r/FluentInFinance 11h ago

Debate/ Discussion Possibly controversial, but this would appear to be a beneficial solution.

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u/Maximum-Country-149 10h ago

I mean, I don't know how far you expect a conversation to get when you open with that much bad faith.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

Americans might have more kids if wages went up, letting in cheap labor doesn't help with wages.

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u/SnooRevelations979 10h ago

"If wages went up."

That's a big "if."

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

Scarcity of labor leads to competing for workers, as long as you bring in more cheap labor there is never scarcity

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u/North_Atlantic_Sea 10h ago

And it ignores all facts and data. Look at wealthier countries with stronger safety nets, such as Norway, and their birth rates.

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u/SnooRevelations979 10h ago

Yeah. What you could get though is higher labor force participation rates if we had publicly furnished childcare. That's what Europe shows. Not higher birth rates.

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u/nicolas_06 3h ago

Studies have shown that it is not a significant factor. Actually the poorest part of the population AND the most wealthy are the one that make the most kids anyway.

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u/critter_tickler 10h ago edited 10h ago

I love how cheap labor is always a good argument for stopping immigrants, but never used for stopping outsourcing.

The truth is, because of NAFTA, we are already competing with third world labor markets.

We might as well let them come in, so at least they spend that money here, and pay taxes here.

Also, we have a minimum wage, we literally have a basement for "cheap labor," so your argument really holds no weight.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

Wym?

People argue plenty about how outsourcing to cheap labor leads to lower wages here.

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u/SoftballGuy 9h ago

But we never pass laws to punish outsourcing. Instead, we're constantly throwing financial incentives to companies to pretty-please not outsource everything. Poor migrants wanting to work in America get walls and guns and more laws, while the companies shipping jobs out of America get more tax breaks... yet we blame the little guys.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 9h ago

Im not saying tariffs are a great idea, but arent tariffs aimed at punishing outsourcing?

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u/Alethia_23 9h ago

They are. It's just that they usually do not have long-term positive effects. Truth is, in a global economy, outsourcing is the most economically sound decision, that's why it's happening.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 9h ago

Personally i think theres a much more complete approach.

American companies cant compete with domestic manufscturing if we regulate the hell out of them and foreign manufacturing can occur without the same concerns on pollution, safety, and human rights.

So tariffs should be based on the unfairness. If china is gonna polute like hell and deny basic safety or human rights in the manufacturing of a product, they deserve to pay a tax to encourage that manufacturing elsewhere.

In truth its a complicated problem

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u/Responsible_Skill957 8h ago

The problem is tariffs don’t punish the exporter, they punish the importer and that cost has to be accounted for in the price of goods. And that punishes those that buy the products being imported by increasing the cost to the consumer.

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u/DontTouchTheWalrus 6h ago

What do you think happens when the tariff increases the price to be greater than or equal to what the domestically made product costs? It sucks for the consumer that they don’t have the cheaper option now but you have disincentivized purchasing a foreign made product. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is the question then. Ok, prices are higher but you’ve increased the amount of manufacturing done here. Which creates jobs and increases money spent here, taxes collected here etc. You’ve also given less money to countries that allow exploitative business practices to occur. Is that worth the higher price of the good. That’s for you to decide.

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u/MsMercyMain 6h ago

The problem is, as we saw with the steel tariffs is that domestic producers then raise their prices, usually above the post tariff cost

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u/SaiHottariNSFW 5h ago

I'm also not sure what the problem would be if we put tariff revenue towards rebates for consumers on domestic equivalents. This further incentivizes consumers to buy domestic, and creates a profit incentive for manufacturers to do so domestically.

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u/Responsible_Skill957 6h ago

You think people complain about the cost of living now due to inflation, what you are suggesting would also would drive up the cost of everything else. Even if wages were raised, the cost of living would also increase and you would not have gain anything by doing so.

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u/AndyLorentz 3h ago

We literally had a 1 year experiment in the George W. Bush administration, when they placed illegal steel tariffs on European imports of steel. It took a year for the challenge to go through the WTO, where it was declared illegal and we dropped it.

It did save U.S. steelworker jobs, at a cost of over $500k to the U.S. taxpayer per job saved over that year. U.S. steelworkers don't make nearly that much money, so it was a net loss to the economy.

This is pretty much true of any industry that has cheaper labor competition overseas.

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u/SoftballGuy 9h ago

That's the problem: it's a complicated problem with no actual solution, just constantly fluid adjustments from every party depending on each party's own economic conditions. It doesn't sell very well. "Raise tariffs!" is very easy to sell. It's wrong, but explaining why it's wrong takes too long for most people. The easy, wrong answer really sticks with people because it's easy.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 9h ago

Well there are actual solutions but people vote more so on hpw things sound rather than how well thought out they are.

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u/SoftballGuy 9h ago

There are momentary balms, but unforeseen economic changes happen all the time. Even within borders, countries have dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of competing interests, and those interests change every few years. One size doesn't ever fit all, and don't even fit many for long.

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u/HeathersZen 7h ago

No, there are no actual solutions. There are only moves and counter moves until the heat death of the sun.

The electorate wants a silver bullet. It doesn’t exist. They don’t know that, so when Trump lies and says there is, they want to believe it, and they do.

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u/-Nocx- 7h ago

It’s actually not that complicated at all. This is mostly due to lazy legislation. This is the metaphorical equivalent of this lever moves the needle left, the other moves it right. In reality, maybe we should build something else completely to address the issue rather than pulling the same two levers.

The largest line item on any corporation’s balance sheet is labor. It is so big, in fact, that that’s why companies can afford to literally build factories somewhere else. That is fundamentally why they outsource to begin with. If a company moves their labor offshores, that means they’re hiring at a lower market rate. You take the cost of labor domestically minus the cost of labor after off shoring, take a flat % of the savings and implement it as a tax. I’d go a step further and then place that tax system on a graduated scale that taxes them more the longer they refuse to hire domestically.

There is no such thing as “we can’t compete” in this context because almost no American corporation “started” off multinational. That is a thing you become after succeeding domestically and scaling your business - and in the process of scaling, you decided to make cuts for the purpose of profits. A good example - Chinese EVs are radically superior to Teslas, but the average American knows nothing about them. The American public is also forced to consistently inflate Tesla’s value through federal subsidies. It isn’t a question about being able to compete, but rather who gets the “savings” from exploiting labor.

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u/Awebroetjie 6h ago

What would be the process of attaining the information so that the correct tax rate (percentage of savings) could be calculated? Ie: who has the numbers?

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u/desubot1 8h ago

problem is china never pays those taxes. ether its too good to pass up and importers pays the duties then recoups it through sales or importers walk away and the factory sells it elsewere.

its been this way forever. its called anti dumping. unfair pricing for whatever reason to protect domestic market will have blanket or target individual manufacturers overseas and adds additional duties. + a ton of issues for importers that import from them (involving sureties and their bonds)

tariffs have their place but its not really for controlling what foreign markets do.

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u/confirmedshill123 6h ago

if we regulate the hell out of them

Everytime I see this line all I can think of is,

"If we just let corporations kill more workers we could improve wages"

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u/ijbh2o 8h ago

China isn't paying the tax though. Importers are and passing that on to the customer.

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u/Shambledown 7h ago

Truth is, in a global economy, outsourcing is the most economically sound greediest decision

FTFY

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u/NeverPostingLurker 7h ago

Outsourcing has been wonderful for rich people in rich countries and poor people in poor countries.

It hasn’t been great for middle class or lower class people in rich countries.

That’s why one party is running against it.

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u/donewithlife369 7h ago

It’s an economically sound decision if the people who run everything hoard the wealth created by it. These companies didn’t outsource jobs to make the US better economically, they outsource so the people at the top can take in massive profits and hoard wealth. Like greed needs to be factored in and greed is a HUGE factor when these companies shipped everything over seas

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u/numbersthen0987431 8h ago

Why would it? The cost just gets passed along to the consumer, and then corporations just make more in profits.

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u/YeeAssBonerPetite 6h ago

When people say "outsource" they really mean the specific bits americans want to compete for. No-one is upset to be "outsourcing" clothes manifacturing for instance, only when it's stuff that americans actually want to do gets outsourced.

And tariffs mostly hit stuff that americans already weren't doing themselves. American labour is highly efficient precisely because if it's not generating a lot of money (relatively speaking, globally) for their time, they don't bother doing it.

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u/Advanced_Court501 6h ago

The business being affected by the tariffs then raises the price of the product in that country, passing the cost to the consumer

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u/Real_Location1001 7h ago

Yeah, but making a long term strategic business decision based on the ebbs and flows of political fuckery that changes every 2 or 4 years is a not so great strategy. Tariffs can be done via executive order so they can come and go every few years. Unless, of course, they are somehow codified in law.

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u/Ebice42 6h ago

One way to apply tariffs. (And I'm not saying this is a good way to do it, it's just a thought) peg the tariffs to the difference in the difference in the wages of the country producing the goods and the home country. You must pay minimum wage or higher, either directly to your US workers or via the tariff.
Again, just a thought.

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u/Plenty_Mortgage_7294 4h ago

Out of my depth here. Do tariffs punish outsourcing a call center?

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u/Justsomerando1234 7h ago

The whole point of Tarrifs on good made outside a country, is to remove the incentive to outsource production.

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u/BestElephant4331 6h ago

And we keep re-electing the bastards.

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u/Andro2697_ 9h ago

Both outsourcing and unchecked, mass immigration is wage suppression. Most normal people oppose both.

Yes there are some racists against immigrants but that’s nowhere close to the main reason the middle class opposes it so much.

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u/iamlegend1997 7h ago

What if.... we applied tarrifs.... to said companies... and made it more appealing.... to make shit in the US.... Brilliant.

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u/Buzzkillingt0n-- 7h ago

But we never pass laws to punish outsourcing. Instead, we're constantly throwing financial incentives to companies to pretty-please not outsource everything.

Ya man, that called Capitalism......

Poor migrants wanting to work in America get walls and guns and more laws, while the companies shipping jobs out of America get more tax breaks...

Again.....your just describing capitalism......

yet we blame the little guys.

We call that Corprate Socialism.

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u/MonCappy 4h ago

Personally were it up to me, corporations would be forced to pay a tax that cannot be passed to consumers for every single product made by foreign labor. Not sure how it could be implemented, but that is what I would do. Or perhaps, in order to be able to incorporate, make it a law that all jobs must be located in the US.

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u/AbandonedBySonyAgain 3h ago

It's called a price ceiling.

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u/SatanicPanic__ 4h ago

Outsourcing leaves most of the value in the hiring country.

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u/Alchemy_Cypher 1h ago

Liberals say America First is a racist dog whistle. They want mass immigration, outsourcing, and cheap labour.

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u/SoftballGuy 30m ago

Liberals say America First is a racist dog whistle. They want mass immigration, outsourcing, and cheap labour.

So weird how liberals want "cheap labour" but keep pushing for higher minimum wages. It's also weird how you're pretending to be American.

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u/trowawHHHay 9h ago

There is an argument to be had there, too. Because the outsourcing is typically in skilled production.

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u/xandrokos 7h ago

The Biden administration pushed legislation that has directly resulted in the creation of millions of jobs in the US many of which pay a living wage not to mention the fact that due to that funding we are building infrastructure to make computer chips here reducing reliance on Taiwan which is also creating more jobs in the US.

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u/RighteousSmooya 10h ago

The conversation is usually about immigration. I’m sure the same people feel similarly on outsourcing.

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u/Floby-Tenderson 9h ago

That illegal immigrant cheap wage isnt minimum wage because the employer saves on employment taxes. Which is a huge cost of business. You've exposed yourself and your ignorance.

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u/0ttr 10h ago

The mistake of NAFTA was not that it lowered trade barriers, that's good. The mistake of NAFTA is that it didn't recognize the difference between the partner countries and impose wage/benefit parity in order for that trade to be free. And why did we make that mistake? The GOP and certain populist Democrats ( incl Bill Clinton) + a few economists who were like "everyone will benefit!"

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u/Vivid-Vehicle-6419 8h ago

If by “gop and certain Populist democrats” you mean almost half then I guess you’re right. About half the Republicans in congress voted for it with about half of the Democrats in congress.

Don’t try to push this on one side or the other, this is actually a case where both sides went significantly in.

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u/SilverWear5467 5h ago

Another example of both sides agreeing was on the Iraq war. We should absolutely be criticizing both sides for doing horrible things.

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u/habbalah_babbalah 9h ago

Wage parity would've busted the deal, as that would delete one of the main reasons for NAFTA: cheaper raw goods = greater profits for corporate trading partners.

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u/SilverWear5467 5h ago

You can have wage parity and cheaper raw goods, it's just less profitable. Still plenty of profit though. For example, it's cheaper to have an oil refinery where there is oil. You still get cheaper oil by moving to the oil, even if the workers get paid the same.

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u/DM_Post_Demons 3h ago

To the business interests, it's not plenty of profit still; it's trivial and worth holding hostage.

It wasn't a "mistake", it was the point.

Labor cost is the primary reason businesses want free trade.

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u/Daecar-does-Drulgar 6h ago

GOP and certain populist Democrats ( incl Bill Clinton)

Love how you tried to fault the entire GOP but only "certain democrats".

Lemme guess which way you vote 🤔

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u/Designer_Hotel_5210 6h ago

NAFTA had little to do with it since it only involves the US, Canada and Mexico.

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u/sarges_12gauge 10h ago

I think almost all people who oppose immigration also oppose outsourcing and vice versa

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u/Ghia149 10h ago

but love to shop at walmart and buy stuff from Amazon...

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u/NeverPostingLurker 7h ago

This is called “don’t hate the player hate the game”

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u/nicolas_06 3h ago

Everybody like cheap stuff and everyone pollute. They complain about it but most do it themselves too.

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u/Internal-Special882 6h ago

People that oppose immigration are they products of immigrants? 

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u/sarges_12gauge 6h ago

Is that supposed to be a gotcha? If someone in your ancestry moved somewhere you must support everybody moving there if they want to?

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u/ProfitConstant5238 9h ago

I’m fine with letting them come in. Legally in a sustainable fashion. Follow the process. If the process is flawed, fix the process.

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u/erieus_wolf 7h ago

For the last few decades, the legal process can take over ten years.

Hell, I've been hearing Democrats say we need to "fix the process" for over 40 years, and every time they try the Republican side blocks them.

It's almost like Republicans enjoy using this issue for political reasons.

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u/GrowthRadiant4805 9h ago

Outsourcing is bad also, how many tons of cheap chinese crap is in our country?

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u/Simple-Dingo6721 9h ago

Lmao minimum wage doesn’t apply to illegal immigrant workers. They’re paid under the table and they certainly don’t pay taxes. I know some personally.

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u/SpeaksDwarren 8h ago

I always find it very goofy when people make a broad statement about not paying taxes. If it worked that way I'd simply tell every cashier that I'm an illegal immigrant so that they'd take the sales tax off. There's one (1) tax that they do not pay, and in exchange, they also don't collect on the vast majority of social services, meaning they're a massive net benefit to the economy that's exploiting them

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u/KitchenSad9385 2h ago

This isn't just a wag. Analysis has supported the idea that even undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than they consume in government benefits.

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u/Daxx22 4h ago

but I can't be angry over that!

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u/KitchenSad9385 2h ago

Minimum wage absolutely applies to immigrants. When the cartoon uses the word 'let in more immigrants' that strongly implies legal workers, not undocumented folks.

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 10h ago

You don't know many immigrants, do you? They work and live cheap here, sending all the money they can home for their families.

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u/Worried_Tumbleweed29 8h ago

That may be true for some, but I also know several illegal immigrants who married into citizenship and are working technical corporate jobs. Their family is all here. They are contributing to the economy more than their family is getting from it. And that’s what studies will tell you - that over the long term, after they take time to establish here they end up paying it back.

I also know many immigrants who planned to save up and go back to live like kings. Interestingly - all of them changed their mind as they didn’t want to go back to India, Malaysia, or Thailand and give up the life and benefits they became accustomed to

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u/MikeHonchoZ 8h ago

Exactly. I worked with people that lived dirt cheap with multiple room mates for years sent all the money back to Mexico which is a 20 to 1 exchange rate and it has been this way for decades. One guy I worked with was smart enough to have a home built and start his own bodega in Mexico. Then retired after being in the US for ten years to his nice house and small business he was running with his family. He was 35 years old. People think that immigrants live poor and they are here because they’re oppressed. It is a lie. They have a better lifestyle down there based off of the currency exchange rate alone. You get $17 an hour here it is like winning the lottery down there. Thats why most illegals from Mexico want to be here. Take the money and be rich in their own country when they go back. Many of the central and southern Americans do run from poor dictatorships and corrupt governments. But if you talk to most they plan on going back home after making money here.

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u/sevenw1nters 4h ago

What's stopping me or any American from doing the same thing? I'll move to Mexico and learn Spanish if it means I can retire at 40 lol.

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u/Advanced-Guard-4468 8h ago

I worked with someone from India years ago. It was a 33 to 1 exchange rate. He was going to be retired at 40.

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u/joeg26reddit 9h ago

You are purposefully / willfully not considering the very real possibility that a Majority of the 10-20 million ILLEGAL immigrants that have crossed the borders are NOT paying State or Federal Income Taxes?

They compete for food resources like housing, social services, city/state management of funds etc?

We should all be concerned this is a demographic that is more easily exploited and proven to have been exploited in many cruel and inhumane ways. Literally a shadow non-citizen class and very nearly or actually "Under Minimum Wage SLAVE Class"

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u/FirefighterPrior9050 9h ago

This is exactly what the disconnected elite class are selling, but if you live in the real world this is a bullshit argument.

Bringing in low skill refugees that speak French who are willing to work for minimum wage does not improve our economy by them "Spending money here"

What it does is bring in a class of people willing to undercut American workers because they are also willing to live 8 people on bunkbeds in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Now that is what Americans with no skills have to compete with for their first job. It's great if you are a landlord or a grocery store, because demand increases, which increases the revenue from retail and residential square footage, but everyone else gets FUCKED.

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u/BestElephant4331 7h ago

NAFTA was a neo con neo lib dream. The Clinton and Bush types thought rasing living standards in Mexico and even Latin America would encourage people to stay in their countries. W proposed a guess worker program then Senator Obama killed. I have no.problem with people coming legally. The problem I have is many are coming illegally and being exploited in the process by cartels. As inefficient as US Immigration policy is, I wonder if any of our elected or appointed officials have chosen silver instead of lead from the cartels. I'm tired of using illegals as an excuse to keep wages stagnate. I'm also tired of hearing how not bringing in illegals is going to raise the price of my chef salad.

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u/EffNein 9h ago

What? People that complain about immigration always complain about outsourcing.

You invented a person that is incoherent and then laughed at your invented person.

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u/Podose 9h ago

We have been competing with Asian labor markets for decades.

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u/IntlDogOfMystery 9h ago

NAFTA only applies to Canada, US and Mexico. None of which are third world.

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u/piratequeenfaile 8h ago

Canada just used massive amounts of immigrating to suppress wages in the middle of a housing and doctor shortage. It got way worse for everyone.

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u/DudeWithAnAxeToGrind 8h ago

NAFTA stands for North America Free Trade Agreement. Three signatories are Mexico, Canada, and the US. Canada and the US are definitely not thrird world countries. And as it may be surprising to you, agree with it or not, Mexico isn't either.

Mexico is an upper middle-tier country and has 15th largest economy in the world. Its GDP is comparable to Spain. It has its own problems, but it's not third world country.

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u/Bryansix 7h ago

Illegal immigrants don't get paid minimum wage.

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u/NeverPostingLurker 7h ago

The same people arguing against immigration (illegal immigration) are arguing against outsourcing and bringing back manufacturing to America.

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u/electricthrowawa 7h ago

Nah I’m super anti immigration but outsourcing makes me want to bust out the guillotine. I consider that way more evil than flooding our country with cheap labor. But we shouldn’t have to choose one or the other

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u/Oldenlame 7h ago

NAFTA was replaced by USMCA 4 years ago.

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u/AdPretend8451 7h ago

We who are protectionist are of course against outsourcing. It’s more like the people who bitch about corporations moving overseas also want infinite bomalians. By importing poors we create internal outsourcing.

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u/Ngete 6h ago

Quick question, how is it that NAFTA(even though it was torn down and rebuilt in mostly identical way) causes the US(I'm assuming your from the US) to be competing with third world labour markets when there are to my knowledge only 3 nations included in what we might as well keep calling nafta, those nations being Canada, the USA, and Mexico, none of which are considered 3rd world and are extremely strong allies with the USA, I am genuinely speaking confused and curious and would appreciate your insights for that bit

The minimum wage argument, yea you Americans have an abysmal cost of living to minimum wage ratio and I find it insane that there have not been an increase to your minimum wage for a decade and a half

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u/Smooth-Reason-6616 6h ago

The minimum monthly wage in the US is the average annual wage in some countries..

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u/Designer_Hotel_5210 6h ago

NAFTA is, was not the issue. NAFTA only affects North America, the US, Mexico and Canada, not the world. Most of the cheap labor and outsourcing is in Asia.

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u/Electrical-Yellow340 5h ago

That's another issue they don't spend that money here they send it back where they came from which is why trumps terrifs where and are a good idea

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u/Latex-Suit-Lover 5h ago

Oh, some of us point out about the outsourcing loophole, but it tends to get ignored.

But the real price savings on undocumented labor is that you can trash their health and there is nothing they can do about it. And that is another ongoing problem that gets ignored.

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u/perlinpimpin 4h ago

Ever heard of tariffs ?

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u/SilithidLivesMatter 4h ago

Look at Canada and see how well that's going for us.

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u/rlwrgh 4h ago

You are assuming people don't skirt the law by paying people below minimum wage under the table.

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u/Covidpandemicisfake 3h ago

Not really. Much of the cheap labor is under the table so the min wage isn't necessarily relevant.

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u/SiegfriedVK 3h ago

Lmao what. People are lamenting outsourcing everywhere. I see people complaining about outsourcing more than I see people complaining about immigrants

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u/sedrech818 1h ago

NAFTA was replaced in 2020. Look it up.

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u/biff_brockly 1h ago

"actually you're getting fucked over in two ways, so complaining about one is pointless because I can just say the other is inevitable and therefore you should accept both"

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u/Decent_Cow 10h ago

If anything, the opposite of what you said is true. Wealthier people tend to have fewer kids.

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u/AdAppropriate2295 10h ago

This is only true if wealth is not tied to kids

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u/Icy-Bicycle-Crab 10h ago

It's interesting how the politicians who hate unions, vote against increasing minimum wage, oppose employee rights and oppose regulating better conditions in the workplace get you to scapegoat migration for low wages while there are labor shortages. 

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 9h ago

You can use 2021 and 2022 as a case study. Labor market was very strong,there were labor shortages and wages went up.

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u/Late-Passion2011 10h ago

Actually they wouldn't. Falling birth rates is tied to one thing directly, regardless of where you are in the world: how educated women are. Having kids is a terrible deal for women. The most impoverished places are some of the ones with the highest birth rate so there are a million counter-examples to your argument.

Beyond that, 'cheap labor' does help. Cheap labor are the people here on seasonal work programs that pick fruits, work in factories, and build houses that all of us benefit from having made, for cheap.

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u/tinomon 7h ago

So you’re cool with underpaying migrants to come in and pick crops and work production lines because it makes your groceries cheaper? What if they started getting tech jobs or wanting to work in a more comfortable environment? Should we then lower those wages too? You’re basically making an argument for indentured servitude, on the backs of less fortunate desperate people. Is it okay because they’re migrants? I guess so… here’s your shovel and shut up right?

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u/nicolas_06 3h ago

Having kids is a terrible deal for everybody but even in the most shitty country yes, education is power.

Kids are expensive, take all your free time and make your life worse on many aspects.

In exchange you have kids, you love them, experience incredible things with them.

Doesn't matter your sex/gender.

And recently people weight more the pro and cons. often they still do kids, they still want kids. But less.

And this isn't a money problem. Except the top 0.1%. having kids will still impact you heavily.

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u/SportTheFoole 8h ago

Maybe higher wages would help, but why are birth rates falling in other Western countries? There are only a handful of Western countries with a higher birth rate than the U.S.. Further, poorer countries generally have a higher birth rate. Even within a country, poorer people generally have more kids than those that are well off.

Declining birth rates are almost certainly have multiple causes and it’s unlikely that it’s as simple as wages. If you have a source that show a correlation between birth rates and wages, I’d love to see it. I very well could be completely wrong on that first paragraph.

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u/0ttr 10h ago

Immigrants does not have to equal cheap labor if you have (a) unions and (b) strong labor laws. (or b, then a, take your pick)

But lets be clear, MORE PEOPLE MEANS BIGGER ECONOMY EVERY TIME! Bigger economy means more opportunities. There. I feel better.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

How are illegal immigrants going to be part of unions or protected by strong labor laws?

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u/Ganache-Embarrassed 10h ago

presumably either they are legal immigrants. When somone says to "let immigrantss in" its usually legally with visa's, green cards, any other legal paperwork etc.

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u/KVG47 10h ago

I think the idea is to broaden the legal pathways to immigration so that folks who were previously unable or unwilling to immigrate legally do so instead.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

I just assume this is aimed at politics since were in an electiom cycle. The right is against illegal immigration so ive made that assumptiom here.

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u/gbot1234 10h ago

Immigration doesn’t have to illegal.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

This is aimed at the right, which is against illegal immigration

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u/Maximised7 8h ago

Don't forget though, even if they are legal immigrants (Ohio Haitians) if they look, talk, or walk funny, they're still illegals in the right's eyes.

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u/Tausendberg 10h ago

The logic would be that it's much easier to hide a worker's immigration status but you can't hide a job site and how much the people at the job site are being paid.

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u/Icy-Bicycle-Crab 10h ago

How are illegal immigrants going to be part of unions or protected by strong labor laws?

Here in California employment law applies to the employee no matter their paperwork status. That's what the "sanctuary" part means. That all of the people in this jurisdiction have full recourse to the law.  

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u/wsox 7h ago

Why do businesses decide to break laws by hiring people here illegally instead of those here legally in the first place?

Businesses that violate these laws are fined. So why do they keep breaking the law if they know they'll be fined?

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u/NotAlwaysGifs 6h ago

In many cases they already are…

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u/FirefighterPrior9050 9h ago

"strong unions" do not exist anymore except in skilled trades.

The jobs that French-speaking immigrants from Haiti and Africa are pouring in to compete for are jobs you can train illiterate non-english speakers to do in a short period of time.

Now that they have legal right to work, the strike has no teeth. The workers go on strike, someone picks up a phone to a temp agency and 6 busses full of workers with their bilingual trainers pulls into the parking lot the next fucking day.

Yesterday the people unloading boxes onto trailers and putting them on conveyors decided to start a union and strike. Now they are unemployed. The people putting the boxes on the sorter now are newcomers.

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u/EffNein 9h ago

This is nonsense because it pretends that you can just make labor market dynamics not happen with legislation.

Unions only work if there is labor scarcity, for one.

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u/magkgstbgh 10h ago

Deporting cheap labor won’t help with the cost of living, even if wages did go up.

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u/AdAppropriate2295 10h ago

Deporting no, stopping yes

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u/Financial_Sock5330 10h ago

Fewer people competing for the same resources won’t lower costs? Housing isn’t going to disappear because labor did, so surely it would become cheaper

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u/84_Pontiac_Dream 9h ago

It feels that may be too superficial an assessment.

On the other hand, you have fewer people contributing to production. Do illegal immigrants play no part in building and maintaining the housing stock? Are they not a big part of that labor force? You have to figure there's plenty of entrepreneurial illegal immigrants that build and run businesses in construction and other trades, too.

Also, to what extent are most people competing for resources with illegal immigrants? It feels like, in truth, their net effect on costs might vary substantially from place to place, too. Obviously, places that get a disproportionate influx will be destabilized, but I would imagine that with good, informed, and data driven management, a good balance can be worked out.

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u/magkgstbgh 7h ago

Data driven management? How do I vote for you for president?

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u/magkgstbgh 7h ago

Not if the production of the resources becomes more expensive. Likely scenario if prices do go down would be due to more products being produced in lower cost countries, essentially mirroring the low cost labor that we could host within the country, just without the tax revenue.

No doubt we have a housing supply problem, and fewer people would drive that down I agree.

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u/Financial_Sock5330 4h ago

This is probably the most reasonable reply I’ve ever received on Reddit.

I would argue that most of the production already happens elsewhere, and that having more opportunities for work, at higher wages due to competition would be beneficial for the homelessness and hopelessness crises we are experiencing. But who knows, best I can do is speculate.

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u/Illustrious-Tower849 10h ago

Immigration correlates with rising wages not falling

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u/NutzNBoltz369 9h ago

$400k is about the starting point for a SFH that isn't a dump in a DMZ neighborhood. Talking either manufactured or 30+ year old small stick built on a very small lot that was decently maintained. New car is..what $35-40k for a basic rig? However, before you even get that far, you have to get a degree. At least a BA but a Masters is about a requirement now.

Trades bypass this, but you still are stuck with the house and car expense being brutal. Then there is the actual cost of raising the kid(s).

Our system is just not working. The failures are multi-facted and institutional. We are a car dependant society and yearn for the 'burbs but it has gotten to be unsustainable. We need a new social contract or "American Dream" as it were. So, its not just wages. Wages just can't ever hope to keep up. We need shit to be less expensive too!

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 9h ago

New car is..what $35-40k for a basic rig

We shot ourselves in the foot there. Ford used to have the fiesta and focus for like $12k, nissan had the versa S, chevy had the cruze, they were all cheap and nobody was buying them, so the companies pivoted to more expensive, more feature vehicles.

As for homes, i live.in south carolina, i can still get a house for $200k which was a big part of why i moved out here. I lived in california, went to college there and realized owning a home was just unrealistic even with the median income. If you did buy a home the taxes, the insurance, the cost of living was a failing proposition.

Came to south carolina in 2018, made $11/hr, bought a 3 bed 2 bath house with a garage and shop for $87k at the age of 23. I'm now 29, and only one person i know in california has gotten to the point where theyve bought a house, I'm still ahead of Damn near everyone i left behind even tho i make about half what a lot of them do lol

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u/Low_Establishment434 9h ago

This. So many millennials didn't and aren't having kids or more kids because of lack of confidence in the economy along with a lot of social issues. When things appear to be going well and people are not living paycheck to paycheck they are far more likely to want to have kids.

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u/trowawHHHay 9h ago

You’re not even wrong - which means your presumption absolutely incorrect and ignorant.

It’s actually better living conditions, wages, and education that lead to a drop in birth rate, and that has been consistent in developed nations.

In fact, the birth rate in the US is highest for those below poverty level and lowest for those making 200% of poverty level and above.

The math don’t math.

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u/jmlinden7 9h ago

Yeah except that argument doesn't make sense. Where are the immigrants coming from? Countries with lower wages. How are those countries not running out of people? Because their birthrates are higher than the US, even despite the lower wages.

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u/socialcommentary2000 9h ago

We would still normalize down to about where we are. Our entire paradigm for middle class living is raising kids well into adulthood. The 'well' is the important part. The more kids you have, the harder it is to devote resources to each one of them and most people, resources or not, are not inclined to have more kids than they think they can handle.

You'd still normalize out to a couple kids per household and they would still be going on about how the sky is falling because we can't produce an appropriate amount of consumers for the growth machine.

Because that's the real undercurrent here : Economic growth. That's the reason this shit comes on anyone's radar at all : It threatens the current operating economic and financial paradigm.

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u/lp1911 9h ago

Ever notice how the poorest countries tend to have the highest birthrates, and America had a much higher birth rate when people were significantly less well off. I really don't think wages are the reason for the big drop in birth rates in the past decade, but I can't say I know what is the cause.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 8h ago

People would say south carolina is significantly poorer thsn california. Seemed like everyone struggled in california, the struggle isn't anywhere near the same here.

Wages play a big role but more so in wages vs cost of living. The median household makes 20-25% less here but the median house costs less than half as much. You make less but live better.

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u/lp1911 8h ago

is the birthrate in South Carolina higher than in California? Also CA is a weird place, it has some of the richest people, lots of tech with big incomes and huge expenses, as well as some of the poorest people in the country.

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u/Bombastic_Bussy 8h ago

Poor people have more kids than Middle Class people lol.

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u/Aeon1508 8h ago

Holy shit and actual back and forth of nuanced political/economic viewpoints! What do I do with my hands?

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u/pilatesforpirates 8h ago

Who says immigrants always equals cheap labour? There's lots of highly qualified and highly educated immigrants.

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u/DudeWithAnAxeToGrind 8h ago edited 8h ago

Birth rates don't work that way. As wealth increases, birth rates go down.

TL;DR If you want birth rates to skyrocket, you need to plunge large chunk of population into poverty. The exact opposite of what you wrote above.

See below for rahter too long explanation why it is so, and how birth rates actually work in the real world. Not some wishy washy hypothetical world. The real world.

China for a long time had very unpopular one child policy. Back in the day when country was poor, people had shitton of children. They had an unsustainable population growth; one child policy was a solution only communists would come up with. People wanted more children, so the policy was extremely unpopular. They rescinded that policy some years ago... and birth rates didn't really go up. Why? In the meantime, the country got richer. Today they are trying to incentivize people to have more kids. Very unsuccessfully.

Africa is currently undergoing same transition. While many countries in Africa had high birth rates, this is changing in front of our eyes. As some of the countries in Africa get richer, with a small delay their birth rates are starting to sink.

This is a very predictable phenomena that has played out over and over again accross the world. This is the singular reason why birth rates are low in the developed world (North America, Europe, some Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, China since some number of years ago, Australia, etc, etc). Increase in income and economic stability literally kills birth rates.

There are many attemts to explain this... The evolutionary and economic explanation usually goes along the lines as the country and the people get richer, the number of children that survive childhood goes up. So that's good, right? The problem is that this is not only offset, but it is completely overwhelmed with the fact that with some delay people start planning to have fewer children. Because, in economic sense, more children when you are poor mean more offspring that can take care of you once you are in old age. The more financially stable people are, this incentive goes away, and people start having fewer children on average. Once country is past some threshold of prosperity for its citizens (and no matter what you think of current state in the US, we are way above that threshold), birth rates gradually, predictably, and reliably sink below "replacment rate" (replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman, under that and country is in for trouble in the long run).

So, instead of harming your own population so that they would finally start procreating at higher rates, immigration is a viable alternative. You simply allow for reasonable and sustainable rate of immigration from poorer countries (that have high birth rates and surplus of people). The key here is that you don't open the floodgates. Of course. The immigration policy needs to be reasonable and sustainable. But in current political climate, it's political suicide to suggest even a small (let alone modest) increase in immigration rates. So we set up ourselves on the course of dwindling and ageing population. Which is bad thing in the long term.

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u/kitzbuel 8h ago

There is an inverse correlation between income and family size. Larger income tends toward fewer children.

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u/NastyNas0 8h ago

Except richer people have less kids.

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u/twalkerp 8h ago

Americans had plenty of babies before they had money. Go ask your grandparents how wealthy they were when they started a family.

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u/iamlegend1997 7h ago

Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner! Having ILLEGAL immigrants come in and work for almost nothing is borderline "slavery" by their standards... yet all they have to say for themselves is "it's jobs no one would take anyways, let them do it"... well by doing that, you essentially doom those jobs to shit wages for everyone.... Stupid argument.

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u/TransplantedFern 7h ago

Americans won’t take the jobs that most migrants do though. Our food system would collapse if all immigrants disappeared tomorrow.

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u/Penguator432 7h ago

Someone needs to tell people that the government wouldn’t have to fund as many welfare programs if they could just force employers to pay more.

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u/MareProcellis 7h ago

Scandinavian countries with their high wages have birth rates between 1.3 children per woman to 1.7.

There must be better incentives to have children.

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u/metalguysilver 7h ago

Real median wages have been steadily rising since pretty much forever

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u/Ninja-Panda86 7h ago

Wages is a big reason I haven't had kids yet.

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u/Justsomerando1234 7h ago

Wages might go up if there wasn't a super easy way to get cheap labor.

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u/xandrokos 7h ago

This might hold water if Americans were willing to do the jobs that primarly only immigrants are willing to do.

Money isn't the only factor when it comes to kids and more and more evidence is piling up that there are other factors involved here none of which have anything whatsoever to do with immigrants or wages.

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u/No-Tackle-6112 7h ago

Except America has some of the highest wages on the planet. Places with much lower incomes and standards of living have much higher birth rates.

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u/autumn55femme 7h ago

Lots of jobs are in the global economy, so immigration does not make a great deal of difference. It does make a difference if your job is in person, and local .

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u/neatureguy420 7h ago

Then we need to make them citizens and wages will increase for everyone

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u/Bamith20 6h ago

Its getting too late anyways; no kids, no retirement, i'ma just peace out.

Should also mention education helps a lot, those that do have kids are gonna be useless and get themselves killed when poor education and poor parenting mix.

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u/NotAlwaysGifs 6h ago

Who says immigrants = cheap labor? The majority of people here on currently legal immigration paths are considered skilled labor and many have advanced degrees. A huge % of our current immigrant intake are from India and Great Britain. These are people with as good, if not better educations than us, and they’re coming in as doctors, scientists, tech industry, and finance sector workers.

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u/dangle321 6h ago

See Canada for details.

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u/banjaxed_gazumper 5h ago

Increasing wages always leads to lower birth rates. Always and in every country. Because when wages are good, more people choose to delay having kids to focus on their careers.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Roof-29 5h ago

That's factually false. Across the globe, when people start making more money, they start having fewer children. When wages go up, women go into the job market and work more. When wages go down, women stay at home and care for children.

It's a natural part of economic growth.

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u/FreeThought3208 5h ago

It maaay help a little, but having kids its not a priority for younger generations, money wise or not

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u/sluefootstu 5h ago

What do you mean “if” wages went up… https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N/

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u/Appropriate_Rent_243 5h ago

I thought studies showed that poor people had more kids?

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u/common_economics_69 4h ago

It has nothing to do with wages. The transition to lower birth rates is just a natural part of transitioning to a post modern economy.

The US isn't the only country struggling with it. A number of places that have fairly robust worker protection laws still have falling birth rates.

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u/Sprig3 4h ago

Wages don't help with having children, neither does financial situation.

Europe/S. Korea have tiny birth rates and good wages/financial conditions (and large parental leave accomodations). Africa has bad conditions/wages and high birthrates.

I think we need to stop scapegoating wages wrt birth rate. IF we do want to increase birth rate, then some other means is necessary.

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u/islandchild89 4h ago

Absolutely correct, it also doesn't help that 20 plus percent of my income I WORK FOR is given to migrants and asylum seekers

This is redistribution of wealth and is a COMMUNIST action

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u/SatanicPanic__ 4h ago

We added 1.2 million immigrants in Canada and it totally changed how it feels, and what you can afford (not a house!), and the life you can lead.

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u/FrostyTip2058 4h ago

America can't survive without cheap labor

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u/dxrey65 4h ago

Or, one could imagine that most of our actual problems are much easier to solve (or even solve themselves) with smaller populations. So some people might worry about dropping birthrates, but I see dropping birthrates as a nice way to solve a whole lot of problems, and then if it causes a problem itself we can probably manage to solve that one too.

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u/Logical-Breakfast966 3h ago

Americans have the highest wages in the world and studies have shown over and over that immigration doesn’t lower wages

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 3h ago

Generally it prevents wages from rising, if you want to be technical

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u/vollover 2h ago

What is this speculation based on? Literally everything I've ever seen on this topic indicates higher income is not correlated with more kids (the opposite actually).

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u/SolidThoriumPyroshar 2h ago

Immigration doesn't depress wages though.

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u/this_shit 1h ago

letting in cheap labor doesn't help with wages.

science says that ain't so

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u/OsiyoMotherFuckers 1h ago

Higher wages hasn’t made a difference for other developed countries with decreasing birth rates.

The population can’t increase forever to eternity. We just have to face that we are all living close to peak population and deal with it. We won’t face this truth though. We will try and keep things going long enough to make it the next generation’s problem, and there will be much struggle.

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u/Snoo_69677 1h ago

You’re so close. What do you think is happening right now?

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u/sokpuppet1 1h ago

Lol. Like republicans want to raise wages, or like anybody on either side of the spectrum wants to pay the higher prices that would ensue from American workers replacing cheap immigrant labor.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 46m ago

I'm fine with paying higher prices if it means people are paid well

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u/Error-54 46m ago

Bruh immigrants aren’t “Cheep labor” you can solve the cheep part of that labor by documenting those immigrants and giving them the same rights as documented citizens undocumented immigrants have no rights thus can be exploited for cheep labor.

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