I'm very discouraged right now, too. GWB, at least, had his party behind him, and Trump doesn't. The Omnibus Bill was very telling.
Not only was there almost no funding for a wall, the H2-B immigration program was expanded. Corporate America is united in demanding a constant supply of excess labor to pick from, and Congress can't get elected without accepting corporate donations. So neither party is going to do anything meaningful about trying to keep a balance between numbers of workers in the country with numbers of job openings.
Last week, I saw a chart which indicated that five EU countries now have wages rising faster than we do. The odd thing is that their unemployment rates are being reported as quite a bit higher than ours are reported to be. Maybe measurements are faulty in both countries. In our country, though, I'm guessing we actually have no idea how many workers are seeking jobs. But more than our economists think.
Democrats see immigrants, of course, as future voters, and they con current voters into favoring increasing immigration as a humanitarian cause. Low information dem voters don't see it as an economic issue. Thus I think sustained and organic wage growth is not going to materialize sufficient to keep govt. debt problems at bay.
Most wage growth so far is going to public employees. It is being legislated, and that is really just a transfer of wealth from one group to another group. Taxpayers to teachers, military, police, etc.
We really need to see, imo, wage growth coming from corporations paying higher salaries. This creates a rising tide that lifts all boats. The only way to make that happen consistently, i.e. more than one-time bonuses coming from corp. tax cuts, is to limit the number of workers available.
I'm not sure that Trump himself understands the economic issues of immigration. He focuses on the criminal aspect of it, not the cost of the social programs immigrants receive while not paying much into nor the employment imbalances. The messaging of this issue is all wrong, imo, and his own party is rather silent. |
