The calculus of the American work force is not what we are supposed to think.  The meme constructed by the current administration is one of immigrant workers taking American jobs and American workers looking on in envy as their opportunities disappear.  The apparent in-front-of-eyes truth  is the jobs being taken by immigrants wouldn’t be considered by most of the American workers for often the wages are low, benefits minimal, and duties sometimes hazardous. To even try to replace immigrant workers with “American workers” would mean a massive inflation of cost to the American consumer and labor shortages. The more likely result will be that the pressure caused by the crude and cruel deportations of the day will not result in more “Americans” working, but rather strengthen the AI marriage to robotics. This has been happening in any event and will only accelerate. Guess who is at the end of the line of this subversive process ready to pocket the profits.

Having worked with labor statistics in the past, this writer is fully aware of the mercurial delicacy of tracking the economics of labor.  Professional public employees with the integrity, discipline, and skills in statistics and research, and an unbiased political mind can actually produce realistic work force expectations for valid human planning.  The current administration, however, is actively eroding our picture of work force by attempting to introduce bias into the work force dimension of the public reporting sector.  Bias in any statistical form of research is toxic to the point of easy deception. Very few people outside the professional discipline, which is nearly all the voters in America, are trained or able to track the numbers of subtly biased research back to the point where a big lie can begin.

Modest Proposal for Good

Suggestion one is for your politicians to keep their  hands off the public sector work force reporting sector. Would you dismiss your radiologist or the doctor solely for a bad news diagnosis?  Most likely not.  You might go for a second opinion but that is about it.  You would take in the hard news and begin to work on a cure.  Look out your window at the crew replacing the roof, chipping away the worn side walk, or pouring asphalt in the cracks of your streets. Are those your sons and daughters out there working or supervising your neighbor’s sons or daughters?  Not likely. Would you or your children do that work if they could?  Again, not likely. Just have the humility to admit the quality of your lifestyle is partially funded by a willing workforce who perform the work your family wouldn’t touch for wage levels they haven’t the skill, courage, community, or resilience to live on.  You may not like it, and even ashamed of it, but our prosperity is built and sustained on the shoulders of those hard working fellow human beings.  Know this much is true, admit your shame, reflect, and watch the lie melt away. Decide against the cruelty and crimes of denial and greed implied in this nation’s current approach to immigration.   Decide for clear eyed humility, honesty, and gratitude to all the people who support your good life. That would be good.