Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth • Hacker News Board

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#91

Post by orionsbelt » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:37 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

monero-xmr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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 employe…

The administration seems to be deliberately making the deportations as cruel and scary as possible (CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, etc) as a means of deterring future illegal immigration and encouraging self deportation. I haven’t looked into the numbers to see how well that’s working or not, but focusing on deportations alone is missing two thirds of the picture.

I’m not sure if this is accurate, but for example: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/31/migrant-crossings-darien...

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#92

Post by hvb2 » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:37 AM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #80

kyralis wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not every job can be automated. Picking crops for example or cleaning hotel rooms.

The US will find out the hard way how much of their undesirable work is done by people that "steal their jobs". Jobs that no American wants to do.

The UK already has seen this with Brexit https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44230865

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#93

Post by niels8472 » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:38 AM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #62

fluxkernel wrote: post #4

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

[flagged]

Tfa mentions immigrant deportation as a reason exactly zero times.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#94

Post by reliabilityguy » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:38 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #85

reliabilityguy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Tariffs incentivize domestic production Stable, long term tariffs. We’re seeing historic falls in manufacturing employment for a reason.

> Stable, long term tariffs.

Well, you have to start somewhere.

> We’re seeing historic falls in manufacturing employment for a reason.

In your opinion, what is this reason?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#95

Post by CGamesPlay » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

galleywest200 wrote: post #32

hiddencost wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got an offer from a competitor, used it to negotiate a 20% raise.

Fairly certain the OP was talking about an annual "cost of living" adjustment, and not job searching for a better offer.

Fairly certain the quoted statistic was talking about total results, not people who stayed at the same job.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#96

Post by nine_zeros » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:43 AM UTC

hvb2 wrote: post #92

monero-xmr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not every job can be automated. Picking crops for example or cleaning hotel rooms. The US will find out the hard way how much of their undesirable work is done by people that "steal their jobs". Jobs that no American wants to do. The UK already has seen this with Brexit https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44230865

Brexit is so funny because it is literally a real world example of how isolation reduces economic growth and causes poverty - and yet, America goes ahead with similar isolation.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#97

Post by hvb2 » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:44 AM UTC

reliabilityguy wrote: post #65

monero-xmr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

Which would mean food gets more expensive, right?

Regardless of the fact that a lot of poor people don't live in the areas where most of those jobs are but they do get their produce from there..

The top 4 counties in the US for agriculture production are all in the central valley in California.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#98

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:45 AM UTC

reliabilityguy wrote: post #94

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tariffs incentivize domestic production Stable, long term tariffs. We’re seeing historic falls in manufacturing employment for a reason.

> Stable, long term tariffs. Well, you have to start somewhere. > We’re seeing historic falls in manufacturing employment for a reason. In your opinion, what is this reason?

> you have to start somewhere

There has been no start. You don’t build a factory because the President announced a tariff that he is also negotiating a trade deal around.

> what is this reason?

I’m remodelling my deck. I had orders into a steel mill in Utah. Tariffs mean their steel inputs are pricer than competitors in Vietnam. So I switched the order. And I paid with a cheque—if I paid cash I could skip taxes altogether. That wasn’t a thing six months ago.

Meanwhile, software and services aren’t tariffed. Just goods. Guess whose cost of capital has sunk.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#99

Post by hvb2 » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:47 AM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #76

reliabilityguy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I genuinely wonder what you've done over the last few years.

Rising salaries will lead to inflation. Expecting anything else is fantasy

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#100

Post by reliabilityguy » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 5:47 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #75

monero-xmr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ah yes, blame a different group of poorly-paid workers - that always works so well!

No one blames anyone. The more low skilled workers you have, the lower wage they get. the only group that benefits from illegal immigrants is the employers: they can get away with paying less. (Consumers benefit too, ofc).