Actually, this and parent skirt a real issue of employment, education, and welfare in the U.S.
- We are permitting the illegal immigration of unskilled, under educated Central, South, and Latin American immigrants, along with Mexican immigrants, to come to American and compete for the worst jobs.
- Despite lower employment, we continue to do this.
- Even if we take up the challenge and offer education to these immigrants, they will only compete further up the social ladder. And more under educated will come, since we lack the will to control the influx.
- English is not their preferred language. This not only costs in providing bilingual resources, but it causes resentment and risks discrimination.
Some skills in America are valued, and intelligent people seek those skills, or they accept less value for the skills they do choose. Since manufacturing has largely left the US, those work skills (work as in physical labor) are not so much in demand. Information technology is taking up that slack, but those skills are too often found in legal immigrants under programs such as the H1B visa program, and Americans lose out again.
The labor force participation rate is a telling statistic, dropping from 66+% in 2008 to 62.5% today. Those workers no longer in the workforce didn't just disappear. They are still eating, living somewhere, and are doing so at the expense of someone else. So long as we permit illegal immigration to continue largely uncontrolled, we keep adding workers to a marketplace that has too many already.
Higher employment might make a number of other solutions to other problems possible, but in the current economic situation we are doomed to continue deficit spending and a further plunge into debt. No way out without the economy improving.
And even then, the will to say 'no' to the hands out looking for a paycheck for nothing is critical. And unlikely to happen given the current political situation, either.
