The link below (WSJ – Mass Deportation and Florida Jobs) appeared in the paper’s Saturday/Sunday edition (Feb 7/8). It’s now out from behind the paywall, so everyone can read it. And we should.
The jobs bonanza we were promised is nowhere in sight, and will probably never be. Crops are going unharvested, because migrant workers earning more than $40,000 a year are being deported. Auto factories cannot being built overnight to churn out affordable cars. There are hardly any Americans jobless, anyway. Unemployment was already near zero. The current 4% rate is what every Fed Reserve board over the past 4 decades has boasted as full employment.
Besides, who wants to move to Plant City, Forida (about 20 miles east of me) and pick strawberries, even if it does pay $47,000?
There’s a reason native born Americans won’t pick strawberries, even at wages that exceed what recent college grads (with humanities degrees) can earn. $47,000 is also more than teachers, police, and firemen earn to start.
About 30% of Americans are high school dropouts (or have worthless GED certificates). They don’t want to pick strawberries. Or to show up at 630 am to install power steering assembliesr, either. Some of the 4% not currently in our workforce are functionally illiterate. Some have drug and attendance issues. Some have police records, and can find waaaay easier things to do instead of picking fruit.
Tariffs on imports, and immigrants designated for deportation - these are election bait. Those things are never going to improve our living standards or tame inflation. They are fake issues which exist only to beguile someone who never picked a strawberry in their life.
If it’s not a job which you would personally do, then don’t cast shade on someone who IS doing it.
I’m just sayin’ . . .