Monday, September 03, 2007

Labor Day myth and the reality.

I am about to head off to work this Labor Day. I'm probably one of the few people working this day here in the U.S.. Even many of the illegal immigrants will be filling the parks enjoying the day off. I don't mind working but, paying taxes and subsidizing others and the businesses that hire illegals is another story altogether. The corrupt employers who hire the illegals keep crying about the "labor shortage" in this country as the reason why they hire illegal workers. But as this article in Business Process Management points out that they are ignoring the reality of the free market system. While at the same time ruining the country for their own greed. Here are some of the money quotes:

"But some economists and worker advocates argue the concept of a labor shortage is simply being used to keep wages down. "Employers are very quick to raise the specter of a labor shortage, but often it's another way of saying they can't find the workers they want at the price they're paying," says Jared Bernstein, senior economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington. "They are unwilling to meet the price signal the market is sending, so they seek help in the form of a spigot like immigration."

"Most Americans certainly aren't finding their incomes exploding. The wages of 80% of the U.S. workforce -- made up of nonsupervisory workers -- have been stagnating since the late-1990s boom ended. On Aug. 20, the government released data that showed the average household income increased 4.1% in 2005, to $55,238. But that's still below the average household income in 2000."

Well I guess it's time to go to work.

No comments: