Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Jobs that no one will take

The immigration thing is heating up again. Quite frankly, I'm not sure where I sit on this, but I have one hot button that everyone seems to hit. It's the comment that we need illegal immigrants because there are jobs here that no one will take. I've heard this from republicans and democrats alike so it must be true.

I have a one word answer to that argument: BALONEY.

I'm a believer in the free market. If there's a job that needs to be done, someone will sign up for it. If not, the wages are too low. Trust me, you're not likely to see me on the back of a garbage truck or digging ditches. Even if the pay matched my current salary, I probably wouldn't change jobs. However if the pay was double what I was making today, I might dig ditches on the side. (Of couse all the jobs would be taken long before that).

So, let's assume that construction jobs could no longer be filled by illegal immigrants. The wages for these jobs would go up. The cost of my next house would go up. What goes around comes around, inflation would result. That's not necessarily bad, that's always been the case.

The low inflation of the last few years and the prosperity in that time has largely been built on the backs of these illegal immigrants. I wish this had been different and yes, I personally have benefited from this behavior (not directly). I do believe we have an obligation to treat the people who are here now differently than those who are not here.

I'm not suggesting amnesty, nor am I suggesting shipping all these people back home. I really don't want to make that the focus of my point here. What I really want is for all of these politicians to stop saying that we need these people because there are jobs that Americans won't do.

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