This is the first in a series of posts discussing common misconceptions. However, since I only have one other misconception in mind to discuss, this may be a very short series.
How often does one hear the phrase, “Doing the jobs Americans won’t do,” bandied about in the MSM? How many people out there believe that is a correct statement? Show of hands? Those of you with your hands up, sorry, I think you are mistaken.
I don’t believe there is such an animal. I think the correct statement would be, “Doing the jobs that Americans won’t do at the price they get paid.” For instance, I would not work in a sewage treatment plant even if I were paid, say, $100K per year. If you paid me $200K per year, I probably would. For $500K, definitely. So somewhere in that range is my price point for doing a disgusting (yet very necessary) job. There are people out there whose price point is lower, and that’s why they work in the sewage treatment plant. The same is true for almost any job you can think of. Everyone has a price point at which they think they are getting fair compensation for their labor and experience.
The same is true for most jobs that have a high illegal immigrant representation, such as restaurant, hotel, and construction work. For better or worse, they are willing to do the job for what most Americans apparently feel is too low a wage. My mother and sisters used to clean motels for extra money around 30 or more years ago, for instance. So they were obviously willing to do the work. I imagine that now the wages are too low for many non-illegals to consider.
Having a labor pool willing to work very cheap obviously keeps costs down for consumers, at the expense of keeping wages down for legal citizens. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether these are jobs that Americans won’t do. I doubt such a job exists.
In many cases it’s more like “doing the jobs Americans won’t do well.”
I used to be in the restaurant biz. When I needed a dishwasher, I could hire some kid, or I could hire a swarthy fellow with poor English skills and of uncertain legality. Every time I chose the former, I got someone who would sass the rest of the staff, come in late and usually stoned, complain about getting minimum wage, and who wouldn’t get the dishes clean. When I chose the latter, I got someone who came in on time, kept up with the work, and did extra cleaning or kitchen prep in his spare time.
Guess which one I hired, every time I had the chance.
Mark,
You make his point quite well…It’s not that Americans won’t do the job, they will not do it for the money that you offer. If you can’t find someone to do the job at those wages, provide better wages and benefits. Why should we subsidize through higher taxes your employment practices? Those practices cause an increase in hospital, welfare, education and law enforcement costs which we the taxpayer subsidize.
Mark
and the other kid … the one whose parents have raised to be responsible, who will work hard because s/he is working to save for college/buy first car/etc … won’t get the job because you have stereotyped them.
You get respect when you show it … and hiring the illegal because they’ll never complain least you sic ICE on ’em says more about you than your complaints about the “sassy kid”.
I recall being a dishwasher when I was a high school kid. And I did the prep work, and learned what the kitchen manager/cook was doing. Then one day, he quit without notice and I took his job on the spot, because I could. Then again, there was no Spanish spoken in that kitchen.
I washed dishes at a chain restaurant as a kid at 85% of minimum wage to help pay bills when my father was underemployed.Always gave 100% often covering shifts that use to require two people and when I decided to leave for a higher wage was offered far greater compensation,but of course an employer shouldn’t wait to offer just compensation as a valued employee walks out the door.
I’ve waited tables, janitored theatres and dug cesspools. Which are these jobs Americans won’t do again?
Edwards wants to send everyone to college.
Going from college to digging cesspools seems backwards… at the entry level anyway.
Pay scale is backwards too and god forbid we put cesspools out of the reach of the average American.
Another way to look at the question is to ask if our productivity as a nation is enhanced by cheap domestic labor like nannies, housekeepers, gardeners. If my time is worth $50HR and I can pay someone $10HR to do domestic work, its a win win.
There are other fields where the entry level workforce needs to make the $50HR person productive, if you put everyone at an entry level of $50HR then you need someone quite a bit higher to run them. Then you are priced out of the market.
Agriculture is one of those fields and at a certain price point it becomes cheaper to move agriculture over the border.
Same goes for construction… at some point it is not cost effective to build.
I maintain that aside from personal anecdotes that Americans (particularly in the urban southwest) do not raise their children to aspire to entry level labor.
Kids do not seem interested in being apprenticed today either… at least not at a wage commeasurate with productivity and the learning curve that can be absorbed by the market.
The “jobs American’s won’t do” question has always boiled down to price point and aspiration.
Americans do not aspire to be pick and shovel laborers in the necessary quantities at a wage that keep the system going. Americans aspire to college and then aspire fill offices and homes that are being built for them affordably. Affordabilty of of certain types of labor in turn drives the productivity of other more expensive labor.
What do you want your children to be?
Would you be happy if your kids dropped out community college or high school and went into strawberry picking as a vocation?
I think most Americans answer would answer no.
Strawberry picking is a task that has resisted automation due to the product and it needs 50 laborers to pick and one guy to drive the tractor. A career growth path is there, but it is a congested.
We can do without the berries. We can just say hey… it’s already mexican from top to bottom just outsource the dang things to Mexico already.
Don’t build cheap homes in Houston, Riverside, Atlanta, Denver. Pre fab them in Nogales right? Cut out the wholesalers, the distributors, and offload them to Mexico too?
Our strength as a nation is our strong middle class. Cheap labor is what feeds that beast.
I think people should be free to hire whoever they want and negotiate what they pay them. It just seems easier to me that way.
A job washing dishes pays minimum wage. That’s what it’s worth, particularly given how narrow the profit margins are and how short the average business life expectancy is in the restaurant industry. It would be worth less if employers were free to set their own wages instead of having those wages set for them by their favorite uncle.
If you want to discourage employers in this sector from hiring illegals, or to discourage those illegals from seeking such jobs, you’re going to have to make the penalties MUCH more certain, and MUCH more severe.
I favor a middle way: certified guest workers. And, yes, amnesty, provided they come forward and obtain that certification. Nobody’s happy with the status quo – and, with the new Democrat push for drivers’ licenses (and hence voter registration) for illegals, conservatives should be unhappiest of all with it.
Certified Guest Workers: Because America has been 150 years without a slave/serf class… and that’s just too long, darn it!
I’m surprised that critics of illegal immigration don’t stress this point more vigorously. And I suggest, turn the tables on the open borders crowd by asking them what interest they have in economic exploitation of illegal immigrants? Anyone making the “jobs Americans won’t do” argument is tacitly supporting such exploitation.
I think there are other points being missed here.
Most teenagers nowadays (and a lot of college students) don’t have to work, because Mommy and Daddy pay for everything. We’ve become such a wealthy nation that we’ve also become complacent. Therefore, you have a shortage of low-wage employees.
Mark Shaw’s main points are right – the job of washing dishes is worth minimum wage, as are many other menial jobs. They’re not worth $12 dollars an hour. I don’t think you’d get much higher quality employees if you ran a McDonald’s with only American workers and paid them $12, than you would if you ran one with illegals working for $6 an hour. The work ethic in this country isn’t what it once was. Take it from me – I live in Detroit, where it’s acceptable to pay someone to sit in a job bank making $22 an hour doing nothing.
I think when we decide we want to stop such illegal immigration completely, we’re going to have to ask ourselves if we are willing to pay an extra $100K for a house than we do now, or are we willing to pay $6 for a Big Mac. I don’t think we will – many McDonald’s would close, the construction business would contract, and we’d be back to square one with unemployment.
I’m just as against illegal immigration as anyone, so I’m willing to actually let the above price hikes (on just about everything) happen, just to see what the effect would be. Does anyone else feel the same way?
TV (Harry)
How about, I don’t know, open immigration like it was before 1920. All you need to is a health and criminal background check and you’re in with a green card. Last night I spoke with someone who got a green card through a frickin’ lottery. Of course she came from a white country so I guess that’s ok.
#12 – If I may paraphrase you, you are proposing that we let the market decide. Presently the market has decided that we can pay dishwashers those low wages, without benefits, because the lefties are so intent on smuggling in illegals to exploit. Cut off the flow of cheap labor and wages and prices will have to adjust.
And I am fine with that. Let’s try it – see where they end up. Then decide if we want to bring in an economic underclass to rip off so we can get cheap Big Macs.
I couldn’t agree more so let’s raise minimum wage to something a person can actually live on if he/she works full time, and we will throw in health benefits as well. Washington has one of the highest minimum wages in the country. Restaurants there must also pay tipped employees minimum wage instead of a lesser wage as in most states yet it has not caused the restaurant industry to collapse; it just means a bit less for those who can most afford it: the owners. To say we cannot afford to pay people a living wage is such a lie.
So far I feel vindicated in that no one has actually argued against my premise. What I want to see is an end to the canard that there are jobs no Americans will do. I would prefer instead that everyone speak the truth, and that truth is we seem to be content to import cheap labor that drives the wages down for citizens of this country. All I want is an honest discussion, which it appears we have here, at any rate.
The “jobs Americans won’t do” thing is definitely not a helpful little concept. I still think assimilation is what gets slighted. People who show that they have a work ethic are halfway there in my admittedly simple view of things. Slather some English skills on them and make them promise not to root for stupid Mexican soccer teams and happyfeet will say welcome mi hermano. The Catholic church has a constructive role to play here but buenos suerte getting them to step up.
The 60s really befuddled that poor little church, ask me.
cranky,
I am an American, there are jobs that I won’t do. There. lol
I have in the past done some of the jobs thet I won’t (will no longer) do. But I gotst me an edmucashun and have worked my way up the economic ladder and no longer need to do those jobs. Are they beneath me? No. My son will probably be working his way through college as a dishwasher. I can afford to pay for most of his education, but not all. I think he will be a better person for it.
“#12 – If I may paraphrase you, you are proposing that we let the market decide. Presently the market has decided that we can pay dishwashers those low wages, without benefits, because the lefties are so intent on smuggling in illegals to exploit. Cut off the flow of cheap labor and wages and prices will have to adjust.
And I am fine with that. Let’s try it – see where they end up.”
“I couldn’t agree more so let’s raise minimum wage to something a person can actually live on if he/she works full time, and we will throw in health benefits as well.”
I would like to point out that government mandating wages and benefits is not letting the market decide. And if you start paying restaurant and fast food workers $20/hr. the market is going to decide to eat at home and Americans still aren’t going to be doing those jobs.
Amen BMoe.
#16: My whole point is that “jobs Americans won’t do” is too simplistic a way to put it. Instead, it should be “jobs Americans won’t do well, and/or at the market rate.”
“Doing the jobs Americans won’t do” is a meaningless soundbite. The problem is much more complex than that. One of the factors is that we have become, essentially, a nation of patricians. Any direct experience of real privation is a couple of generations removed, and hence we place an unrealistically high valuation on our own sweat.
When I was a kid, my school bus ran right past a Panamanian shantytown – it was literally on the other side of a chain-link fence defining the border between the US Canal Zone and the Republic of Panama. Conditions on the other side of that fence were simply unimaginable, were it not for the fact that it was right there to see. Perhaps that’s given me some perspective here.
I would like to point out that government mandating wages and benefits is not letting the market decide. And if you start paying restaurant and fast food workers $20/hr. the market is going to decide to eat at home and Americans still aren’t going to be doing those jobs.
This is not the case in Washington, not at all. What has happened is that you have raised the living standards of those workers while taking away from those who can most afford it. Washington state still has plenty of good and bad restaurants just like every other state in the nation, except there the workers make more money. Do you think McDonald´s would go out of business if they had to pay their people more? If any job needs to be done in this nation then it should pay enough to live on. Period. Don´t blame the immigration mess on liberals; it´s the big corporatins who are feeding off the cheap labor. Remember Wal-Mart and their cleaning crews?
dave – Living wage? If you feel so strongly about it, open your own place, and pay the workers whatever you want, whatever makes your socialist little heart feel better. In the interim, leave everyone else alone.
TAKING AWAY ? Are you kidding me? Folks, we have to give dave credit. He is honest about his position. Honest communists are hard to find.
A better formulation is “jobs Americans [b]can’t[/b] do because of minimum wage laws, and how illegals don’t have to abide by them.” Until we level that particular field we can’t really do anything other than bandy about hypotheticals that are pretty much guaranteed to miss out on reality.
Having a labor pool willing to work very cheap obviously keeps costs down for consumers
Good post overall, but I disagree with this “obvious” point for two reasons:
1) cheap labor in the form of illegal aliens usually results in higher tax costs in order to pay for the illegals and their children. Per pupil school costs $8k/year or more + “free” lunches + “free” medical, low income tax credits, etc, etc… all paid for by Joe Taxpayer. How about those costs?
2) You assume that employers of cheap labor pass those savings down to the consumer in the form of lower cost products. I would suggest that employers likely keep as much of those labor savings in their own pockets as they can. What percentage is passed down in the form of lower prices, I don’t know. But it ain’t 100%
Your overall point on wages was dead on, but the ‘savings’ to consumers from illegal aliens is a falsehood I’ve seen repeated too many times
There simply aren’t any “jobs Americans won’t do”, not even at current pay rates. The bottom quintile of the work force is composed of more than 26 million individuals making an average of $9.37 per hour performing about 70 occupations which rarely show up in childhood dreams of “what I want to be when I grow up”. Working at a waste treatment plant would be a helluva step up for anyone in the bottom quintile.
As to the parlous economic straights of those in that bottom quintile – two people working full time at that average wage would qualify for an 80/20 mortgage on a $200K house. It sure isn’t heaven but you can’t see hell from there.
“If any job needs to be done in this nation then it should pay enough to live on. Period.”
Was this commandment delivered to you on a stone tablet or by burning bush?
B Moe – The living wage fantasy is another modern-day Robin Hood fantasy. dave clearly consulted the burning bush for that one.
When I worked in fast food, I wasn’t looking for a living wage; just enough to pay for gas and insurance, with enough left over to take my girlfriend out on a Saturday night.
The idea that one should be able to support a family by working in the drive-thru just seems silly to me.
Squid,
More than one household in three lives on the equivalent of the wages of two burger flippers working full time.
It may “seem silly” to anyone with an IQ above 85 but it’s pretty serious to those who don’t make that cut.
It also wouldn’t do a dman bit of good to give them a raise – not because a Big Mac would cost .25 cents more but because the current degree of separation by intelligence would be enforced by the market. It’s another one of them “invisible hand” operations that’s been rather immutable for a handful of millenia (at least).
I’m pretty sure the under-85 IQ crowd is disproportionately represented in the Executive Management and Political Representative occupations, which pay pretty well (especially the latter, if you’re crooked).
As I have suggested before, rather than raising minimum wage, which only benefits the very poor, I think we should increase the number of hours in the day. That way people who needed to could work more hours to make the extra money, and the rest of us would have more time to get things done or recreate, whatever. Win/win for everybody.
I have no problem, personnally with II’s (Illegal immigrants).
Where the scale tips, is when they live in hives and pay no taxes and $30 a month for rent. I can’t compete with that.
My wages (as a painting contractor) are about $15/Hr lower than they were ten years ago.
Why?
Because there are too many of my “colleagues” who pay $12 an hour, but charge $50 an hour to their customers.
Oops, dickheads! I guess it never occurred to them that as soon as these workers were halfway competent, they would go out and bid their own jobs at $12 /Hr, and do a better job than most of the idiots who hired them. Almost all of the landscaping businesses in the area where I live are now hispanic, and construction is going the same way.
You can’t afford to support a family when someone else will take your job for butkiss.
I think my bitch is more with the greedy assholes who have created this situation. I have met very few II’s who do not work their butts off. I have also met many Americans who try as hard as they can to walk around in circles all day.
Love and attention. That’s what our work requires. Sadly, that nessage has been lost on too many people along the way.
This is definitely a misconception. You are 100 % correct. Why, it’s as if you have a degree in economics or something. Bush’s anecdote about onion farmers who won’t be able to bring in a crop is nonsense. Anyone who worked in the onion mines could tell you they’ll hold until someone gets around to them. I can’t wait for for your next misconception.