4 ms·

Not until all Americans who can work have jobs

by 486sx33 1mo ago

ElProlactin 1mo ago
And what do you do about the people who only want to work in jobs that they're not qualified for, and who have unrealistic expectations about pay, benefits, work demands, etc.? 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?
- sandmn 1mo ago
  But isn't that how market supposed to work? Company offers to pay x for the job, can't find anyone for x, so it raises salary to x+y. 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.
  - ElProlactin 1mo ago
    > Company offers to pay x for the job, can't find anyone for x, so it raises salary to x+y. In the world you're imagining, is x+y potentially infinite?
    - g3f32r 1mo ago
      Is there a job you wouldn't do for potentially infinite dollars? Can you assert that to be true for hundreds of millions of Americans?
      - ElProlactin 29d ago
        Of course not, but you seem to miss the point: no company is going to pay $500,000/year for a part-time office assistant, $200,000/year for a bus boy, $2 million/year for a construction worker, $100,000/year for a farm laborer. 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."
        g3f32r 29d ago
        I promise that I'm not missing your point. > "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.
        ElProlactin 29d ago
        > A labor shortage has a trivial solution, "pay more". 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.
  - SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
    Migrants don't really depress wages, except by a very marginal amount at the lowest skilled rung. 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.
- RAMJAC 1mo ago
  I was homeless for 6 months, and wanted nothing else except for a job that can pay for basics. I still don't have dental, can't save any money, but I have a room with a lock. I worked from 5pm till 4:30 in the morning from covid until a year ago with zero benefits! 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.
  - ElProlactin 29d ago
    > I was homeless for 6 months, and wanted nothing else except for a job that can pay for basics. 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.
krapp 1mo ago
But America is a capitalist system. The market has determined that not all Americans deserve jobs. Are Americans willing to work a 996 schedule for 2.00/hr to compete with labor overseas?
- stale2002 1mo ago
  Nothing in capitalism prevents a country from prioritizing its own citizens. 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.
  - krapp 1mo ago
    Most capitalist countries have 100% employment for their citizens and little to no immigration? No. "Every citizen who can work having a job" is not something capitalist countries do. They all take ample advantage of foreign labor, they all have corporations that prioritize their own profits and outsource.
    - stale2002 1mo ago
      > Most capitalist countries have 100% employment for their citizens and little to no immigration 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.
      - krapp 1mo ago
        >You must have responded to the wrong post as it has nothing to do with my statement. 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.
totetsu 1mo ago
Do you propose to restrict the international flow of capital too while you're at it? Until every spare US dollar is invested in the US? or you just want to restrict the market for the 99% of people whose biggest asset is their labor.
- MisterMower 1mo ago
  Dollars and people are not the same thing. I’m not sure how you can even make the claim that they could be or even should be.
  - totetsu 1mo ago
    Thats the amazing part of a diverse society, there is a variety of opinions and world views that you can come across that that might even be completely outside your current understanding. As by being curious and trying to understand something surprising you might just gain a new and deeper understanding of the world.
    - MisterMower 1mo ago
      Most folks don’t want their minds opened to new and surprising views and opinions. They want a good job in the town they grew up in so they can take care of their family and raise their kids in the culture they were raised in. 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.
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]

Not until all Americans who can work have jobs

by 486sx33 1mo ago

Not until all Americans who can work have jobs

And what do you do about the people who only want to work in jobs that they're not qualified for, and who have unrealistic expectations about pay, benefits, work demands, etc.? 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?

sandmn 1mo ago
But isn't that how market supposed to work? Company offers to pay x for the job, can't find anyone for x, so it raises salary to x+y. 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.
- ElProlactin 1mo ago
  > Company offers to pay x for the job, can't find anyone for x, so it raises salary to x+y. In the world you're imagining, is x+y potentially infinite?
  - g3f32r 1mo ago
    Is there a job you wouldn't do for potentially infinite dollars? Can you assert that to be true for hundreds of millions of Americans?
    - ElProlactin 29d ago
      Of course not, but you seem to miss the point: no company is going to pay $500,000/year for a part-time office assistant, $200,000/year for a bus boy, $2 million/year for a construction worker, $100,000/year for a farm laborer. 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."
      - g3f32r 29d ago
        I promise that I'm not missing your point. > "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.
        ElProlactin 29d ago
        > A labor shortage has a trivial solution, "pay more". 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.
- SmirkingRevenge 1mo ago
  Migrants don't really depress wages, except by a very marginal amount at the lowest skilled rung. 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.
RAMJAC 1mo ago
I was homeless for 6 months, and wanted nothing else except for a job that can pay for basics. I still don't have dental, can't save any money, but I have a room with a lock. I worked from 5pm till 4:30 in the morning from covid until a year ago with zero benefits! 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.
- ElProlactin 29d ago
  > I was homeless for 6 months, and wanted nothing else except for a job that can pay for basics. 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.

krapp 1mo ago

But America is a capitalist system. The market has determined that not all Americans deserve jobs. Are Americans willing to work a 996 schedule for 2.00/hr to compete with labor overseas?

stale2002 1mo ago
Nothing in capitalism prevents a country from prioritizing its own citizens. 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.
- krapp 1mo ago
  Most capitalist countries have 100% employment for their citizens and little to no immigration? No. "Every citizen who can work having a job" is not something capitalist countries do. They all take ample advantage of foreign labor, they all have corporations that prioritize their own profits and outsource.
  - stale2002 1mo ago
    > Most capitalist countries have 100% employment for their citizens and little to no immigration 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.
    - krapp 1mo ago
      >You must have responded to the wrong post as it has nothing to do with my statement. 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.

totetsu 1mo ago

Do you propose to restrict the international flow of capital too while you're at it? Until every spare US dollar is invested in the US? or you just want to restrict the market for the 99% of people whose biggest asset is their labor.

MisterMower 1mo ago
Dollars and people are not the same thing. I’m not sure how you can even make the claim that they could be or even should be.
- totetsu 1mo ago
  Thats the amazing part of a diverse society, there is a variety of opinions and world views that you can come across that that might even be completely outside your current understanding. As by being curious and trying to understand something surprising you might just gain a new and deeper understanding of the world.
  - MisterMower 1mo ago
    Most folks don’t want their minds opened to new and surprising views and opinions. They want a good job in the town they grew up in so they can take care of their family and raise their kids in the culture they were raised in. 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.

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]