the total outcome will be positive.

Good luck though.