The answer to the illegal immigration problem!

[B Calm]

Raise the minimum wage to 12 dollars an hour!

[musical_soul]

1. Minimum wage is for American citizens, not illegal immigrants.

So give immigrants the right to min. wage and people will probably prefer to hire Americans.

[Minnesota Libra]

2. Then illegal aliens can make even more money taking American jobs nt

[rucky]

3. or just enforce the existing laws

and wages will go up as the cheap labor pool shrinks.

[demosincebirth]

9. They don't want to enforce them otherwise

big business will scream like hell.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. Republicans want to lower the minimum raise, not increase it

Even with a Dem majority in congress, Bush would just veto it. The only way we get an increase is to control the house, the senate, and the white house. That's three years down the road. By that time, the country and the economy will be massive shipwreck, and there will probably be little or no emphasis for an increase with so many people unemployed.

[bullimiami]

5. illegal immigrants dont get paid minimum wage, they get slave wages.

the solution is

-enforce the laws against hiring undocumented workers. real punishment for businesses and the owners.
-make all the immigrants legal. give them all work visas that need to be renewed perhaps every year or 2. deport criminals and those who cant show a means of support


everyone can work, everyone has the same minimum wage. playing field is levelled, everyone competes for the same jobs at the same wages and benefits. more americans work because the incentive to hire immigrants is gone. illegal immigration grinds to a halt because there is no longer any benefit in it either for the exploited or exploiters.



the republicans would hate every part of this first because they are benefiting from the exploitation and secondly because they dont like the immigrants to start with.

[Cleita]

6. Minimum wage in our time should be $12 an hour.

I was reading an article on the PBS website about the United Farm Workers. One of the reasons that they lost ground from the sucessful organizing of the sixties under Cesar Chavez is that the Imperial Valley, California farmers could get cheap illegal labor from across the border, which essentially broke the unions there. Union wages were almost twice minimum wage then.

Unless we pass some really effective laws fining the agricultural industry for not paying minimum wage, it won't make a difference. We need to go after the corporations who are destroying the working class here, including the undocumented workers.

Here's the link I was reading.

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fightfields/cesarchavez1.html

[Nutmegger]

11. I agree and thanks for the links

We need to focus on the people hiring these people and not the people themselves.

[jety2k]

7. Whatever....

Why not raise it to $25.00 or $30.00 per hour?

Guess what..

DUH, IT"S STILL MINIMUM WAGE!!!


I don't really see this as solving anything. How bout instead we raise it yearly based on the national cost of living index..

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. That won't help much

"How bout instead we raise it yearly based on the national cost of living index.."

They tweak the CPI so much now, that it shows almost zero inflation.

[jety2k]

10. Not true...

It's been consistently at (roughly) around 3.2% for quite a while. Take the current $5.15 and make it retro-active going back 5 or 6 years and continue raising it on this basis quarterly or yearly.

[Elwood P Dowd]

12. The bastards in Washington will just tweak it some more

just like they do with Social Security. Until all the repukes are run out of town, we will get no relief.