The economic downturn is the cause of many US Citizens finding money wherever t hey can get it. US Citizens are even desperate enough to do, according to the Wall Street Journal, the “jobs Americans will not do”. Day labor used to be something that male and female white-collar individuals would never think about since it was undocumented employees that filled it, although that has changed. Reports indicate crowds of aspiring day laborers waiting on street corners for jobs are increasingly non-Latino.
When survival is at stake for oneself and one’s family, per diem day labor work becomes necessary. Undocumented individuals were the typical worker in many towns in California. Now, illegal immigrants are complaining that Americans are taking their jobs away making it impossible to get money. You will find many day laborers doing things for instance moving and landscaping, which will make less money than construction but you do not have to work as much. There are lots of arguments and fights over the low paying jobs now. Skilled, educated Americans are trying to get all of the jobs that undocumented individuals used to take.
Actual facts by the Center for immigration Studies
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) did a survey. This showed that it is really an illusion to believe there are “jobs US Citizens won’t do”. Available data points to the falsehood of this idea; Census Bureau data collected from 2005 to 2007 indicate that even before the economic recession, “there were only a tiny number of majority-immigrant occupations”. Census data shows the truth behind housekeeping, maintenance, construction and janitorial that would originally are thought to be undocumented individuals. It showed that these employees tended to be much more American-born than anything else. The CIS surveyed 4.4 million individuals. 560,000 of those were immigrant people. Even taking into account undocumented workers who fly under the radar, the sample size remains significant.
Depressed wages, meet the depressed economy
Jon Dougherty, author of the book “Illegal’s: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border,” points to what may very well be the economic shift that helped create the “jobs Americans won’t do” illusion. All of the “poor, uneducated laborers from south of the border has already worked to depress American wages,” especially where illegal immigration is popular. As undocumented workers are often willing to accept less money to do the very same work as United States laborers, contractors choose to pay less. Americans – particularly those with families – cannot afford to work for $8 per hour if they were previously making just enough to cover expenses at $15 per hour. The United States has an very high cost of living. This is why it is so hard for Americans to take this pay cut. Many undocumented day laborers can retreat back across the border at the end of a day’s work and survive – if not comfortably – on wages they typically cannot earn in their native country.
Further reading
CIS
cis.org/illegalimmigration-employment
News Max
archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/2/13/140946.shtml
Wall Street Journal
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913704575453792265306852.html?mod=WSJ_hps_SECONDTopStories
Undocumented workers protesting Americans taking their day labor jobs
youtube.com/watch?v=23mKOm5rftM
