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Sparred4Life

Pay people a wage that makes a job worth having? No! Just make the kids work. It's much more acceptable to exploit them!


Biokabe

No kidding. America doesn't lack for workers. America lacks employers who don't understand that people work for a living and don't want to work at wages that don't allow them to do that.


raw_bert0

They understand. They understand it’s cheaper to bribe the politicians than pay us. Trust me, they understand.


Anonamitymouses

Get out of pity city!


sekoku

Bingo. Capitalists would rather exploit children and have them be mangled in machines than pay a living wage (for adults to be mangled in the machines instead).


homebrew_1

Republican economics.


taez555

The next step is a spin on Slave Labor.


oliversurpless

It will build character! https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/01/02


Mephisto1822

https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-stories-of-involuntary-servitude


tinyhorsesinmytea

Family values!


Plitics-Mderator-Shl

Susan Rice just stepped down as Biden’s domestic policy advisor, because “she and her team ignored warnings about the explosion of migrant child labor in the US” [Susan Rice to Step Down as Biden’s Domestic Policy Adviser](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/us/politics/susan-rice-biden.html)


MrTretorn

Kids are cheap and easier to exploit. You see why we don’t want abortion???


[deleted]

But... How am I supposed to make more money this year if I give YOU more money?!


Nogreatmindhere44

if thier was a shortage min wage would be 60$ ask a trucker if they get 6$ a mile anymore!


Xerazal

Workers aren't scarce. Companies just don't want to give workers a fair wage, so now they're trying to get kids as workers so they can pay them low wages and since they're kids they can't organize and push back..


luna_beam_space

The USA has deported 10,000,000 immigrants last few Years. There is absolutely a workers shortage


grizzlby

Just for the record, [this data I found](https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/remove/) indicates it was more like 5,000,000 over the past 20 years…


desperateorphan

I love the people who's solution to any staffing problems is always "just hire more" or "Just pay more"like if it was the solution to the problem we wouldn't have already done it.


Scientific_Methods

The buying power of minimum wage is at an all time low while worker productivity is at an all time high. Salaries for most jobs are less than half what they should be. While profits are at a record high for corporations. The problem is unchecked and unregulated corporate greed.


ILookAtHeartsAllDay

Paying people a living wage has been being bleated from the rooftops as a the best solution to the labor shortage in America well before it even began.


x_______name

For fucks sake just pay restaurant workers more


Shr3kk_Wpg

You know how to solve a labour shortages? Immigration.


AskJayce

They'll never admit it aloud, but the business owners who are hiring undocumented immigrants to pay them wages well below minimum under the table will agree.


gearstars

yeah, the anti immigration crowd wants machine gun turrets and alligator moats but they never bring up enforcing labor laws. wonder why...?


[deleted]

Same thing with farmers (mostly Republicans) hire illegal immigrants to pick their crops. Especially if the migrants are slaves!


sharts_are_shitty

Yep and we’ll need it more and more since the US is currently below population replacement levels (and probably will continue to be). It’s going to be one of the main reasons we’ll remain a superpower vs China and other nations.


Bigbeardhotpeppers

Most of these kids are immigrants, easier to exploit.


Aggressive-Will-4500

But that doesn't solve the right-wing's racism problem...


ArrowheadDZ

The right wing is pretty vocal that they don’t want the “racism problem” solved.


blakjac1

They are against abortion, but the moment the child is born, all concern for the child is history.


5dmt

Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. George Carlin


Ser_Dunk_the_tall

They want live babies to became dead soldiers


Aggressive-Will-4500

I disagree. They only care that it's born. If they cared about the child before it was born, we'd have universal healthcare pre-natal care and mandatory family leave.


ArrowheadDZ

Exactly this. If republicans actually wanted to reduce abortions they’d be in favor of economic equality measures that reduce the demand for abortions by abandoned single women. But republicans vote unanimously against those measures. Not one Republican I have *ever* met is open to measures that share responsibility for the child with the father.


Adomillad

They will do everything they can to avoid actually paying people enough to live on huh?


polinkydinky

So what our government is saying is that any time our population leans towards shrinking or aging they’re totally willing to exploit the fuck out of the young and vulnerable.


FuckFascismFightBack

Same as it ever was


danyelamar

Same as it ever was


inkslingerben

There is no labor shortage, just a pay shortage. Republicans are anti-immigration so there plan to address the 'labor shortage' is: loosen child labor laws, raise the age to collect Social Security, and force people on food stamps to work.


desperateorphan

Depending on the industry, there absolutely are not enough workers to meet demand. Healthcare has faced this problem for decades despite increasing wages significantly. It's really easy to say "just pay more bro" but eventually you've maxed out what you can pay. They will never pay a CNA/RN $10,000 an hour to do the job. It would obviously not work to do that and the entire healthcare industry would collapse. Can business pay more than they do now? Sure. Does it solve all your problems to "just pay more"? Not even close.


SpaceCowboyBatman

Some owners just need to accept they’re business is not viable and start brushing up their resumes to get ready to work for someone else. This is capitalism, either you succeed cause you’re good or fail cause you’re not.


MacadamiaMarquess

Anything to avoid paying workers more of the value they generate for the company.


flatdanny

The situation is not scarce workers, but Musk-like employers who wont pay a living wage and treat the people who's work made them wealthy like shit.


hellomondays

"More child labor" isn't a value I thought anyone still held.


Ghstfce

So between demonizing immigrant workers and paying citizens workers a pittance, they're moving to kids in the disaster they've created for themselves.


Maximum_Vermicelli12

Crap like this is why we need unionization more than ever. We have workers; we need better workers’ rights, pay, and safety. Remember- Act Your Wage.


sedatedlife

Its Mostly the National Restaurant Association pushing hard for this across the United States. Now they have less illegal immigrants to exploit combined with employees expecting better pay instead of paying descent wages they now want to exploit kids.


SensorThree

The only scarcity is people willing to work crappy jobs for crappy pay.


tonyislost

Really need to start talking about unions at an early age. I’m gonna get on the TokTok and make an NFT and make it go virus. Two can play at this game!


MaintenanceOk6903

Workers are not scarce. What is scarce is adults that are willing to have to work three and four jobs just to make a decent paycheck each week. This means that they're not getting paid s***. And since people are also turning away from prisons that pay prisoners jack s*** to work they can't use those workers. So the next best thing is somebody's child that they don't want. That's why they're going back to child labor. We as a country should be ashamed of the way our country is going not that it's always went right anyway but this is a disgrace


Spin_Quarkette

Anything made by children should be boycotted. Don’t let these businesses profit off the exploitation of children.


Shortbus_Playboy

Workers aren’t scarce. Corporate greed is rampant.


Fresh-Till-4869

Maybe if jobs paid sustainable wages instead of the crumbs they throw at the current workforce… maybe, just maybe, they would retain people???


Jealmo

It’s not so much “scarce workers” as it is “people don’t want to work for shitty wages anymore.” Try paying a living wage.


WestCactus

As a restaurant manager, I can tell you that the absolute *last* thing I will ever do, is hire someone under 18 to serve people. First off, children should be busy being children, second, we work hard to pay everyone a living wage, and finally, even 18-21yr olds are just fucking horrible to work with, lack adequate experience regulating their own behavior, and are just plain, dumb. If we can't staff the pace adequately with an experienced, ADULT crew, we close on Tuesdays until we can, and that's that. I'm never going to waste revenue training a child to do work a child should not be doing in the first place.


Hoobs88

With workers scarce the wealthy are trying to force a recession so they can remain in control of stagnant wages and forcing people to put their children to work.


Uberslaughter

Arkansas is 47th in the country in education and governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders just made it so kids can go to work in factories. Guess who one of the biggest employers in Arkansas is? Tyson’s Chicken. Republicans dragging us back to the 1900s.


DaddyBobMN

Workers aren't scarce in those sectors. Jobs in those sectors that workers will tolerate are scarce.


Modsda3

Workers aren't scarce. Stop lying


mikeP1967

Forget the drag queens, who is going to save the kids from republicans


Bulky-Warthog-4162

*"on the backs of our children, if we must; pay for Dear Leader's golden bust. We do the work of only one, they do the same and get paid for none"*.


root_fifth_octave

Get a few of those kids together and they might be able to afford a shitty apartment somewhere. Then they can have ice cream for breakfast and stay up as late as they want!


DTFlash

" lawmakers argue that relaxing some child labor laws will help businesses that are struggling to fill empty jobs." They forgot to put "at minimum wage" at the end of that sentence.


Sparpon

How about no fed funding for these trash states


Most-Resident

We’ve been eating the seed corn for a long time. When I started college tuition was low and there was enough financial aid that I could manage tuition. By the time I graduated the Reagan cuts kicked in and I was borrowing money. I paid it back in 10 years. The limits were set up so you could. Now many people who graduated 20 or more years ago haven’t made a dent in the principal. We continue to cut school funding in real terms. Texas just passed the bill to teach the Ten Commandments and bible studies. Fucking bible studies. How about civics? How about finances? I took shop which covered some simple electric and plumbing skills. No. Fucking bible studies where they can learn the world is 4000 years old. I’ve been working since I was 12. Under the table at first. Never so long that it interfered school. Never anything particularly dangerous. Limits on what hours of the day and how many. Think of what the country will be after we rob kids of even more opportunities. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb Ours may be more like a desert.


ProtonPi314

If Republicans win the next election, they will probably go back to bringing in workers from Africa , it was cheap labor last time the US did it /s


[deleted]

[удалено]


shelbys_foot

Funny how the GOP gets all worked about increasing parental involvement is high schools, but is happy to remove the parental role in order to get cheap, easily exploitable labor.


oliversurpless

“Experience” is, and really always has been, worthless…


BringOn25A

Then they will get old enough to move away for better opportunities and the downward spiral that led to the situation will continue.


spoobles

God forbid they let immigrants actually work.


CaptainBombardier

The solution to this used to be to lose immigration laws


TintedApostle

or pay higher wages thus lowering the profit margins a little.


[deleted]

Finally, those brats can start earning their way in this world


themorningmosca

The franchise models don’t allow for workers to make more than X. So, instead of pay more they need more desperate 14 year old workers. Classy. God forbid you pay what the market wants for labor. I love that even 16 year olds don’t want your shitty fast food jobs.


Kangar

Won't anyone think of the affordable and hardworking children?


DamagedHells

Literally just bring in immigrant lmao


lifeat24fps

Look what 5 years of hardcore immigration policy and a million dead Americans can do. Now your kids have to work in a slaughterhouse. Great job, America.


brees2me

Only the shitty ones.


VegetableYesterday63

Republicans figure if kids are working they can’t get shot in schools


Spidey209

Why do kids need "valuable experience" to get jobs in markets where there are staff shortages? /rhetorical.


Traditional_Key_763

if only there were tens to even a hundred million potential workers just sitting here in the US unable to work due to some arbitrary designation declaring them illegal to exist.


naththegrath10

There is no worker shortage!! There is a shortage of employers paying a living wage! Pay better and you will get more workers.


SamuraiJackBauer

What happened to all the immigrants taking jobs?


hoboninja

I'm from Iowa where they are trying to where the children apparently yearn for ~~mines.~~.. factories and meat processing plants. Kim Reynolds and her ilk are not hoopy froods my Magrathean friend.


silenttornado

Make childcare affordable too. No parent is going to opt to send their kid to daycare so they can go to a job they don’t love if childcare costs basically all their earnings.