CAPS TV Ad Reminds President Trump: Cheap Labor Interests Didn't Elect Him. Working Class Americans Did.
With Wages Just Beginning to Rise, Ad Asks Why Trump Would Increase Immigration, Job Competition, and Wage Pressure.
WASHINGTON, March 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) launched TV ads today in Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia asking why President Trump would call for increases in immigration and foreign workers when American wages just began rising. The ads are scheduled to run six weeks. Cost for the campaign is well into six figures. An additional media buy will launch Monday, March 25th in the Rust Belt.
"Working-class paychecks just recently started growing, but adjusted for inflation, average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago," commented Ric Oberlink, Executive Director of CAPS. "Don't working-class Americans deserve a raise after forty years? The last thing our low-skilled workers need now is more immigration, more people who will compete for jobs and drive down wages."
In 2016, President Trump was elected on a campaign platform that promised to cut Chain Migration, the Visa Lottery, and overall immigration numbers. But in his 2019 State of the Union address, Trump reversed course and said, "I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever." In a recent meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook and other corporate executives, Trump reiterated his wish to increase immigration, "We want to have a lot of people coming in." Leading up to the SOTU, President Trump, Jared Kushner and their advisers met with scores of corporate lobbyists who claimed America is in the midst of a worker shortage and Trump needs to increase immigration to fill jobs, ignoring long-suffering American workers.
"There's a wage shortage, not a worker shortage," countered Oberlink. "If there were a worker shortage, wages would be rising at a much faster rate. Wage growth remains anemic. Here's the bottom line: Pay higher wages, and American workers will fill the jobs."
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently cited America's low labor force participation rate as a "very troubling concern" and lamented that the rate must be higher for prosperity to be widespread. The civilian labor force participation rate is now just 63 percent, three points lower than prior to the Great Recession. The broader U-6 unemployment rate shows that there are 12 million would-be workers in America seeking full-time employment. The good news is that those benefiting most from wage gains are America's low-skilled workers.
"As wages increase for our most vulnerable workers and more workers move back into America's middle class, the vast income inequality gap in the U.S. could begin to narrow," added Oberlink. "Trump deserves credit for that, but if he yields to cheap-labor interests and increases immigration, working-class wage gains will reverse. He'll end up making Americans poor again."
President Trump was not specific about the number of people he wants to "come into the country," but in recent years, America has admitted record levels of more than one million immigrants annually. There are currently over 46 million immigrants in the U.S., almost 15 percent of the total population. In just a few years, the proportion of foreign-born will exceed the record set in 1890.
To view the TV ad click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA_kkBd5Pgk&feature=youtu.be
To learn more about CAPS, visit CAPSWeb.org
SOURCE Californians for Population Stabilization
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