Ok, and where is the part that shows these people are sitting around? That was part of your claim too, and if these folks already have jobs or are in job training, they are not available for hire. That same page notes that a quarter of such households have earned income, and most of the rest are currently subject to work requirements (which means they are right now actively seeking employment, are in job training, or are in certain other specified activities such as alcohol treatment or physical rehab).
Also remember that for SNAP purposes, a “single-person household” isn’t necessarily a person living alone; it’s just a household in which no other resident qualifies for food stamps, or where the other resident(s) are accounted as a separate household (e.g., shared residences where the various individuals don’t ordinarily prepare and share meals together).
In the first place, why do you believe these are “excuses”? Are you yourself physically capable of hauling bundles of shingles up and down a ladder all day, and do you think most of the people you know are able to do so? (More than 60% of adult SNAP recipients are female, and a good chunk are non-elderly but still in their 40s and 50s.)
Secondly, what do you know about the physical requirements of meatpacking? The industry is regularly listed among the most dangerous in America–in a typical year, a quarter of employees will suffer a job-related injury or illness, and the rate of cumulative trauma injuries is more than 30 times the national average. (And those are the reported figures, in an industry where many illegal workers won’t report anything that doesn’t involve an ambulance.) In a typical beef packing plant, for example, 300-400 head of cattle will pass by every single hour, and “the chain never stops.” A beef hide straight off the kill floor weights around 150 to 180 pounds–if that’s your station, you’ll need to move a couple of hundred of them per hour for eight hours, with two 15-minute breaks and a half hour for lunch, and you’ll be more successful if you don’t get tired and get your hand (or head!) tangled in the chain, caught in the machinery, or struck by the hooks moving along the chain. Think you could do it? think most of your friends could?
From the same report: “These households tended to be single-person households (92 percent) and had a very low average gross monthly income ($259), although about one-fourth (27 percent) had earned income. Fifty-nine percent of these households had zero gross income”
Zero gross income to me means they are not working. And I don’t understand what you mean when you say “if these folks already have jobs or are in job training they are not available for hire” I have a job, but I would take another one if it was better in some way.
From the definitions of that same report: “Single-person households. Households with exactly one person.” Unless you have a different definition of “exactly”
I’ll leave your insinuation that women cannot be roofers just out here on its own.
Yes, I know I could do it if I had to. So could most of my friends. Would it be hard, back-breaking work? Sure would. I would still do it if necessary, if needed to feed and clothe my children for instance. Your posts just smack of “OMG! Hard work is hard! nobody except a strapping man of 23-25 years old can do any of the jobs available. Everybody else just doesn’t have a chance because it’s too hard!!”
Why is it fine for this to happen to an illegal immigrant but not to a legal white citizen? If meat packing is this dangerous, this is a workplace safety issue not an immigration issue. No one shows up on day one ready to handle this type of work. It takes time to become acclimated. I see these stories where someone quits on the first day. It’s inexcusable. Of course you’re going to be sore when you first start.
Oh, by the way, I’m physically fit enough to do this. My friends? Not so much.
Saying that illegal immigrants should do the dangerous / unpleasant work that Americans don’t want to, sounds pretty racist and exploitative in and of itself.
Yes. I care that people i hire are competent and fairly paid. I care that the tree guy carries liability and workers comp insurance. I don’t actually care whether they are working legally. I would be happy to change the laws and make it easier to immigrate, and I’m not going to help enforce those laws when I’m not legally required to. Note that all the people I’ve mentioned are contractors, not employees. I did check when i hired an employee.
But that is still not my point. My point remains that there are lots of ways to earn a living other than being an employee of a legitimate employer who checks your papers.
It’s not fine at all. The meat packing industry would benefit from safer procedures. I, for one, would be happy to pay more for meat that was obtained without abusing the workers. The roofing industry, while dangerous, probably doesn’t have any easy safety improvements.
However, that just leaves a job opening somewhere else. If you take a group of farm laborers and turn them into roofers, then the crops don’t get picked and the cows don’t get fed until you find more farm laborers. Solving the problem of jobs left unfilled by the deportation of illegal workers requires bringing into the active labor force people who are currently not working, or at least not working full-time.
Similarly, if you pull somebody out of a job training program to fill a position, then whatever position s/he was being trained for goes unfilled. Having more roofers but fewer CNAs is good how?
From the definitions section (pp. 30-31):
Like I said, “household” for SNAP purposes doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as it means for other purposes. Two or more people who live in the same house but do not ordinarily purchase and prepare meals together do not necessarily live in the same SNAP household even though they live under the same roof. If they share a bed but not a kitchen, they can ask to be counted as separate households unless they are married, and depending on their individual circumstances they may be wise to do so.
[Welcome to the wonderful world of government regulations.]
It’s not an insinuation that women CAN’T be roofers; it’s a bald statement that a pretty high percentage of women lack the sheer physical strength required by that particular profession. If you are going to fill up the ranks of roofers from the ranks of welfare recipients, you need to make sure there are enough welfare recipients who meet the requirements, because putting a bunch of people up on the roof who can’t do the job, or who get hurt doing the job, creates more problems than it solves.
This is just reality. When you are talking about roofing, or meatpacking or construction, you are talking about hard dangerous jobs that demand certain physical attributes. People who lack those attributes but really desire to do so to feed their families tend not to do so well, because desire doesn’t replace balance or dexterity. People who lack the necessary physical attributes are people who end up getting hurt, and then they end up on worker’s comp or disability, or their survivors end up collecting benefits. “Just do it” won’t stop repetitive strain injuries, or falling off a roof, or getting your arm crushed in a meat grinder.
Pretending that people are interchangeable, or that anybody at all can be a roofer, serves no purpose at all.
However, I’m not saying that illegal immigrants SHOULD do work Americans don’t want. I’m saying that immigrants (legal and otherwise) are more likely to be young men, and these hard dangerous jobs are jobs best suited for young men who have the necessary strength and stamina. You can’t take a 50-something with a bad back and chronic knee problems, stick him or her up on a roof toting bundles of shingles, and expect it’s all going to work out.
To do all of these dangerous jobs, we need people who have the necessary physical attributes. That mostly means young men, and we don’t have enough of those stateside to fill all of the available jobs. The option we’ve got is to import them, legally or otherwise.
Sure, there’s workplace safety issues and other changes that could be made and should be made. At the end of the day, though, roofing and meatpacking and feeding cows and other manual labor jobs ARE MANUAL LABOR. Being sore at the end of the day is one thing; getting killed because you lost your balance and fell off a roof is a wee bit different.
I see no evidence of a labor shortage for these jobs other than employers’ complaints. BLS data does not back them up, by for example stating that “unemployment in the construction industry is 2%” which would indicate a true labor shortage. As a matter of fact, since 2000(as far back as the data I found goes) there has never been a shortage of construction workers. Not even close, actually.
It doesn’t look like many other manual labor industries have labor shortages either:
So the only reason to import more workers is to hold wages down.
If we did need to import workers, then we should have a legal system in place to do this. Sociology 101 tells us that when laws are regularly flouted, it breeds disrespect for the law and the system in general. Except for absurd laws that no one takes seriously, there should not be laws on the books that are poorly enforced on purpose. It makes a mockery of rule of law and creates the conditions for antiestablishment candidates.
There hasn’t been any period since 2000 when the U.S. did not have a largish supply of illegal immigrant labor, either. The construction companies, etc., haven’t been compelled to fill all of the jobs with native labor, so I don’t think you can draw conclusions from the employment statistics. The employers’ anecdotal data is the best evidence we’ve got on the difficulties of finding legal employees.
Now that I will fully agree with. However, immigration reform is not an issue that has gained traction, particularly among the members of the party currently in control of both houses of Congress. When the Establishment can’t or won’t act, what do you expect is going to result?
It takes a PHD to figure out that you can carry less than the entire bundle up to the roof. Say take a third of them. Make three trips. Hell, the tile wrapped in paper anyway. They rip half the time anyway. Apparently, the Ivy Leaguers don’t have enough common sense to know that you hand the tiles to someone already on the roof.
Bolding mine. (Mods, not sure if bolding is allowed in a quote but I wanted to point out the part I was talking about)
You clearly said “single-person household” before, but when I pointed out that you were incorrect, you then changed it to “household” which has a completely different meaning.
Strange, I heard that exact same reasoning when people tried to tell me why women couldn’t do certain jobs in the military.
We don’t? How many young men do we have without jobs? And I STILL can’t believe you discount women in your counting of who is available to do these jobs.
I, too, would pay more for meat, along with almost any other product to ensure adequate safety procedures in the production of said meat and other products.
I’m sure there exists some sort of mechanisms to ensure workers on roofs do not fall to their death while working. However, companies hiring illegal workers are likely to skip these recommended mechanisms. Luckily for those companies, people that hire them as “contractors” don’t concern themselves with safety of the workers or other workplace regulations because they are under no obligation to “enforce the law”
Although meat is getting so expensive that I’m having more vegetarian meals these days, count me in for this, too. No human should be maimed or die to make my dinner cheaper.
Speaking as someone who has done actual roofing work for pay…
Yes, woman CAN do the work, but on average they are at a disadvantage because of biological realities. The average man of a given age and fitness level has more brute strength than the average woman. Roofing is manual labor and, especially when you start, it is hard work. While some women can do this and even enjoy it (!) for certain values of “enjoy” (let’s face it, I did it strictly because I needed money, not because I like it, quite the contrary). There are a lot of people, both male and female who are not physically able to do this work and are a potential hazard on a job site.
Yes, people past 40 CAN do the work (I did so in my 40’s) on average people past 40 are not as strong as they were in their 20’s. Stamina also drops off with age. So while there are 40 and 50 year olds who can do the work there are a lot of them that can’t.
It’s not just brute strength. You’re working outside, that means exposure to cold, heat (LOTS of heat - roofs are very hot in the summer time), dehydration, and so forth. This also causes physical stress and if you’ve got some chronic conditions, such as diabetes, this puts you at greater risk of serious problems even if it doesn’t pose a risk for indoor workers or desk jockeys. Passing out from the heat on top of a roof is extremely dangerous, even if you have a safety line. Again, the rate of such conditions rises with age.
About the safety thing: Yes, certain things exist to reduce the risk of falling, but safety lines and foot braces don’t come as standard roofing items. They have to be installed at the job site. That means somebody has to go up on the roof without them to install them. Ditto for scaffolding - someone has to assemble it, and by definition partially assembled scaffolding is not quite as stable and safe as the fully assembled variety. You can reduce the risk, you can not eliminate it. There are also problems like discovering a rotten rafter/roof the hard way, by falling through a weak spot. You don’t have to fall all the way to the ground to get hurt, even seriously hurt. You can get shit dropping off a roof to hit someone on the ground. Yes, hard hats might save your life, but that doesn’t make your hand less broken if that’s what gets hit by a falling tool.
We won’t get into the problem of how to get people to properly use said safety equipment, which is on-going issue.
Bottom line: roofing is inherently more dangerous than a lot of other jobs.
The other bottom line: there’s a crapload of people who either can not or should not be doing roofing work.
Also - what with the Great Recession and economic slowdown, there is less call for roofers than there used to be. You’re not going to employ everyone who needs a job via giving them roofing work.
That’s not an answer though - according to the cite, room and board is provided. How far is too far for a good job?
My brother, working in Australia, has a 6 hour commute to work - he drives down, works for the week, drives home for the weekend. Why can people relocate for a job?
Why can’t the farmer go looking for staff where the workers are? Why can’t an industry body step in and help with recruiting straight from school or similar?
And yes - “foreign labour” is the easy solution - if you really want to help, then work harder at matching the two markets.
THat’s actually less than the government could be doing, and as I’ve pointed out, he just sorta stopped wanting to do it in 2007.
Of course, no one likes to talk about the fact that he was throwing a few million people under the bus so he could build support for legislation that would benefit Democrats politically.
What I hate is the idea that Mexico basically dumps its people on the US. They are basically told that if they want jobs, education, clean water, housing, roads, and all other things quit expecting it in Mexico and move to the US. Oh and send money home. Mexico gets billions of income and doesn’t have to build a single school, road, or sewage treatment plant to support it. That money is the best source of income for the average poor Mexican family.
So instead of working to solve their problems, Mexico just dumps them on us.
