Decent paying until you compare cost-of-living in West Virginia and DC area.

$12.00 an hour to mow lawns would get plenty of takers here. However, you could not pay me enough to pick crab. But I'm old enough to have all the repetitive motion injury I want already....

Which is a point. Lots of the 'immigrant' jobs--stoop field labor, roofing, crab picking--tend to be risky, or actually physically damaging. People coming out of an area where actual survival is an issue are a lot more willing to take such work, including for bottom dollar under-the-table.

True enough, though a paying job still beats no job. I have several friends who are contractors in Montgomery County, MD. They used to hire guys from West Virginia who would drive down to the northwest DC suburbs from the panhandle of West Virginia (~45 minutes) to work. They'd show up for a week or so, get their first paycheck, go on a couple day bender and not show up again. OTOH, their Hispanic help is hard-working, reliable and loyal. There is simply no comparison in the work ethic between the two groups, unfortunately.

Having looked the other way when cheap immigrant labor was available, now this has become a Catch-22. Perhaps even too late to establish a workable and verifiable guest worker program. Been kicking this problem down the road too long and now Trump has thrown a wrench into the works, though he is just as culpable as the other employers.

Businesses that can pay cash to the workers have a huge advantage over paper based businesses.

Another aspect: Employers love a docile work force... a work crew which does not complain and is afraid to complain about almost anything.

We can disagree on this. I still believe if the jobs paid enough no matter the task there would be citizens willing.
Now would the price of pork beef along with crab, vegetables lawn maintenance be higher? Yes it would be so cheap in for cheap out.

Pay $30+ an hour plus good benefits for anyone of them, then let us see what happens.




Barney

This would simply inflate cost of living, not the standard of living.
All other pay will need to go up proportionately since the cost of living has gone up.

Wages seem to have stagnated for low skilled or entry level jobs. All the while the true cost of living increased leaving them behind. Much like how a teacher salary is based on property taxes levied. Low taxes low funding for education. Low paying jobs mean low prices at the cash register. Not new cars housing medical.

At a time when the gap between the rich and poor is quickly widening, shrinking the middle class ever more. One really need to start to wounder if a new way of looking at the way labor pay and the economy interact.



Barney

I don't understand how some of you can bitch about low wages Mexico, China, etc. on one hand, and then cheer for mechanisms that depress wages here in the United States. Makes no sense to me.

Or those seeing little in the effect to prices paid from the extreme salaries of CEO's or ever increasing profits of corporations. But quickly blame the hourly workers for wanting or pray expecting a piece of the action.

With the ever increasing use of technologies in the workforce to replace the human. Just what is gonna happen in a world with little regard to overpopulation of our species?



Barney

Ask your Dear Leader:

A Vox analysis of hiring records for seasonal workers at three Trump properties in New York and Florida revealed that only one out of 144 jobs went to a US worker from 2016 to the end of 2017. Foreign guest workers with H-2B visas got the rest.

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/13/164665...-guest-workers