Monday, August 20, 2018

CRAB CRISIS: Why Eastern Shore Crab Houses are Suffering Because of Trump


By Robert Wenzel

About a third of crab picking jobs remain unfilled across the Eastern Shore this summer, as few Americans have responded to openings and Mexican laborers are stranded at home without permission to come here to work, reports the Washington Post.

More from the Post:
The situation illustrates a general unwillingness among U.S. workers to perform certain kinds of labor, some of the business owners here in Dorchester County say. It also demonstrates how President Trump’s “America First” policies have not necessarily helped those workers or small-business owners but instead have dealt them a new economic reality.
Crab-picking houses are boosting wages and expanding overtime but are losing customers — and profits — because they can’t
provide a reliable supply of crabmeat. One local supplier buys meat elsewhere to serve at its restaurant because the in-house picking plant has none. And at Russell Hall, [crab business operator Harry] Phillips is weighing whether to pack up and move his operation to Mexico...
Since he took charge of the family business in 1992, Phillips has hired 50 Mexican workers a year through the H-2B visa program to work summer through fall. Most were women. Some had been coming for 18 years.
But changes to the program shut him out this year. 
The Trump administration announced this past winter that it would distribute the temporary visas through a lottery — not the first-come, first-served system previously in place. In addition, Congress dropped a rule in 2017 that said workers who had gotten visas in the past could get them again without counting toward the annual cap.
“It’s just ridiculous,” said Phillips, who failed to secure any visas when the first 33,000 were allocated in February or when an additional 15,000 were issued in June. “I’m not a gambler. I want to know I got my crew.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Michael Bars said his agency — which manages the H-2B program — is “focused on ensuring the integrity of the immigration system and protecting the interests of U.S. workers.”
“We are committed to reforming employment-based immigration programs so they benefit the American people to the greatest extent possible,” he said in a statement.
The crab crisis highlights two points I have been making. Trump immigration policy of bringing in only "topped skilled" labor fails to take into consideration that what might be needed in the economy is low-skilled foreign workers to do work that it makes no sense for highly skilled American workers to do.

Second, Trump's anti-immigrant policy is doing nothing but shrinking the size of the U.S. economy and lowering the general standard of living for Americans.

I discussed this in detail in the video, "The Problem with Stephen Miller":





Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of






17 comments:

  1. No, most Americans won't do the jobs for what they are offering. So we have to import turd world labor since these companies can socialize the costs of their problems. Anyway, in the end if they really need these people, I have no problem with a system where they have to register and pay taxes like the rest of us slaves do.

    Besides, don't they have a bunch of imported Somalis that could be doing these jobs? Maybe welfare is a better deal? Can anyone in that area of the US tell us about it if that is the case?

    ReplyDelete
  2. How do they advertise for these jobs...in Mexican newspapers?.....Do they let it be known they provide seasonal room and board.....if they do.....if they don't....do they pay enough for someone to come for a "working vacation"???? Maybe it is true, nobody (an American) wants to work anymore (for terrible pay and conditions). Ohh pity the poor business owner!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re: burningtwig,

      The companies might advertise those jobs in any way they wish. You seem not too concerned about the hindrances imposed by a state bent on centrally-planning the economy, or perhaps you believe food is too cheap?

      Delete
  3. --- "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Michael Bars said his agency — which manages the H-2B program — is 'focused on ensuring the integrity of the immigration system and **protecting the interests of U.S. workers**.'" ---

    See, it doesn't take a bunch of kids to give Socialism a 'nicer face'. The DJT administration is already doing that with their "we're all in this together" canard which they use to justify a more restrictionist immigration policy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Idiotic "analysis". If people aren't taking the jobs, maybe the employers should raise the compensation paid to employees! Labor markets clear, right? I thought you were an Austrian, cause you sound like an economically illiterate liberal jack ass when you get political.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Philip Martin

      “People aren’t taking jobs” because the state banned them from doing so. Most businesses can’t simply “raise the compensation paid to employees” without compromising their business model.

      The fact is that these were viable business ventures, and then the state interfered.

      Delete
    2. Re: Phillip Martin,

      --- If people aren't taking the jobs, maybe the employers should raise the compensation paid to employees! ---

      You want companies to increase their operating expenses? What exactly for? What is the difference between the feel-good policy of raising the minimum wage and the feel-good policy of restricting the free-flow of labor? You think your feel-good idea deserves more consideration than the other? Why?

      --- Labor markets clear, right? ---

      Not when the government imposes a price floor, they don't. That is exactly what this restrictionist policy amounts to: a price floor. Who is being economically-illiterate now, Phillip? You are already asserting that companies are misers, an easy thing to say when it's not your money at stake.

      Delete
    3. Evan: wait, the state interfered? By changing the method it distributes free paases? Wtf? The business model is not viable if the business can't attract workers. Period.

      Tores: you moron. Business has to raise its level of compensation to attract the labor it needs. It's quite bloody simple, but obviously a bit too high-minded for your simpleton brain.

      Your assertion that a price floor (minimum wage) is hindering the business is a complete non-sequitor here. The problem is the business is not offering enough to attract labor, not that it can't pay the price floor for labor. Again, complex thoughts for little minds.

      Like RW, you're all happy when the forces of supply and demand reduce prices, but blame all and sundry when when the same forces require owners to raise prices to accomplish the same goal. If we listen to the price signal, we realize, maybe people just don't want the crabs that badly.

      Delete
    4. @Philip

      Uhh, yeah I’d say that threatening to arrest and deport a company’s workforce qualifies as interference.

      Delete
    5. PM: "If we listen to the price signal, we realize, maybe people just don't want the crabs that badly."

      In the free market, if prices rise for factor A which goes into good X, causing higher consumer prices and lower demand for good X, we can certainly say that the price signal is showing that consumers more urgently value other products which use factor A, for which they are prepared to pay higher prices. But we can't say that here, because the higher price for factor A is not the result of shifts in consumer preferences, but due to the artificial restriction by the state on the supply of factor A. You're conflating the state's preferences with consumer preferences.

      Delete
    6. NAP: excellent analysis. Unfortunately, you've also just disproven all "free market" economic consequents when the antecedent occurs in a system where a state exists.

      Delete
    7. PM, I'm not sure what you just said, but in case it's helpful, I would note that you were alleging that there was no state interference, and that "the free market had spoken." I simply pointed out that the state had interfered and, therefore, the free market had not spoken. If your claim is that, when a state exists, it prevents the free market from operating, I believe the technical economic response would be, "Duh."

      Delete
  5. --- Second, Trump's anti-immigrant policy is doing nothing but shrinking the size of the U.S. economy and lowering the general standard of living for Americans. ---

    At one point everyone will realize the frightening truth that DJT is simply an old-school protectionist and mercantilist, like current Fox News commentator Lou Dobbs, or Pat Buchanan, and that his policies are focused on the specific goal of closing the economy to foreign competition of every kind, be it capital or labor, while pushing exports for the sake of national prestige. He's a dangerous charlatan.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "The situation illustrates a general unwillingness among U.S. workers to perform certain kinds of labor"

    Yes, because welfare is a better option. A difficult or dirty job has to pay enough more than welfare to be worth doing. It also has to pay enough more than other easier jobs which have had their wages inflated by high minimum wage laws.

    So instead of fixing the distortion caused by government some libertarians prefer some sort of open borders "solution" that will bring in people to whom the full spectrum of welfare does not apply and/or would not be able to get the easier jobs.

    "fails to take into consideration that what might be needed in the economy is low-skilled foreign workers to do work that it makes no sense for highly skilled American workers to do."

    Low skilled americans, of which there is no apparent shortage, end up on welfare unless they are personally motivated not to.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @JJM

      Where are you getting the idea that libertarians don’t oppose welfare?

      Also, I would guess that most libertarians view non-interference of movement as a moral imperative rather than a jobs program (though the latter often is a happy consequence.)

      Delete
    2. "Where are you getting the idea that libertarians don’t oppose welfare?"

      I did not write anything of the sort. I wrote the solution that _some_ are proposing to some of the problems welfare causes is a rather open immigration policy because they prefer that over dismantling the root cause. They put immigration ahead of dismantling the welfare state. They put the cart before the horse.

      "I would guess that most libertarians view non-interference of movement as a moral imperative rather than a jobs program "

      We don't live in a libertarian world, not even a libertarian nation. As such there cannot be such a thing as "non-interference of movement". There are a multitude of government interferences which will drive movement even if there is zero in the way of immigration policy and enforcement for the USA. For instance, how do you have "non-interference of movement" when people are obligated to pay for socialized services based on their income, property value, etc but have no say in who shows up to claim them? That alone interferes with movement. Draws people one direction rather than another.

      Delete