8/6/21

Biden administration forcing wage increases, immigration reform

The rise of companies like Amazon suggests many people are simply too afraid to go into town to shop and I’m hardly the first person to say this but with the right messaging we could transform the pandemic into a general strike in protest of Republican obstructionism. It would not only destroy the entire Republican Party it would bring American capitalism to its knees. 

So, watching the entire GOP circling the drain while they drown their comrades trying to flounder from the Trump maelstrom is the schadenfreude we Democrats need right now.
Federal health officials will likely reject Montana’s request to include work requirements for beneficiaries of its Medicaid expansion program, which insures 100,000 low-income Montana adults, state officials said. Three years after the Trump administration encouraged states to require proof that adult enrollees are working a certain number of hours or looking for work as a condition of receiving Medicaid expansion benefits, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has reversed course under Democratic President Joe Biden. [Kaiser Health News]
And as the Republican Party caves on immigration after Governor Kristi Noem said she won’t accept migrant workers in South Dakota wage slaves could make real social justice change by walking off their jobs then calling for a general strike and tourism boycott to bring Kristi to her senses, too.

There are no checks on executive power and the governor's cronies routinely raid the state's general fund. The state is second in addiction to gambling and teachers' salaries surf the bottom of the US. Wage slavery is the state's biggest claim to fame and in 2021 South Dakota is 51st in women-owned businesses. 

As young people and Democrats flee South Dakota more brown people are doing the work in the failed red moocher state. Spanish speakers prop up the federally subsidized dairy industry East River but in Huron Karen refugees slaughter and process turkeys.
Despite competitive wages and an expanding workforce, the U.S. pork industry continues to struggle with a labor shortage that will require access to more foreign-born workers to remain sustainable, according to a study by Iowa State University economists that was recently updated to reflect the current state of the labor market. Current visa programs designed for seasonal agriculture—such as the H-2A visa—fail to meet the workforce needs of U.S. pork producers and other year-round livestock farmers. To address the labor shortage, NPPC is advocating for year-round access to the H-2A visa program without a cap. [National Pork Producers Council]
Learn more at the Grand Forks Tribune.
So, how much exactly does one need to live in Colorado? The most popular response from What’s Working readers is $20 an hour. Livable wages — all write-ins, by the way — came in anywhere from $12 to $43 and change an hour. At $12, that’s below the state’s $12.32 minimum wage, while $43 is roughly $90,000 a year. [Colorado Sun]

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