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Everyone is going on about a "living wage", but what about the illegal aliens who live in America who make substantially less than that, and come here illegally

Everyone is going on about a "living wage", but what about the illegal aliens who live in America who make substantially less than that, and come here illegally with great effort to get it? Why would they do that unless it was profitable? They seem to have no problem living on what most people would not consider a "living wage". It seems obvious then that the goal in mind with raising the minimum wage is to make it even more difficult to employ Americans, leaving those jobs to illegal aliens and punishing businesses who try to follow the law and only hire citizens. This gives those who hire illegal aliens more leverage by the fact that doing away with illegals would mean a substantially higher price hike for their products given that they would have to pay their employees that much more.

kartan 9y ago
> It seems obvious then that the goal in mind with raising the minimum wage is to make it even more difficult to employ Americans Do you realistically think that this is the goal? Do you think that someone thought, Let's look for ways that Americans can't get a job? > leaving those jobs to illegal aliens and punishing businesses who try to follow the law and only hire citizens If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal? I see why you are worried. As the article says "We said that we thought the dramatic wage increase might likely be very good for San Francisco, but it wasn't sustainable for us.". So what is good for the majority is not always good for all individuals. But that doesn't mean that it is a bad idea.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal? I suppose if it's easier to hide illegal employment altogether, rather than cook the books to hide underpaid employees, that would be a reason.
- Oxitendwe 9y ago
  >Do you realistically think that this is the goal? Do you think that someone thought, Let's look for ways that Americans can't get a job? Yes, for the reasons I mentioned in my post, which is that it gives them more leverage as an industry to protect their profits. If someone is looking to start enforcing the law and deporting aliens (harming profits because labor is now more expensive), they can then make an argument that this will lead to increased prices of their product. How much the price is increased is dependent on how much more they will have to pay citizens to work instead of aliens, which is determined in part by what the minimum wage is. >If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal? Citizens have recourse and legal power to fight unlawful activity that illegal aliens do not. If a citizen is being paid less than the minimum wage, they have no reason not to try and extract the money they are legally entitled to by using the legal process. Aliens cannot do this, they do not want to bring attention to themselves because it could get them deported. So, it is better to violate the law by hiring illegal aliens than it is to hire citizens and pay them less than the legally mandated minimum wage. The fact of the matter is that minimum wage doesn't magically make everyone get paid more, it just makes jobs that don't produce more money than the arbitrarily-decided minimum wage illegal, and now nobody gets them. This apparently includes small coffee shops, but not e.g. Starbucks. The small coffee shop employees by the way seemed to have no problem with the former status quo, because if they did they would probably have either unionized or found other jobs. Instead, they all lost their jobs when their wages were legally required to be increased beyond that which the owner could afford. Way to go, guys. Now nobody gets anything, except Starbucks, who gets less competition and more customers. In whose best interests was this decision made in, exactly?

kartan 9y ago

> It seems obvious then that the goal in mind with raising the minimum wage is to make it even more difficult to employ Americans Do you realistically think that this is the goal? Do you think that someone thought, Let's look for ways that Americans can't get a job? > leaving those jobs to illegal aliens and punishing businesses who try to follow the law and only hire citizens If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal? I see why you are worried. As the article says "We said that we thought the dramatic wage increase might likely be very good for San Francisco, but it wasn't sustainable for us.". So what is good for the majority is not always good for all individuals. But that doesn't mean that it is a bad idea.

khedoros1 9y ago
> If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal? I suppose if it's easier to hide illegal employment altogether, rather than cook the books to hide underpaid employees, that would be a reason.
Oxitendwe 9y ago
>Do you realistically think that this is the goal? Do you think that someone thought, Let's look for ways that Americans can't get a job? Yes, for the reasons I mentioned in my post, which is that it gives them more leverage as an industry to protect their profits. If someone is looking to start enforcing the law and deporting aliens (harming profits because labor is now more expensive), they can then make an argument that this will lead to increased prices of their product. How much the price is increased is dependent on how much more they will have to pay citizens to work instead of aliens, which is determined in part by what the minimum wage is. >If a business doesn't care about the law, why are they paying the minimum wage in the first place? Isn't hiring illegals, illegal? Citizens have recourse and legal power to fight unlawful activity that illegal aliens do not. If a citizen is being paid less than the minimum wage, they have no reason not to try and extract the money they are legally entitled to by using the legal process. Aliens cannot do this, they do not want to bring attention to themselves because it could get them deported. So, it is better to violate the law by hiring illegal aliens than it is to hire citizens and pay them less than the legally mandated minimum wage. The fact of the matter is that minimum wage doesn't magically make everyone get paid more, it just makes jobs that don't produce more money than the arbitrarily-decided minimum wage illegal, and now nobody gets them. This apparently includes small coffee shops, but not e.g. Starbucks. The small coffee shop employees by the way seemed to have no problem with the former status quo, because if they did they would probably have either unionized or found other jobs. Instead, they all lost their jobs when their wages were legally required to be increased beyond that which the owner could afford. Way to go, guys. Now nobody gets anything, except Starbucks, who gets less competition and more customers. In whose best interests was this decision made in, exactly?