Under President Trump, the United States is finally enforcing existing immigration laws, deporting illegal aliens as well as those who have violated the terms of their residency. During the Biden administration, millions of illegal aliens entered the country each year. Today, it is believed that between 19 and 23 million illegal aliens are living in the U.S., not including so-called “gotaways” or visa overstays, which push the estimate even higher.
The same people now criticizing the Trump administration for finally addressing this crisis through deportations are also demanding higher wages and an increased minimum wage. But they miss the point entirely: illegal aliens are doing jobs at the bottom of the economic ladder, and this massive labor pool suppresses wages across the board.
By deporting illegal aliens and securing the border to prevent future unlawful entry, we reduce the oversupply of low-wage labor. That shift alone would cause wages to rise naturally, without the need for artificial mandates or government intervention.
Meanwhile, Democrats claim to care about the poor. They keep demanding minimum wage hikes or insist that billionaires dramatically increase pay for entry-level workers, arguing that no one can raise a family on minimum wage. But that’s a misrepresentation of what the minimum wage was ever meant to be.
People often claim there are jobs Americans “won’t do,” and that’s used to justify hiring illegal aliens—farm labor being one of the most commonly cited examples. But let’s look at the reality. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average wage for a farmworker in 2023 was $17.40 an hour. At the same time, most fast-food restaurants and department stores in the U.S. are paying between $15 and $17 an hour, depending on the state and market conditions.
In California, the statewide minimum wage is already $16 per hour, so who in their right mind would do brutal outdoor labor for just a dollar or two more when they could flip burgers indoors?
If farm work paid $20 to $25 an hour, Americans would absolutely do it. The laws of supply and demand in labor markets don’t recognize race or nationality—raise the pay, and people will take the jobs. And that kind of wage increase doesn’t require legislation. By deporting illegal aliens and reducing the oversupply of labor willing to work for substandard wages, the market will naturally push wages higher until the jobs are filled.
There’s further proof that Americans are willing to do physically demanding jobs: unloading trucks for companies like UPS or FedEx is hard, grueling work, but people do it. Why? Because those jobs pay $23 to $25 an hour, and they come with benefits.
When I worked unloading trucks at Roadway Package System back in the early ’90s, everyone I worked with was a U.S. citizen. Most of us were trying to earn money for college by taking advantage of the company’s tuition reimbursement program, with the goal of getting an education and building a better future.
That is the point people miss when they complain about the minimum wage. The U.S. minimum wage was never intended to be a permanent, livable wage. It was designed as a starting point, a way for high school and college students to earn some money, learn to show up on time, gain work ethic, and learn how to budget. It was supposed to be a motivation to get more education, get better training, and move up to higher-paying work.
And that’s exactly how most Americans use it.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about half of all minimum wage earners are under the age of 25. The average age is around 24, which aligns with the idea that most minimum wage workers are high school or college students, or recent graduates still transitioning into their careers.
What is more, the data shows they do not stay there long. A 2021 study by the BLS found that more than 60% of workers earning the federal minimum wage or just above it had moved to higher-paying jobs within two years. And research from Pew Research Center and other economic think tanks confirms that minimum wage jobs have high turnover, typically between 3 to 5 years, as people move on and move up.
In other words, minimum wage jobs are a stepping stone, not a trap. Encouraging people to get an education and move up the value chain does far more good for society than incentivizing them to remain in low-skilled jobs. It is the engineers, developers, and innovators who raise the country’s standard of living and drive long-term economic growth. Locking people into entry-level work not only limits their potential, it also robs the country of the human capital it needs to advance.
That is the model this country was built on: work hard, move up. If we want to fix the problems in our labor market, the solution is not importing more low-wage labor or redefining entry-level jobs as permanent careers. Nor is it forcing businesses to raise wages beyond what the market can support. Artificial wage hikes reduce the demand for labor and risk driving companies out of business. It seems reckless to drive companies out of business just so high school and college students can earn a little more pocket money.
The better path is letting the market set wages, just as it sets the price of shoes and hamburgers, while enforcing the law and reducing the pool of illegal, underpaid labor that distorts the market. Most Americans are still willing to work hard when the pay is right, and removing illegal aliens will naturally raise wages without crippling businesses.
The post The True Cost of Cheap Labor: Illegal Immigration, Minimum Wage, and the American Worker appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.