Labor Day, Sept. 2, 2019: Four decades of peanuts for workers, courtesy of Congress

Enormous levels of immigration over recent decades have caused wages for all U.S. workers to fall behind. Large numbers of citizens’ wages are now so low that they live from payday to payday and cannot save anything for emergencies or for a comfortable retirement. We see widespread homelessness due partly to rents beyond the reach of many low-paid workers.

Who’s responsible for these developments?  Congress sets the immigration laws, including numbers of immigrants.  Oregon’s Congressional delegation has consistently voted for increases in immigration, lax-to-no enforcement of immigration law, and expensive benefits to illegal aliens, enticing further illegal immigration.

To see the Oregon delegations’ grades over their entire careers, click here.
Here are their grades based on their recent voting records in Congress, as documented by NumbersUSA:

F- :  Senator Jeff Merkley, Senator Ron Wyden, Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader

B  :  Representative Greg Walden

Senator Merkley is up for reelection next year, as are all of Oregon’s 5 Representatives.

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Labor Day: Four Decades of Dramatic CEO Income Growth; Peanuts for Workers

By Joe Guzzardi, Progressives for Immigration Reform,  August 29, 2019

Excerpts:

A recent Economic Policy Institute Study titled “CEO Compensation Has Grown 940% since 1978” is a Labor Day lament for American workers whose wages during the same period have only increased a meager 12%. EPI’s analysis found that this exorbitant, unconscionable earnings differential is the major income inequality contributor, and has persisted through equally indifferent Democrat and Republican administrations. …

CEOs have unquestionably taken full advantage of their power to enrich themselves, and suppress lower-echelon employee wages. But another variable that contributes to 40 years of flat wages for hourly workers is the executive suite’s addiction to cheap, foreign labor. With what has been an unbroken inflow of illegal immigrant and legal guest workers, between 750,000 and 1 million annually, corporations have no incentive to increase domestic workers’ salaries – and they haven’t. …

That immigration grows the economy is the age-old, half-truth argument. Sure, more people and more workers create a bigger economy. But immigration does not help the per capita income. Immigration’s benefits accrue to the immigrants and to their employers, and not the general public. The traditional solution to filling job openings is to offer higher wages, not import more cheap labor. With more than 6.1 million people unemployed, that pool should be tapped first.

Congress will soon reconvene, but as it has been for too many legislative sessions, creating a fairer immigration system that protects instead of harms American workers isn’t on the agenda.

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Read the complete article here.