It’s a fine line. We all want affordable goods AND keep the jobs making those goods here but people working those jobs demand higher pay so the costs go up and it’s a vicious cycle. Hard to balance so the easy way out was to just leave and make the stuff where it’s cheap to do so.
In California, it’s not just construction jobs or dishwashing jobs that will be taken by illegal immigrants. Now it will be jobs that were solidly middle class jobs.
http://www.pe.com/articles/law-775007-state-california.html
Many professions fall under the California Department of Consumer Affairs licensing boards: accountants, acupuncturists, architects, mechanics, barbers and cosmetologists, nurses, veterinarians, appraisers, therapists, boxers, funeral directors, chiropractors, contractors, court reporters, dental hygienists, dentists, engineers, landscape architects, doctors, occupational therapists, optometrists, pharmacists, physical therapists, podiatrists, psychologists, real estate agents and appraisers, speech language pathologists.
All these jobs will now be available to illegal immigrants. (Although since it’s still illegal to hire them per federal law, except that enforcement of those laws is non-existent.)
So manufacturing jobs which use to support a middle class family are moving offshore and now, in California at least, service jobs and occupations will be taken by illegal immigrants and undercut wages.
No wonder people are angry and disillusioned.
Many of these listed professions require a degree from an accredited US school…
Yes…I can see a huge influx of illegal immigrant dentists coming to a neighborhood near you. They are coming closer and closer…I can see an illegal immigrant dentist. Oh…noooooooooo.
I am sorry. I am not afraid.
@tating:
I doubt illegal immigrants are going to take those kind of jobs,most of them require specialized training and/or certifications to be able to do it, and I doubt very much that illegal immigrants, who are mostly unskilled labor, would be hirable even if they wanted to. Licensing requires among other things proof of training. Not to mention that for things like dentists and doctors and associated professions, they are very, very tough on people who were trained overseas, to get licensed is not easy, back when Russian Jews were coming to the US with the various deals, a lot of them, even though they had gone to med school and had been practicing, had a hard time being able to work here. The problem in skilled professions is not illegal immigrants, it is generally the abuse of H1B and other visa programs that lead to what you are talking about that have helped suppress wages and made it difficult for some to get jobs.
This thread was always about illegal immigration. The title, “The Shrinking Middle Class” was a cover.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-immigrant-licenses-20160508-story.html
Barbers and cosmetologists here illegally lead in seeking licenses. But there are also dentists. Illegal immigration is one aspect of why the middle class in the U. S. is shrinking. But apparently it is politically incorrect to discuss it.
California’s allowing illegal immigrants to take these kinds of jobs does show the lie in saying ‘they only take jobs Americans won’t do’.
More than 300 people applied for professional licenses in a year. This is in a state of well over 30 million people.
I find it interesting the stress on immigrants and not the 1 per centers and their unfair advantages. Wasn’t it Warren Buffett who said he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary?
Last year one of my neighbors told me the reason the middle class is shrinking is because all the immigrants (we have seasonal migrant workers where I live) send their salaries back to their families at home, so that all that US money vanishes from this country. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that.
We need to lower the barriers to entry and expansion for entrepreneurs and investors – make it easier, not harder, for businesses to do business. Why? Aside from the “because Liberty/Property/Capitalism are our economic ideals…” answer:
- We can't afford to keep adding gov't jobs on the back of the taxpayer. That is not sustainable without a gigantic tax increase and even then it's a thing that just keeps needing to be fed more and more...
- Private sector jobs are more stable/profitable. They reflect market conditions, and markets are efficient when they aren't overly regulated. Also, a healthy private sector means healthy tax revenue.
There is plenty of labor and product demand to support business/job growth in this country. That’s not a problem.
The problem is the lack of incentive to start or expand businesses and either create or keep jobs here. Cutting the corporate tax rate, at least for SMBs, would likely have an immediate positive effect on jobs. And we’d be doing it by increasing economic liberty – moving closer back to our ideals/roots – rather than doing it by expanding our already large government.
"
“This thread was always about illegal immigration. The title, “The Shrinking Middle Class” was a cover.”
^ That’ s the nail and the head and @dstark you just hit it.
Can you show us a link with information that shows all these federal government jobs that have been created since the financial crisis?
How much are corporate taxes as a percentage of federal taxes?
What were they 30 years ago?
Why? There have been threads focused on illegal immigration before.
It’s the possibility/threat of expanding government that worries me. Governments are not terribly efficient. They already waste too much of our money. They need to be smarter about spending what we give them. A balanced budget amendment is a pipe dream, but it would be a pretty good start.
Corporate taxes are a burden on private-sector growth in that they make existing business less profitable and, in so doing, stunt job growth from existing firms. They also remove or hinder the incentive to start a firm, also harming job creation.
(I’m not seeing the how that second question fits here, so I’ll continue rambling. 
Our high corporate tax rate might only indirectly affect the largest businesses, since many don’t pay near the full rate; but if you’re a small or medium business, or are considering taking on all that risk as an investor or entrepreneur, it’s a major hindrance because you likely have neither the time, experience nor extra cash to figure out an effective tax shield or to pay someone to do it. So slashing it for (at least) the SMBs would be a pretty nice shot in the arm for job growth, by lowering one of the main barriers to entry and expansion.
Finally, when we entered the '80s our richest were taxed at some exorbitant rate like 65%. Much of the economic boom of that decade (talk about GDP growth…) was due to the added liquidity of private investment funds, simply by letting them keep and invest more of their own money. The PC advent helped give them an engine into which to pour all that gas, of course (much like the Internet in the '90s…), but the fact that they could invest it likely helped greatly.
Aiding the charge was the cutting of the corporate tax rate in 1986 from about 46% down to about 34%. It has since been increased by about 1%.
So let’s examine the overall tax movements of the '80s vs. today, and tell me which was kinder to business:
In the '80s…
- Personal income tax rates decreased, especially for the top bracket (roughly cut in half over Reagan’s presidency…). This meant individuals had more cash to spend and invest.
- The corporate tax rate was cut from 46% (or was it higher when Jimmy left?) to 34%.
Since 2008:
- The top brackets’ income tax rates have been increased. Not much change for middle and lower class brackets.
- The corporate tax rate is virtually unchanged.
I don’t have all the answers for why private sector job growth is stagnant and why we continue to leak jobs overseas – but obviously cost is a big one. One easy way to trim cost is to cut the corp tax rate.
It’s worth a shot. Sure as heck worked last time we tried it.
“I find it interesting the stress on immigrants and not the 1 per centers and their unfair advantages. Wasn’t it Warren Buffett who said he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary?”
Give me a break with the 1% stuff. Warren Buffet’s secretary is in the 1%, she makes over 400K. It’s the difference of people paying taxes on ordinary income, or not.
I asked you specific questions of facts to back up your opinions.
I didn’t ask you about tax rates. I asked you about corporate taxes as a share of federal taxes. I want to see the burden of corporate taxes as a share of federal taxes.
There are more to taxes paid than tax rates. The top 1 percent pays an average of 27 percent of their income in taxes for example. 27 percent is not the top rate, is it?
You said we keep adding government jobs. Ok. Do you have the federal job numbers?
I thought that government jobs had been in decline, for the last several years.
The numbers have been declining since 2010.
And golly, they were much higher under Reagan.