Sens. Mikulski & Specter's H-2B bill multiplies less-educated foreign workers to keep less-educated Americans unemployed
Latest data reveal 1.6 million American young adults (18-29) with only a high school degree who are looking for a job but can't find one. Yet, Sens. Mikulski and Specter have introduced a bill to double or triple the visas for less-educated foreign workers over the next three years to compete against those unemployed young Americans.
And 23 Senators have already co-sponsored the bill.
It is my unfortunate role to regularly tell you of supposedly august public officials who seem totally unaware of the unemployment disaster befalling the American people.
Do Mikulski and Specter hate lower-educated and less sklled American young adults?
Or do the wads of contributions from greedy corporate lobbyists just make it impossible for them to see the struggles of our national community's most vulnerable members?
YOUNG AMERICANS NEED JOBS
One problem is that most Senators are rich and primarily hang around with other rich people. They can't imagine their own kids making beds, waiting tables, running a cash register or checking passes at ski lifts.
In short, most Senators apparently cannot even see the 15.1 million young American adults (18-29) who have no more than a high school diploma and whose job prospects are heavily in the service industry.
Today's excellent report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows a lot of young adults who might love to have the jobs that Mikulski and Specter are insisting on giving to imported foreign workers:
- 1.6 million young adults with only a high school diploma are unemployed, looking for work but unable to find any kind of job.
- Another 291,000 of them are looking for a full-time job and have had to settle for part-time hours.
- Yet another 477,000 teens (16-17) are officially unemployed, actively seeking a job.
But Mikulski and Specter can't imagine that somewhere between 66,000 and 300,000 jobs primarily in vacation and resort locations can be filled from among those 2.4 million Americans.
They have introduced S. 388, which would explode a cap of 66,000 H-2B work visas a year. The bill would allow any foreign worker who has used an H-2B visa to take a job from an American in the last three years to be brought back in over the next three years without counting against the 66,000 cap. Potentially, the number of H-2B visa workers could multiply two, three or four times.
Wouldn't you think that under our unemployment crisis, Senators would suspend the H-2B program instead of expanding it?
WOULD JOBLESS AMERICAN YOUNG ADULTS TAKE A 4-MONTH JOB?
Mikulski and Specter argue that H-2B visas are necessary to fill peak labor needs for amusement parks, ski resorts and other hospitality and entertainment functions. To them, young Americans would have no interest in working in resort/vacation locations since the full-time jobs tend to last only 3-6 months.
Certainly, their reasoning is true for some of the 2.4 million aforementioned young Americans looking for work. But only one out of eight of them would have to be interested to take care of all the needs of providing recreation primarily to American's affluent citizens.
In addition, there is another giant pool of potential workers that I haven't mentioned.
More than 3.8 million young American adults (18-29) with only a high school diploma are not even in the labor market right now. They are not listed as unemployed. Many of them have given up looking for work. Others have chosen not to work for various reasons. But four or six months of work in a vacation location might be just the thing they are looking for.
Dr. Steve Camarota, author of the CIS report, notes:
The difficulty that young workers are experiencing is particularly worrisome because it is as young persons that people learn the skills necessary to function in the workplace, such as showing up on time, following supervisors’ instructions, and interacting with customers. There is evidence that people who are poorly attached to the labor force in their youth tend to stay that way throughout their lives.
SPECIAL INSULT TO BLACK AND HISPANIC AMERICANS
Sens. Mikulski and Specter's actions are especially insulting to Black and Hispanic American who are suffering catastrophic unemployment rates.
The CIS report finds that the official unemployment rate ...
- is 13.6% among U.S.-born Hispanic young adults with high school diplomas
- is 20.2% among Black American young adults with high school diplomas
- is 31.6% among Black American teens (age 16-17)
- is 40.3% among U.S.-born Hispanic teens (age 16-17)
These rates are for Americans who aren't in jails or other institutions.
Yet, about a quarter of U.S. Senators have already signed on to Mikulski and Specter's attempt to shut these and other unemployed Americans out of the resort and vacation industry jobs.
I hope you will go to our Action Buffet and let your Senators know what you think about this sad, sad sell-out of America's most vulnerable young adults.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA