Minimum Wage And Low Paying Jobs example essay topic

The Working Poor American factories can comprise of about up to 1000 workers. If American factories are shut down and moved to other countries, this takes many American people out of work. Companies are now also importing jobs. This is where employers hire people such as immigrants to work less than minimum wage. For that reason, many Americans are stuck with the other minimum wage, and low-paying jobs that barely get them through life. Because of this, many Americans are working full time jobs that are below the Federal poverty line.

These types of people are often called the "working poor". Due to this the working poor have to run to welfare. This affects all Americans because taxpayers are the ones paying for welfare. The more jobs that are taken overseas, the more poverty we will have. It is now said that the middle-class Americans are now becoming the poor in America.

According to William H. Jasper of the New American magazine: To stop this job exporting for happening, American middle class workers must combine to force Congress to reverse the destructive policies that are importing foreign workers and exporting our productivity. That means abolishing the H-1 B and L 1 visa programs, drastically reducing all other levels of immigration, and insisting on credible INS and Border Patrol enforcement levels. It also means defeating all proposals to grant yet another amnesty to millions of illegal aliens who have come to the U.S. since the last amnesty. Immigrants are the biggest problem of job shortages. Companies can hire immigrates for less than minimum wage.

These immigrates do not have any problems with there wages because they made little or less in their home country. In the past decade, "American jobs screamed out of the United States at an ever-accelerating rate of speed", says Wooldridge, "While American workers stood in unemployment lines, major corporations in sourced, outsourced and off shored jobs to Third World countries. Why? They could obtain labor for $1.00 an hour and sometimes less. Capitalism knows no loyalty to man, beast or country". One example of a corporation exercising this scheme is Bank of America.

This company cut 5,000 jobs, and sent 1,250 of them to India. The company has also announced that they would cut 12,000 in the next two years or so. General Electric has also sent jobs to India. The company has sent about 12,000 jobs to India. Foreign workers cost less. Sometimes it costs a lot to move jobs overseas-for expenses like legal fees, training and security.

But wages in many foreign countries are so much lower than wages here that the move usually pays for itself. The average computer programmer in Northern Virginia, for example, makes more than $50,000 a year. Compare that to a typical programmer in India, who earns less than $10,000 for the same work. The same is true for lots of different jobs in many different countries. (American Jobs Move Overseas). There are Americans that work full-time at minimum wage and are still under the Federal poverty line.

According the to United States Health Department, the poverty level for a family of three in 2004 was $15,670, and a family of four, $18,850. A single mother with one child working full-time, for minimum wage, only obtains about $10,250 a year. If minimum wage is where it is at now, then why is it that full time minimum wage workers do not even meet the federal poverty line? In the book Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich describes the working poor in America as lunch consisting of Doritos and hot dog rolls, living in there car, and working through injuries. These are the people who truly need welfare. Concluding, job exporting takes away from American people.

Companies should not practice job exporting and importing because it only hurts America as a whole. Because of companies doing this, there are many American citizens out there only to pick up with the "leftover" jobs. Theses leftover jobs sometimes can only barely get them through life. These are reasons why people turn to welfare. Taxpayers are the people who pay for welfare so the "big-time" C.E.O.'s are the ones paying for it. Word count: 709

Bibliography

American Jobs Move Overseas". Career Prose pcts in Virginia (2001) 14 March 2005 Ehrenreich, Barbara.
Nickel and Dimed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001 Jasper, William F".
You May Be Next!" The New American (2003).
Vol. 19 No. 05 27 March 2005 United States.
Dept. of Health and Human Services. The 2004 HHS Poverty Guidelines.
2005).
23 March 2005 Wooldridge, Frosty.
Americas Middle Class Becomes the New Working Poor" Re nse. com 2 Nov. 2004.
27 March 2005.