Soshin wrote:
"As for construction jobs, why should a construction company hire unskilled Americans at minimum wage when they can have skilled Mexicans at below minimum wage?"

skilled Mexicans? Did I miss something? They went from the correct term of illegal aliens to "undocumented" immigrants to "skilled" Mexicans? When did this happen?

I'd have to agree with GB on the wage / employment issue, but disagree with the aggressive nature in your messages.

The 'gutter talk' lets you down.

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Actually I came here to get married to someone I was already very much in love with. Sorry to dissapoint! I couldn't care less about the European Union as I am quite fond of distinct cultures and I think the EU is homogenising everything like McDonald's or The Gap or Starbucks. You lose something unique with the EU...........


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What are you? 5 years old? Grow up!

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Again, like your namesake you miss the point. American wages are undercut becasue YOU want cheap exploitative labor. If you were willing to pay more for things then you will still have blue collar jobs in this country as opposed to outsourcing everything so you can get you $12 sneakers down at Wallmart. Low wages hurt Americans as well as immigrants.

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I was working illegally because my visa ran out and the INS took 6 months to process my paperwork. I was already married to an American and living in NYC. The government was aware of my presence, I filed my application in May, my work permit came through in November. I wasn't allowed to work until my temporary papers came though. How am I supposed to pay the rent in the meantime? Sell drugs??? You tell me.

It was another 18 months before I was able to get my full-time work papers and 5 years before I was finally given my greencard.

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See above moron! One word: Circumstances.....


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On $5 an hour? Oh Puleeeze! I find it repugnant that you would tax someone who earning that amount of money!

Soshin just got bored with the Union Of European Socialist Republics, so he came to the US to try to sow Socialism here.

Jclist is his pulpit.

Loser.

Bobble-

Agree whole heartedly.


GWB

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And what about the companies that hire this labor? Are you going to dish out an equal helping of bile for them? "If you build it, they will come. . . ."

Tell your namesake to get off his ass and do something.

Soshin-

So you were working illegally and somehow it's what, America's fault you weren't being paid better?

Maybe you could have tried not taking a big hot dump on the laws of the country that was serving as your host.

If $5 was so awful, you could either a)do what other law-abiding people do and work legally (gasp!) or b) go wherever you are already legal and work there.

Obviously you chose to go with option c), which was stay in this country and work illegally. I guess waiting in line and following "rules" is for other people. Not soshin, right?

You had a choice and you made it. Don't cry about it now because of the choices you made & pretend it's someone else's fault.

Nice to see you got yourself legal.

The fact is that those living below the "poverty line" generally do not stay there- just as you yourself didn't.

I find it repugnant that you have the nerve to work here illegally (paying no taxes, incidentally, into programs that I am sure today you would demand be used to help the "less fortunate") and then have the balls to try to tell others how they should or shouldn't be spending their capital.

The way I see it, you owe the system a boatload of Social Security & Medicare payments, as well as some income tax.

Please make that check out to "Hypocrite Services, Internal Revenue Services".

Thanks!

GWB

Let's at least start with some facts. There is a very tight labor market for construction right now. The average wage nationwide (in 2005) was $19.46 an hour. I would guess NJ would be significantly higher than that.

http://www.bls.gov/iag/construction.htm

A very small percentage of the working population actually earns minimum wage, especially with the low enemployment recently, and those that do usually work for small business (such as restaurants). Raising the minimum wage would cause less of those jobs to be available, either because the small business can't afford them, or because there are cheaper (illegal) alternatives, neither option helps those in the "poverty" category. And that's not a righty opinion, just plain economics. The people we should be focusing on are those that want to work, but don't have the training. More efforts should be focused there, than on this minimum wage issue.

I agree about restaurants! the WORST and a lot of other jobs pay nothing, but I was only talking about most temp "low skill" constrution type jobs pay more like $10 or more an hour or more like $100 a day.

A. When did drug dealers get considered to be "Poor people"?

B. If a company is paying BELOW minimum wage then in the state of NJ, that is less than $6.15 an hour. So $5 cuts it. I'm not saying all companies do that, but a lot do.

Before I got married I was in this country without a work permit and worked in a 4 star restaurant in Manhattan for $5 an hour, split shifts (6am-9am, 11am-2pm, 5pm-10pm). It really sucked big time.

I think that $5 is a low number -- I think the lowest paid workers have to bust their butts but they average more like $10 per hour.


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Minimum wage is sure better then nothing ,correct? Oh sorry my mistake they're collecting welfare and family first and subsidizing that with the proceeds from their drug sales. Like it was previously posted by someone else there are plenty of jobs out there especially in the construction field. Of course you may start out at minimum wage but you work your way up from there. If people actually had pride in themselves they wouldn't have a problem working their way up but instead you have liberals who coddle the people that refuse to work for minimum wage and would much rather collect welfare and believe that they are entitled to have things the easy way rather then working for it. Until these types of people decide to take on some level of responsibility for themselves you will always have the " mexicans" and others working and taking the jobs that are below the standards for those on welfare and public assistance. The Liberals wouldn't have it any other way.

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For "Cheaper" read "Exploitation". Would you get off your ass for below minimum wage? The minumum wage in NJ $6.15 an hour, so lets say the construction company decides they can generously afford $5 an hour, you work an 8 hour day lifting heavy stuff and go home with the princely sum of $40!!! Woohoo! I think I'd rather be standing on the street corner collecting benefits. [quote]

They are collecting drug money, in case you haven't noticed.

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For "Cheaper" read "Exploitation". Would you get off your ass for below minimum wage? The minumum wage in NJ $6.15 an hour, so lets say the construction company decides they can generously afford $5 an hour, you work an 8 hour day lifting heavy stuff and go home with the princely sum of $40!!! Woohoo! I think I'd rather be standing on the street corner collecting benefits.

But hey, I guess it's the capitalist way right? if you make minimum wage an amount that you can actually live on you'll get more people back to work. If you stop companies from exploiting immigrant labor and maybe you'll find Americans on the construction site......

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1. Of course they shouldn't. They should hire the Mexicans because they are smarter, harder working, more motivated, and cheaper. You just proved my point. Until the "poor Americans" get off their asses, they'll have their lunch eaten by the Mexicans, Indians, Chinese (insert your Developing Nation here). Exactly how it should be.

2. Yes.

And I went hungry sometimes, but I went to school. So now I can compete with (insert your Developing Nation here). At least I hope so.

Maybe if the state provided a decent standard of education up to and including college level then they might get those plentiful jobs you speak of. I saw an ad for the army on the back of a bus last week that said "Think of it as a school uniform" next to a picture of a GI, made me wanna puke....

As for construction jobs, why should a construction company hire unskilled Americans at minimum wage when they can have skilled Mexicans at below minimum wage?

Ever try living on minimum wage? It's harder than staying on benefits.

You Conservatives got "funny" locked down, "funny looking" that is....

The "poor people" need to get off their asses and start looking for work.

There is plenty of jobs. The unemployment is low.

For the past 12 years, construction jobs have been so plentiful it is not even funny. Other jobs are out there, too.

What were these "poor people"doing to get from under the poverty line?

Hanging on the corners? That won't do it.

You liberals are really funny.

I rather have the park.

Maybe someone needs to tell Healy that poor people don't own boats.

As usual, all this hustle and bustle is benefiting . . . whom?

Oh, yeah, see my sig line. . . .

Yeah, rising real estate prices are real important in the projects... Healy is an idiot... and we wonder why crime feels like it is climbing too...

THE GREAT DIVIDE
Healy can talk about the 'rising tide,' but climbing poverty rate tells another story
Tuesday, September 26, 2006

The construction cranes dotting the skyline of Downtown Jersey City bear witness to a building boom that has already brought thousands of new residents and new jobs - not to mention the state's two tallest buildings - to this side of the Hudson River.

Yet despite all the economic activity on the city's waterfront in recent years, 17.4 percent of Jersey City families live below the poverty line, according to recent data released by the U.S. Census. And that is an increase from 2000, when the percentage was 16.4. The U.S. average is 10.2 percent, according to the Census.

For single people not living with family in Jersey City, the poverty rate is 18.4 percent, about five points above the U.S. average. Over in Union City, the next largest municipality in Hudson County, more than one in five - 20.9 percent - families live in poverty.

But Jersey City outpaces Union City and Hudson's other 10 municipalities in terms of the sheer amount of development and new growth in the past decade or so.

How could it be that with all of the people moving into the city, many of them wealthy or at least well-off, the poverty rate continues to climb? If the percentage of people living in poverty keeps going up as wealthier people move in, the gap between rich and poor must be getting even greater.

Asked to comment on these statistics, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said the building boom has impacted every neighborhood - pointing specifically to increased real estate values.

"A rising tide lifts all boats," Healy said. "I remember campaigning for office (against Mayor Bret Schundler) nine years ago and going into neighborhoods where people didn't even want to come out of their house to walk down the street.

"Now you can't find a vacant lot or a shed that doesn't have three or four bidders looking to buy them."

But those poverty statistics clearly show that two decades of a rising tide has not lifted all boats. The Census defines a family as two or more related people living in the same household. For individuals, the poverty line is an income of $9,800 a year; for a family of four, it is $20,000.

The mayor acknowledges that the city has lost many of the sort of blue-collar jobs that were once plentiful here and whose wages enabled families to subsist and even to be lifted out of poverty.

The new employers filling the glass towers in Downtown are looking for specialized skills and a level of computer literacy that many Jersey City residents lack.

Healy has staked a lot of his political capital in the past few months on persuading the City Council to approve a warehouse on the former PJP landfill site, off Route 440.

The mayor's plan is opposed by County Executive Tom DeGise and several City Council members who are pressing to use the property for open space or perhaps a golf course.

In a recent interview about Jersey City's poverty rate, Healy took the opportunity to once again push his vision for the PJP site.

"The warehouse will bring 300-plus blue-collar jobs to the city that will pay workers between $23,000 and $45,000 a year," Healy said. "How can we afford not to do this?"

Earl Morgan can be reached at emorgan@jjournal.com. link here