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« Our sensitive EEOC | Main | Iraq »

May 18, 2006

Comments

bird dog

Effective help? Don't we already have student loan programs all over the place, and scholarships all over the place? What more is needed from the Govt?

Best,

Bird Dog

Tom Bowler

It's true, government offers a lot, Bird Dog. Part of my complaint about effective help stems from the practice (disappearing we hope) where schools have been guilty of graduating students without educating them. Scholarships and loans are helpful, but a kid can pile up huge debt in college.

I think it would be worthwhile to discuss expanding the traditional public school education to include post high school education. But what I was really trying to say was that we should take an educational approach to solving the unemployment and low wage issues rather than fool around trying to impose a minimum wage.

You're right, though. Effective help from government? What was I thinking?

Paul

There's a sort of natural equilibrium there, though; as the flow of immigrants and the minimum wage make labor too difficult to find here, demand to be here will lower and the influx will slow down.

If it wouldn't hurt low-skill American workers, as well as costs of production in America, I would think it a natural solution to the immigration problem: jack up minimum wages, so those jobs "Americans won't do" have to be offered for wages that Americans will do them for after all.

Then again -- if employers are already breaking the law by hiring illegals, who's to say they won't just pay them less than minimum wage?

Tom Bowler

Jacking up the minimum wage is not something that will help. The jobs that "Americans won't do" won't get done because employers get pushed towards the decision that some jobs just aren't worth doing. At the same time the higher wage would attract employees who would like to get paid to do them. It could also attract more illegals willing to work under the table.

It would make a great liberal political move. Eliminate a bunch of jobs by raising the minimum wage then complain about the awful unemployment and the immigration problem.

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