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"A more equitable society requires a willingness to pay a little more for the burger or the bicycle — and for the welfare of the Americans who make and sell those products." Americans are willing. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/opinion/income-wealth-inequality-america.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
"In the nation’s slaughterhouses, the average worker in 1982 made $24 an hour in inflation-adjusted dollars, or $50,000 a year. Today the average meatpacker processes significantly more meat — and makes less than $14 an hour." IOW, no job Americans won't do if offered decent wage
The tight labor market of the mid-20th century led to a healthy competition for workers, better conditions, higher wages, unionization, and increased opportunity for all Americans.
(cont) We began to think of ourselves as a middle class nation and cultivated a heightened awareness of persistent inequities elsewhere in American life, culminating in the Civil Rights Movement.
(cont) We overwhelmingly supported striking national-origin quotas from immigration policy. The Johnson admin and legislators complied, while assuring the public that reform would not increase overall numbers which would tilt the labor balance heavily against workers.
(cont) Over the next 30 years, immigration numbers quadrupled and have remained at record levels ever since. Unions, wages, working conditions, and opportunities declined, especially for descendants of slaves and recent immigrants. Economic inequality expanded across the board.
Elite consensus today: mass immigration is itself a social justice issue; those who acknowledge that it redistributes nearly $500B from wage earners to the investment class must be shunned, shamed, or cancelled. If this view prevails we will never be a middle class nation again.
