It's easier to not work

Denver Post ^ | 12 sept 07 | Mark Hillman

[rellimpank]

Much of our country's simmering dialogue on immigration sooner or later turns to the question of hiring people to perform certain "jobs Americans won't do."

Rarely, however, do policymakers address why Americans apparently refuse to do certain jobs while immigrants go to great trouble and expense to come here to perform those very jobs.

Many of the jobs now commonly performed by immigrants were once filled either by students or by adults who saw work as noble and idleness as shameful. Today, our relative prosperity and appetite for instant gratification are becoming our enemy.

In my hometown, summer or after-school jobs were once prized by high school and college students. Kids knew they could make good money during a summer of hard work with a farmer or a contractor. During the school year, service industry jobs helped pay for dates and gasoline while accommodating classes and school activities.

[Nervous Tick]

>> Many of the jobs now commonly performed by immigrants were once filled either by students or by adults who saw work as noble and idleness as shameful.

Wow! What a refreshing breath of fresh air!

(Unfortunately, after reading this my conscience won’t let me freep anymore... gotta get back to work.)

[Humvee]

Sad but true. I remember picking crops when I was in high school - for much less than the equivalent of $20 an hour. I learned a lot of respect for families that had to survive that way.

[umgud]

This article is good and does explain why there are so many jobs Americans won’t do.

But.........., no matter the reasons, illegal immigration is not the solution.

Our need for cheap labor no more justifies illegal immigration than slavery in times past.

[FreedomFromGov]

My dad used to say that he worked hard (and he did - factory work) so that his kids would not have to. I don’t think he didn’t like working as much as he didn’t like busting his hump for wages that were significantly lower than folks who sat behind a desk all day (as I do). Personally, I like physical work, but I don’t like low wages. My dad’s message that work was bad has become the mantra of this country: Why work when you can go to college and make more money?

I think the country is upside down with the suits making all the money - or even worse, the fat cats with their passive income - and the people who really work making next to nothing. At the risk of sounding like a liberal (gasp!), I think the breaking up of the unions was a big factor in turning this country into a bunch of pansies who are afraid of work.

[elk]

In the rare instance that I tuned into TV yesterday (just to mock Katie Couric, I guess, after her Iraq visit ratings dip lower and lower...but I digress). They had an almost interesting piece on what made schoolboys into Presidents. I'll not mention the main biases, but one thing that numerous Presidents held in common was being raised on a farm.

I wonder what we will reap after sowing such laziness, deceit, anti-Christian movies/tv, anti-social computer/games overuse, anti-depressant medication, poor nutrition... If that's our pool for Presidents, we're in a heap o' trouble.

[BBell]

I couldn’t imagine making twenty dollars an hour picking fruit in the summer while I was in High School. Even considering inflation that is still a good wage. When I was in School you had to be in the in crowd to work at McDonald's. I got a job washing dishes at a local restaurant because my brother had worked there. My brother got a job at a gas station because our brother had worked there. We also detassled corn for minimum wage, and everyone on the crew was Caucasian(Euro-American). This was roughly 25 years ago. My how things change.

[misterrob]

There are some out there who refuse to buy into the theorem that immigrants are doing the jobs that Americans won’t do and they are dead wrong in too many cases. If more Americans would get off their asses and work then there would be less opportunity for illegals. There are businesses that would rather cheat and hire people under the table but there are also too many instances where someone is hanging out on the stoop drinking a 40 at 1:00 in the afternoon rather than earn a paycheck.

[Will88]

“A Western Slope fruit grower recently told me that several orchard owners solicited summer help at area high schools, offering $20 an hour to students who would help pick fruit. Not a single student took them up on the offer. A contractor related a similar story. When offered a job, he said, “They look at mom and dad like, ‘Do I have to work?’ “

Not sure I believe that. There are few jobs where a high school student can earn $20.00 per hour. A similar story or two put forth recently to justify the hiring of illegals proved to be false. I’ve also read stories about high school kids who had too little time for study and adequate sleep because of their desire to work and earn money so they could have various things.

When so many are trying to build their case to justify hiring illegals and allowing more and more workers in, all such stories seem suspect. Sort of like the recent video with attorneys advising employers and employment agencies on how NOT to find a qualified American worker.

[rock_lobsta]

When I was in School you had to be in the in crowd to work at McDonald's.

I'm not the only one that remembers that. You almost had to know someone to get in at McDonalds or Burger King. Back then, service was much better and friendlier. Amazing how things change in just a few years.

I can only think of a handful of chains that have excellent service still. In-n-Out and Raising Canes come to mind.

[Oberon]

Not sure I believe that. There are few jobs where a high school student can earn $20.00 per hour.

Heck, I'm supporting a family of seven all by myself on $26 per hour. Fortunately they pay overtime.

[Stat-boy]

It’s very possible for anyone who wants to work.

Back in the mid 80s, my two friends and I would run out own lawn mowing business during the Summer. We would work about 30 to 35 hours a week, and we averaged well over $10/hour [in today’s dollars, that should be about $20/hour]. It was hard work, but it kept us fit and active, and we enjoyed the feeling of earning our keep—then we would spend the $$ on car stereos, movies, golf, whatever! During the winter and school months, I worked at a grocery store for about 15 hours a week—that was easy work but I made about $7/hour.

[Will88]

“It’s very possible for anyone who wants to work.”

I agree kids who are young entrepreneurs can earn a fair amount, but there are few jobs where some employer offers to pay $20.00 per hour to high school students.

[cinives]

Those would be the John Kerry/Ted Kennedy presidential candidates...

[Dumb_Ox]

A Western Slope fruit grower recently told me that several orchard owners solicited summer help at area high schools, offering $20 an hour to students who would help pick fruit.

This does not pass the smell test.

[Will88]

These growers offered $20.00, or a chance for high school students to gross $800.00 per week and probably net $600.00 or more. They made this offer at several high schools and NOT ONE student was interested???

[Reeses]

There is no job I’m unwilling to tackle, as long as I am hired to design, build, and program a robot to do it.

[MrB]

We have huge numbers of people that can work but won’t because they are receiving a better living for doing nothing, out of the taxpayers’ pockets. They might be lazy, but they DO respond to incentives - it would be irrational to work for less money than they get for not working.

We need some reform in this area, and you’ll see more folks doing these “jobs Americans won’t do”.

[Fairview]

People would start to want to work again in this country if we pulled the plug on welfare altogether. If you get hungry enough, you’ll work doing all sorts of things you never thought you’d do. Speaking from experience here.

[Popocatapetl]

The flip side of the coin:

From the employers point of view, they want workers who work for long hours for little pay, and they resent terribly having to pay anything at all for work. But this is not a sign of laziness or greed on the part of employers.

If they can, they import illegals, who will work for half as much as “lazy” Americans, who seemingly don’t care that their work will cripple them, or make them sick, and has no other benefits. And, of course, if they don’t want to work like slaves, their employer can call the government and have them deported. And they have no right to unionize, or complain, or sue their employer in court.

Any guess when the last true “slaves” in the US were freed?

Try the 1960s. Literally a few small families of blacks had been kept as slaves since Reconstruction in the rural South, and were so isolated they were never freed, and kept as servants by their white owners, with the complicity of local law enforcement. No one was ever prosecuted for it, either.

[steadfastconservative]

I agree with you. Fruit growers who pay less than the minimum wage to migrant workers aren’t going to offer high school students $20 an hour to pick fruit. Furthermore, I don’t think that what this reporter is saying about the Denver area—that teens refuse to take minimum wage jobs—is true of other areas of the country. For example, there are plenty of teenagers and adults in northeastern Ohio, who hold minimum wage jobs. There are also plenty of Americans around here who have jobs in landscaping, house cleaning, and other trades that would be almost 100% Mexican in southern California.

This is what I think happens: illegal immigrants settle in areas where they know they can find work. Unscrupulous employers are only too willing to hire them since they can pay them less than they pay Americans. Eventually, whole sectors of the local economy are taken up by illegals. Their employers then try to justify what they have done by claiming that Americans won’t do these jobs when the simple truth is that they don’t want to hire Americans.

[Drawsing]

I did not have a summer job when I was 14. My job was year-round. I got up at 5 am, rode my bike to the neighbor’s barn, stabled and fed 25 horses, rode my bike home and got ready for school. After school I did it again. I thought I was lucky to have such a good job.

[Will88]

“We have huge numbers of people that can work but won’t because they are receiving a better living for doing nothing, out of the taxpayers’ pockets. They might be lazy, but they DO respond to incentives - it would be irrational to work for less money than they get for not working.”

But such payments from taxpayers are not made to high school students, which is the group these growers supposedly offered $20.00 per hour, supposedly at several different schools.

[Reeses]

America has forgotten the very high cost of slave labor from the first go around.

[rellimpank]

—there are plenty of high school students receiving what I believe is referred to as “Title 19”, from what I have overheard in conversations-—

[Will88]

“—there are plenty of high school students receiving what I believe is referred to as “Title 19”, from what I have overheard in conversations-—”

Never heard of that. There are cases where minors receive some SS benefits, but I’m sure there is no gov’t benefit being paid to HS students that comes anywhere near $20.00 per hour.

[gubamyster]

ping

[BBell]

Your right about North East Ohio. My wife is from there and I’ve never seen so many middle aged people working in restaurants.
What irritates me about employers who hire illegals is that they do it to line their pockets. They don’t drop their prices any. In Norhtern Virgina there are a lot of rich contractors who almost exclusively use immigrants. Do you think the housing prices went down? No, just the opposite.

[Myrddin]

When I was in School you had to be in the in crowd to work at McDonald's.

My middle son had exactly that experience in Mira Mesa. The Asian kids got all the fast food jobs...except for jobs at the Mexican restaurants. You had to speak Spanish to land one of those. Since he had no way to transform himself into an Asian, he quickly learned to speak Spanish. Voila! All the employment he wanted. Subsequently, he used that skill to develop a large Spanish speaking client base in the real estate industry in San Diego.

[A CA Guy]

Plus how would a kid feel working next to a bunch of illegals (of which many could have TB or other diseases) and not feel humiliated to be there?
It’s not like the days when other kids or a senior citizen American might be on the job with them, now you have a situation where you are usually alone and they are speaking other languages around you. Very uncomfortable for a kid I would think.

[kabar]

Anecdotal claptrap. When you have an endless supply of cheap, exploitable labor[illegal aliens], then businesses will hire them rather than students and others. It is all about the bottom line. It is no coincidence that wages in the construction industry have been depressed over several decades. This article sounds like the Bush crap about doing jobs Americans won’t do. Americans have and will do any job.

[Will88]

“This is what I think happens: illegal immigrants settle in areas where they know they can find work. Unscrupulous employers are only too willing to hire them since they can pay them less than they pay Americans. Eventually, whole sectors of the local economy are taken up by illegals. Their employers then try to justify what they have done by claiming that Americans won’t do these jobs when the simple truth is that they don’t want to hire Americans.”

I agree. I live in an area where the first Hispanics began showing up only about ten years ago and there are still only a few. Somehow, the area has provided employees (now up to 800) for a poultry processing plant since the late 1950s. I know of a couple of lawn care services, one by white and the other by black men, doing jobs Americans won’t do. All the jobs Americans won’t do are being done by Americans.

But if enough illegals ever flood the area and drive down wages, then I’m sure many Americans from drop out of those jobs and seek something else, as they have in areas with many illegals.

[SwinneySwitch]

Heard from a recently released Texas prison inmate that it’s easier in prison than it is out here!

Your tax dollars at work!

[TLI]

A Western Slope fruit grower recently told me that several orchard owners solicited summer help at area high schools, offering $20 an hour to students who would help pick fruit. Not a single student took them up on the offer. A contractor related a similar story. When offered a job, he said, "They look at mom and dad like, 'Do I have to work?' "

Right.

OK, this is from "A western slope frute grower" that said "several orchard owners" solicited summer help at area high schools, offering $20 an hour...

Sorry but I just do not believe a damn word of that. If the entire student body of these "High Schools" knew that a local job was paying $800.00 a week you can't tell me that at lease the guys on the local football teams did not suck up THAT kind of money.

NO. I do not believe this part of the story.

[John Jorsett]

I'll not mention the main biases, but one thing that numerous Presidents held in common was being raised on a farm.

Not surprising, given that the country was largely agrarian until relatively recent times. Nearly everyone I ever knew in my parent's generation was either raised or spent a significant portion of their youth on a farm or ranch.

[WLR]

Rarely, however, do policymakers address why Americans apparently refuse to do certain jobs while immigrants go to great trouble and expense to come here to perform those very jobs.

Horse Feathers

Illegals move into an industry with the help of legals who are either whores for money and/or support Reconquesta.
At the point their numbers and positions support the effort they systematically begin to drive out non illegal and non Hispanics. Corporate Whores to profit remain silent conspirators in this for filthy lucre.

La Raza” by their very name stands self convicted of supporting Brown Racism as a political and social objective.

But we must not talk of such things right?...

To speak the truth as it can be seen plainly one becomes a

“Racist”

Lord Thank you for letting me be born with brown eyes, dark hair and dark skin same for my kids and grandkids (most of them anyway).

All you real racists like La Raza, you white apologists, you corporate whores..

Go jump in a lake.

Real Americans Black, White,Brown,Red,Yellow or Green with Purple Stripes will work when the pay is sufficient for the work. Provides sufficient funds for a decent standard of living. That our Corporatocracy is happy to exploit brown folks primarily from Mexico in order to drive down the costs of labor across the board just demonstrates they are criminals. It does not demonstrate that average Americans are lazy or unwilling to work.. Illegals living 10-12 in a 4 bedroom house. Or in other non code compliant and substandard housing dare not complain. They have low fixed expenses because of the illegal concentration of people living together.

That Americans are not willing to do the same is no sign of weakness.

W

[CottonBall]

From the employers point of view, they want workers who work for long hours for little pay, and they resent terribly having to pay anything at all for work. But this is not a sign of laziness or greed on the part of employers.

There have been several stories lately about how after an ICE raid, chicken or hog processing plants needed new workers. They had a raise the wages offered by a couple of bucks an hour - and then got an overwhelming number of applicants.

It isn't that Americans won't do certain types of work, but that they won't work for depressed wages. In the employment sectors that illegals have taken over, wages have dropped so much that Americans can't afford to do that work any more. (We're having a heck of a time finding a legal gardener).

I'm in a bit of a different category - I'm taxed so high being a second income that it's hardly worth it for me to work unless I make a good wage. I'm sure many American wives are in that category as well. And since an illegal couple isn't likely to pay taxes on both incomes, they can afford to work for substandard wages as well.

[CottonBall]

Real Americans Black, White,Brown,Red,Yellow or Green with Purple Stripes will work when the pay is sufficient for the work.

Exactly! It is not weak to refuse to be exploited and to work for depressed wages. I see that as a sign of strength. (For those that move into other professions, that is. The welfare class needs to take anything they can get.)

[CottonBall]

Their employers then try to justify what they have done by claiming that Americans won’t do these jobs when the simple truth is that they don’t want to hire Americans.”

I'll second - or third - what you two have said.

All the jobs Americans won’t do are being done by Americans.

Where are you at? I would dearly love to come back to the US someday and see something like that!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The article misses the mark.

Cheap, illegal labor pushed Americans out of these labor sectors years ago and they simply can’t go back because the cheap labor is still there.

Look at all the kids who work 40 hour weeks at retail stores for $7.50 an hour.

[CottonBall]

Plus how would a kid feel working next to a bunch of illegals (of which many could have TB or other diseases) and not feel humiliated to be there?

I refuse to let my son get that type of job for the summers, although that's the type of work he wants to do. A bunch of illegals are NOT the type of role models I want him to be around all day.

This could very well be the reason why we don't see more high school students doing these jobs any more.

[Old Professer]

Surely you have a cite for that?

[litehaus]

"I think the country is upside down with the suits making all the money - or even worse, the fat cats with their passive income - and the people who really work making next to nothing."

What was the name of that song? Turn Back The Hands of Time?

Skip the ind. rev. etc etc ....Let's all make our backs more important than our brains?

Last, the old saw bout asking a poor man for a job.......

Cum'on. accept it....brains win in the end...they make better weapons than a strong throwing arm, No?

[FreedomFromGov]

Cum'on. accept it....brains win in the end...they make better weapons than a strong throwing arm, No?

Too many chiefs, not enough indians. Frankly, the clowns that I've met that come out of college wanting to be managers would serve society better as coal shovelers. And don't get me started on the lack of brains of the idiots that I used to work for.

[bert]

What a pack of horse hocky. You are a liberal union sympathasizer it seems.

Unions love to disparage their betters and those who spent the time and effort to educate themselves.

[FreedomFromGov]

You are a liberal union sympathasizer it seems. Unions love to disparage their betters and those who spent the time and effort to educate themselves.

Oh, puhlease. I have an Ivy League undergraduate degree and a law degree, along with lots of post-grad classes completed. I've worked with/for more stupid people than I could ever have imagined. The more promotions I received, the less work I did and the more money I made. Now I am self-employed, work less than I ever have and make more money than I ever have. Something's wrong with that. I'm not complaining about my life, I just don't think it's good for everyone in the country to strive to not work, and I think it sucks that people who actually work, get shafted.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Pure B.S.

[Marie2]

My high school aged sons work quite hard (Togo’s, mother’s helper, tutor) to earn between $4 and $10 an hour. $20 per hour would be phenomenal for them.

My college aged son gets up at 3:30 to open a Starbucks at 5:30. He gets minimum wage, plus a few tips.

[litehaus]

"Ivy League undergraduate degree and a law degree"

One of my kids ONLY has a degree from Florida-Gainesville.....Math- makes over a million a year, and does it with brainpower. Sure, he actually dug ditches at one time, worked at a Dairy Queen etc etc etc .....but the brainpower is the difference..Don't mean to brag...I am merely illustrating brains over old fashioned brawn......

As I once said re New Yorkers----When the lites go out, Yall be looking to your country cousins-- farmers,hunters,fishermen, to save yer butt..So I think you can see I am not deprecating all uneducated strong backs or their way of earning a living....

[FreedomFromGov]

but the brainpower is the difference

Good for your son; soounds like a bright guy. Yeah, there are some brilliant minds out there who are worth every penny they make; those people are few and far between. There are many more idiots making millions doing practically nothing while others are busting their humps making practically nothing. Look at these hedge fund managers/gamblers, for example - these are the people that get rewarded in this country, whereas people who genuinely work, make less. Ironically, many who make the most, contribute nothing to the economy.