Right now, we import foreign workers to do cheap labor but we could take unemployed citizens and subsidize their wages to have our own do those jobs instead...Is every home clean and freshly scrubbed all the time and is a freshly cooked meal always waiting?
The fact that maid/cook wages have not dropped to $7.25/hour is strong evidence that unemployment is caused primarily by the unwillingness of many Americans to take available jobs. I'd happily pay $10/hour for a maid, but you simply can't find people this cheap where I live.
We don't need to subsidize people's wages to solve this problem. We just need to stop paying people not to work. After all, why clean people's houses for $7.25/hour when you can just collect unemployment for 99 weeks?
Note that where I used to live (Pune), plenty of people were employed as maids/cooks/etc without subsidies. They weren't paid not to work. Instead of welfare, they had the Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee (styled after the New Deal).
The fact that maid/cook wages have not dropped to $7.25/hour is strong evidence that unemployment is caused primarily by the unwillingness of many Americans to take available jobs. I'd happily pay $10/hour for a maid, but you simply can't find people this cheap where I live.
We don't need to subsidize people's wages to solve this problem. We just need to stop paying people not to work. After all, why clean people's houses for $7.25/hour when you can just collect unemployment for 99 weeks?
Note that where I used to live (Pune), plenty of people were employed as maids/cooks/etc without subsidies. They weren't paid not to work. Instead of welfare, they had the Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee (styled after the New Deal).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi_National_Rural_E...