06 September 2006

More about those ‘jobs Americans won’t do’

Ruben Navarette, of the San Diego Union-Tribune, has a column on the subject of ‘jobs Americans won’t do.’ I’ve blogged on this before (here), and it amounts to this: we are not talking about jobs Americans won’t do, but about jobs Americans don’t really have to do because they have other options.

Navarette, attempting to demonstrate his case tells us about his appearance on a radio talk show:


A few months ago, while appearing on a radio show in Louisville, Ky., I tested the theory with a hypothetical. I blurted out that I'd offer a summer job on a horse farm – cleaning out stalls and other delightful tasks – to any young person who called into the station. I'd pay $200 per day, I said, which is a lot more than those jobs really pay.

When a call came in, I thought my experiment failed. Then the producer informed me that the call was from a mother who was asking for the job on behalf of her son.

That doesn't count. But it does illustrate my point. It's jobs that Americans won't do – not jobs that Americans won't do unless they're secured by mommy.

Not so fast, Ruben. The problem here isn’t that this mommy’s boy won’t do the job. It is just as I say: he doesn’t have to do the job because he has another option. His mommy has obviously given him the option of not working unless she lines up a job for him--something I doubt my parents even had nightmares, much less dreams, about permitting me to do.

And our federal government provides many other Americans a similar option: they get to live off those of us who are working. (And if they do want to work, why they can even be educated and trained at our expense.

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James Frank Solís
Former soldier (USA). Graduate-level educated. Married 26 years. Texas ex-patriate. Ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
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