Speakeasy forum: If you take 9% Unemployment in USA

"Don't let anyone tell you that illegal immigration isn't responsible for our current high unemployment and low wage scale for labor in this country. Send them home! "

Low demand for products and services is our current problem, and a weak housing market, not the presence of illegals. Your knowledge base and reasoning seem to be a combination of extremist views/zealotry and ignorance to what's actually involved in the US economy. I do understand though that some of you folks here feel the need to find a place to spew such BS, so it's understandable that it might end up being posted here <groan>.

A simple pair of phone calls would set you straight. First, call someone who is involved professionally in managing teams of people who hire temporary employees. After that, call a corporate recruiter/salary expert. The data they will provide you with will correspond to similar data found in peer reviewed academic journals covering wages/labor/etc. Head to your local college or university library to find out how to access this data that will indicate the wage scale in certain industries has nothing to do with the presence of illegals.

Truth be told, the net migration has reversed since most of the jobs for undocumented mexican labor have dried up in the US. And the jobs they were doing were not in high demand by U.S. citizens, such as throwing up sheet rock at construction sites in Orange County, CA for $8/hr w/o benefits. There is still a demand for caregivers/nannies, but that was not being filled as often as would have been liked by US citizens since they are likely to demand higher salaries for the same work.

hired by American Hospitals, including Canadians, though they don't stand out. I just have no statistical evidence, and failing that, I'm disinclined to make a judgement. We just don't know how rife the system is with this sort of short circuiting of the system, but at least students who return to the US are US trained.

If you want meaningful change, insist that medical schools take more qualified American applicants until the shortfall is over, there's no shortage of qualified applicants. The same thing is true here. We have foreign trained doctors, but the Ontario Medical Association (the Doctor's Union) has an iron grip on Medical School enrolements in Ontario, and keeps the tap turned on to trickle. Why? Because doctors are then in short supply, and therefore are in a stronger position when bargaining with the Province over fees and reimbursement. In this case it is not Universal Healthcare or insufficient funding that is to blame, it is the Doctor's Union.

Rob

5% of the US population and workforce is illegal; there would have to be 16.5 million illegals for that to be true. And as for wages, there has been no increase in the minimum wage since I don't remember when. Employers don't pay people any more than they have to. Increase the minimum wage, and you'd see a difference.

11.5 million out of 330million is less than 4% and many of the 11.5 million are children. If they constitute more than about 6.6 million in the workforce I'd be surprised, but let's call it 6.6million to make the figuring easier. That's 2% of the population. Assuming the Workforce is 220 million, then it is 3% of the workforce. So much for your brilliant source who can neither count, nor figure percentages, and wants to count every single illegal as a full adult worker.

Your source is a half-wit and the figures donn't add up.

Lies, damned lies, and Republican-manipulated illegal immigration figures. Mark Twain would be proud of you.

"The Democrats' legislation would also have raised the rate for tip-workers, whose minimum wage has been $2.13 an hour for the last two decades."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/15/house-defeats-minimum-wage-increase/

The last increase in the minimum wage was in 2009 to the princely sum of $7.25 an hour

Rob