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Originally Posted by scout
No it won't hurt the top 20% of wage earners but the 80% that's left can kiss their lifestyle goodbye. All things aren't equal. The person that charges $500 to repair your car probably pays taxes, pays workman's compensation insurance for his employees and all the other overhead that goes along with being a prosperous, LEGAL businessman whereas the fella charging only $250 probably works out of his garage at his home, doesn't pay taxes, has no business overhead and basically flies under the government radar so he doesn't get caught and sends almost all his profits home to Mexico. Your providing a scenario that doesn't exist when talking about ILLEGAL immigration. It's impossible for all things to be equal.
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Sure its possible. In many cases illegal immigrants provide employers with illegal documents to show they have a right to work here. In those situations the employer pays everything the same, taxes, insurance, payroll, equipment, etc. In that scenerio the legal worker's wage does get depressed because of the increase in the supply of workers for that job. Keep in mind anotheer possibility exits-if not for the depressed wage, it is possible the business goes under or all the jobs get moved to another country. We have to ask what is worse?
But you did not address my point - what is the real cost of labor? Let's look at factory work. In many cases a machine operator is paid for 8 hours to push a button and move material into and out of a machine. Is that job worth $80k/year? $40k/year? $20k/year? If the job is low skilled how is it harmfull to pay as little as possible for the work that billions of people can do? On the otherhand, if a job requires highly skilled labor, shouldn't that job command higher wages? American workers need to stop crying, and move into higher skilled jobs. The opportunity is available.
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I don't have a problem with immigration. If we need the workers then by all means let them in but let them enter the country LEGALLY and tax the businesses that need the immigrant workers to compensate the government for the extra paperwork that's involved.
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We mostly agree here. However I think most legitimate business who have illegals working for them are paying taxes as are the illegal workers. I support a guest worker program, a program that brings everything to the light of day. I don't agree that immigrants legal or not are hurting our economy on a net basis.