Rep. Nancy Pelosi is slamming the GOP for the slow nationwide growth in wages, just as House Speaker Paul Ryan works with donors to pass an amnesty that can stall the gradual gains in blue-collar wages.
Job growth is good, Pelosi told reporters June 7, but it is no substitute for growing wages. American families, she argued, are saying:
‘Hip hip hooray, unemployment is down. What does that mean to me and my life? I need a bigger paycheck.’
Under President Donald Trump, Americans families are getting raises because the labor-market is pressuring companies to offer higher wages as they poach workers from each other or encourage non-working Americans to take jobs. For example, the nation’s 800,000 warehouse workers have gained a seven percent increase in real wages since Trump was inaugurated, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
However, white-collar workers have seen very small gains in their salaries.
But wage raises will likely continue or even accelerate before the election — unless Congress offers employers a wave of extra workers, either via illegal immigration or via Ryan’s pending amnesty.
Ryan’s amnesty would add at least 3 million new workers to the labor supply over the next several years, by offering green cards to the many illegal-immigrant children in schools or working in the underground job market. The number of beneficiaries could be as high as 3.6 million — including 700,000 ‘DACA’ approved workers — not counting the extra migrants who would come north in the hope of decent jobs and another amnesty.
The amnesty is being pushed by wealthy donors and their GOP House allies. “Our goal is to not cut legal immigration,” said Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who is a leader of the discharge-petition group that is demanding the amnesty.
Also, the number of illegals who get green cards from the amnesty should be “as high a number as possible,” Curbelo told RollCall.com on June 8 The number of young illegal immigrants in the United States is estimated at up to 3.6 million.
Curbelo’s donors include some of the Florida millionaires who have threatened to cut off donations until Ryan approves an amnesty. For example, Mike Fernandez’s MBF Healthcare Partners has donated $10,800 to Curbelo in the 2018 cycle.
ABIC promotes sensible immigration reform that supports the economy of the United States, provides American companies with both the high-skilled and low-skilled talent they need, and allows the integration of immigrants into our economy as consumers, workers, entrepreneurs and citizens.
Pelosi has repeatedly called for passage of an amnesty. The draft Democratic amnesties would offer green cards to more than 2.5 million, and also include few safeguards against fraud.
Her full comments are in this video, starting at 30:00:
She said:
This is one unusual time, and I’ve followed it closely, where the unemployment is down, but the dependence on subsidies — whether it is food insecurity, housing subsidies, and the rest — has not gone down because of the wage stagnation. So in terms of the financial stability of American working families, unless we have an increase — a very significant increase in wages and bigger paychecks — we are going to increase the frustration of American families because they will be saying ‘Hip hip hooray, unemployment is down. What does that mean to me and my life? I need a bigger paycheck.’ That is the apprehension that American families have had for a while and continue to have and we must address …