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Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

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Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> Decades of worsening conditions for the commoner is Ron Wyden's idea of a booming economy. Democrats are useful idiots. I can't anymore, folks. Republicans passed the largest tax cuts for billionaires, increased the deficit by trillions, and kicked millions of people of medicaid. Meanwhile, Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs we've ever seen which affect the poorest the most. Yet…

> Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs

Tariffs incentivize domestic production. See the case of chicken tax and pickup trucks. While we do pay for tariffs now, later down the road we should not as more things would be made domestically. If you don’t do tariffs, there is no way to force producers to onshore.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#72

Poorest workers are hit hardest by pretty much anything related to money.

[flagged]

Even in the most facile analysis: Reduced labor availability either (a) decreases supply due to failure to harvest or (b) increases prices due to increased labor costs and therefore drives inflation higher faster than bottom-tier wages can accommodate.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#73
post #24

What slowing wage growth? For the poorest the wages have essentially not increased for a long time right? It hasn’t even kept up with inflation. The recent bill actually makes it much worse.

> For the poorest the wages have essentially not increased for a long time right?

No. Nominal wages grew from ‘21 to ‘23, hitting all-time highs in ‘24 [1].

> It hasn’t even kept up with inflation

It did [2].

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXU900000LB0102M

[2] https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> hard for me to imagine how deporting a million illegal immigrants working under the table, or stealing a social security number, would hurt the minimum wage workers Immigration is a distraction. Trump is deporting fewer folks than Obama did [1], he’s just doing it while pumping tens of billions to his buddies via ICE contracts. Tariffs are a regressive tax. If food and metal is more expensive, service and manufactu…

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Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wouldn’t the deportations increase the demand for low-paying jobs resulting in increasing salaries?

Uhhh yes precisely. That helps the poor and hurts Wall Street

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Decades of worsening conditions for the commoner is Ron Wyden's idea of a booming economy. Democrats are useful idiots. I can't anymore, folks. Republicans passed the largest tax cuts for billionaires, increased the deficit by trillions, and kicked millions of people of medicaid. Meanwhile, Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs we've ever seen which affect the poorest the most. Yet…

> Republicans passed the largest tax cuts for billionaires There were no tax cuts for billionaires in the BBB. (Not increasing the tax is not a "cut".)

It absolutely is when the status quo would have increased taxes. That may not be a cut of current taxes, but in the longer timeframe it is absolutely a tax cut.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hard for me to imagine how deporting a million illegal immigrants working under the table, or stealing a social security number, would hurt the minimum wage workers Immigration is a distraction. Trump is deporting fewer folks than Obama did [1], he’s just doing it while pumping tens of billions to his buddies via ICE contracts. Tariffs are a regressive tax. If food and metal is more expensive, service and manufactu…

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> love the argument that deporting illegals is meaningless

Red herring. Nobody said this.

My point is Trump isn’t deporting that many people. His numbers are not economically meaningful compared to tariffs. To the extent there are labour pools that would benefit from deportation, they’re geographically concentrated along the border.

If Trump wanted to remove illegals from the American labour pool, he’d target employers. He can’t [1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5430846/farming-industr...

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Decades of worsening conditions for the commoner is Ron Wyden's idea of a booming economy. Democrats are useful idiots. I can't anymore, folks. Republicans passed the largest tax cuts for billionaires, increased the deficit by trillions, and kicked millions of people of medicaid. Meanwhile, Trump is out there creating the most regressive tax system via tariffs we've ever seen which affect the poorest the most. Yet…

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Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#80
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even in the most facile analysis: Reduced labor availability either (a) decreases supply due to failure to harvest or (b) increases prices due to increased labor costs and therefore drives inflation higher faster than bottom-tier wages can accommodate.

It increases automation and therefore productivity. It increases the demand for legal unskilled labor. Money earned is spent in America rather than sent to foreign countries as remittances
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