That is where they live now, and are told they aren't allowed to work, or else their substituent welfare money they are dis-afforded (against their collective interests long term).
They can be something, and feel something, than the federal definition of "so low its illegal"
It also is blatantly unfair. Why enforce a minimum wage for legal workers, when illegal workers will ignore it (gun argument!?) and the border is open (but not for guns???).
Hm. That suggests an idea. A higher minimum wage for illegal workers.
Employers get a choice. Verify immigration status with E-Verify/RealID, and pay at least minimum wage. Or don't, and pay at least twice the minimum wage.
Offer sizable rewards for reporting wage theft. 3X penalty at least. Jail if the total stolen passes the felony threshold.
Now that would stop illegal aliens from taking low-end jobs in the US.
>Now that would stop illegal aliens from taking low-end jobs in the US.
You can be worth a million dollars but if you are lied to, you will work for bread.
The border is open for guns and it's a huge problem for Mexico to have a country with such insane gun policies next door.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/05/2...
Our border is open to human trafficking, domestic infiltration, and massive practically a neo-chemical weapon.
I'd like to see some hard data and sources for this assumption, it's quite a big one and since you started the argument with the unrealistic view that those jobs are only stepping stones to better ones or performed by youngsters with access to their parents' home I cannot trust your argument prima facie.
>I'd like to see some hard data and sources for this assumption,
>this assumption, it's quite a big one and since you started the argument with the unrealistic view that those jobs are only stepping stones to better ones or performed by youngsters with access to their parents' home
There are people trying to abolish the minimum wage in the US.[1] "Abolishing the federal minimum wage would help small businesses. Some economic theory suggests it would lower labor costs, expand the worker pool, raise profits, and reduce costs for consumers, as businesses tend to pass off the burden onto them. Also, ending it would delay the automation revolution. At a time in which ChatGPT – the AI chatbot that answers questions – is all the rage, more jobs get lost to machines every day (Burton & Wolla, 2021). The first ones to go are minimum-wage jobs. “Increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled workers,” according to Professors Lordan of the London School of Economics and Neumark of UC Irvine (Lordan & Neumark, 2015). Cost-effective measures such as AI and self-service counters become less appealing when one isn’t forced to pay workers more."
Plus, it's weakly enforced. "Wage theft" is bigger than burglary, larceny, and robbery combined.[2] That doesn't include misclassification as an "independent contractor".
[1] https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2023/03/10/opinion-the-case-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft