Who’s Working?

With an admitted 94 million plus people no longer in the workforce how can we have only 5.1% unemployed? If we have only 5.1 % unemployed labor must be tight so lots of people want raises which seem to be true with all the calls for $15 an hour minimum wage, even if it’s only for an $8 an hour job. Unfortunately, U.S. hourly wages have remained unchanged or have in some places actually gone down.

Almost all the charts and graphs that the Labor Department turnout, seem to be for political purposes. So with the upcoming elections we should see lots of numbers saying how much better we are than before Obama. Somehow looking around I don’t see that, do you? This all looks like a second depression, yet because of the upcoming election someone is cooking the books to make the current administration and their polices look good. Yet, buried in the back of the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports are some charts and numbers that are shocking.

Since most everything has to do with the November 2016 presidential elections these charts are not highlighted but they are there. The two most interesting charts focus on the topic of immigration. They show that foreign born workers are taking most of the newly created jobs.

While the number of foreign-born individuals holding jobs increased in August, the number of employed native-born workers fell, according to data released September 4th by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

There were 24,914,000 foreign-born individuals employed in August, up 204,000 from July. According to the BLS, a foreign-born worker may be undocumented because the data does not distinguish between legal or illegal immigrants.

While employment increased for the foreign born over the month, workers born in the United States declined. There were 124,314,000 native-born workers employed in August, which was down 698,000 from the month before. So Americans lost almost 700,000 jobs while foreign born workers got 200,000 jobs. It is true that some foreign workers are brought in to do specialized jobs but only about half that number for an entire year.

Some might think well that was just August, but if we look back since December 2007, according to the Household Survey, 790,000 native born American jobs have been added. Contrast that with the 2.1 million foreign-born who have found a job over the same time period.

This is but one example of the Democrats’ polices that are hurting American workers. I do hope that this will be brought up in the debate Wednesday night as I think few people read to the back of the Department of Labor reports and consequently have no idea who’s getting the available jobs. No matter what race or ethnicity, if you were born as an American you are the ones being discriminate against. Maybe that’s why Donald Trump’s message seems to attract so many.