Quote:This is one of the big things I do not understand. Illegal workers are a problem, I agree fully with this. I think most people will agree with this. However, what it does show, is that in an unregulated free market, employers will pay as little as they can. Not in relation to relative skill but as low as they can get away with to pad profits. When you have more people looking for good jobs than there are good jobs available, weather skilled or not, you find people willing to take much lower wages simply because they need income. If you don't have a minimum wage and a healthy one at all, what incentive is there at all for employers to pay a decent wage? I say there is zero incentive at all and in the end well over half the population (guessing here) suffers as a result. 

 

The taxation is a completely different issue that also needs to be addressed but it does not fix the obvious problem. There are way more people than there are "non minimum wage" type jobs. There probably isn't even enough to support half the population. There is no solution to this problem. In my opinion, you help support the half (or whatever the % is) by having a decent, livable minimum wage or you simply do not care about those people. 

I have worked in construction my entire working life other than the time I spent in the Navy...what I have seen first hand is many ( not all but a lot) of employers in the construction field pay their illegal workers $8 - $12 (cash under the table) depending on how long they have worked for them...They get no real benefits. Sometimes the younger illegals keep their families home while they work here but they send home most of their money...$8- $12 an hour in American currency is a huge salary in Mexico...One man I worked with on several different jobs ( different companies but same job) had worked for the same man for 20 years leaving his family at home  and sending most of his pay home and just going home a couple times a year...With the money he sent home, his family bought a 1600 acre farm and built a nice home which was paid off...They live like Kings in Mexico

 

Some of the younger one leave their families at home until they have a pretty good chunk of change saved and then they have their families come...

 

They are willing to work for such low pay because when they send it home, their families live very well because  their salary is huge as compared to Mexican standards and they can also save a ton of it and live very well

---