Politics/Law question: Illegal immigration and the minimum wage?
Is there something inconsistent about instituting “immigration reform” (which will likely include some form of amnesty and/or guest worker program) on the one hand, and raising the minimum wage on the other?
Will guest workers be subject to minimum wage and all other employment laws? If they are, then won’t the economic incentive to hire “illegal illegals” rather than guest workers or legal citizens or residents be as strong as ever? Or if there will be some exceptions to the prevailing wage laws, then isn’t the whole guest worker program a back-door method to repeal the minimum wage? Or do the illegals – those who “take the jobs Americans won’t take” already make minimum, meaning that almost everyone is being paid bove the minimum anyway?
It seems like a contradiction to me to relax immigration policy and raise the minimum wage at the same time. I suppose it makes sense if, after this next amnesty, they promise to REALLY crack down on the border – but get real!
Thoughts?
Federal labor laws that set minimum wages such as Davis Bacon (for government construction projects) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (for most all other businesses subject to federal law) require that employers pay their employees the statutory minimum wage per hour regardless of immigration status. That is to say, if they are doing the work, they get the pay, period.
However, there are exemptions from the minimum wage (in the FLSA, especially) that tend to favor occupations that have a high immigrant population – most notably, agricultural work. However, as noted in another answer, an underground economy is created when payments are made in cash under the table and even though legally those payments are required to be at at least the statutory minimum wage, they rarely are and enforcement is difficult because of the lack of a paper trail or other evidence (people being paid under the table are rarely willing to provide testimony to prove such things are going on).
Guest worker programs are different. Their wages are set by surveys to determine what is “prevailing in the industry” and differ by geographical region. Therefore, guest workers here on H-1B visas working in nursing or computer programming, for instance, are required to be paid what American nurses or computer programmers would be paid. Again, though, agriculture is different – sheep herders here on H-2A visas are normally only paid around $1,000-$1,500 per month for being on duty 24/7. But, that’s what is “prevailing in the industry.” The irony is that if such a low wage is what is continually paid to such workers, it will ALWAYS be the prevailing wage!
My personal thoughts are that there are plenty of American workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase. And immigration is a multi-pronged problem. We need to make it more attractive for immigrants to stay and work at making their native countries prosper, and less attractive for US employers to exploit their deplorable native conditions by offering – and getting away with paying – only slightly more to them here. The mentality that illegals somehow don’t “deserve” minimum wage because even 50% of the US minimum wage is a fortune compared to similar work in their home countries is like saying it’s OK to beat your wife every other day because her first husband beat her every day.
Anyway – hope this helps.
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