If Mexico and South America had an economy that was close to ours, as Canada's is, they wouldn't even wanna come here, right? So why are those two countries economies not closer to ours?
IMO, they're just huge slave labor camps for this part of the world. There's a reason why the minimum wage in Mexico is $5 per DAY (not hour)
Mexican officials are easily bought off by lobbyist. Much like our own politicians. In fact, lobbyist own 99% of all our politicians. Republicans and democrats alike. And since it's so cheap to live in Mexico, Mycrosoft and the other big companies down there, can easily afford to dish out a cool million to keep the minimum wages as slave labor levels. Which keeps the people poor. Which keeps crime levels high. Which keeps drug money coming in. And all the other effects that poverty has on any society.
Question is, how to fix it.
Because Trumps stupid wall isn't going to. Sending Mexico and South America hundreds of billions isn't going to work.
The answer to all of this is in their economies down there. I guarantee you, that if the minimum wages down there were even $5per HOUR, they wouldn't even bother coming here.
$5hr down there, is like an upper middle class wage.
So while the first thing you said is relatively accurate, nothing else is.
If you raise the minimum wage in Mexico, they would simply have no work whatsoever, and end up with even more people coming to the US for work.
The minimum wage, doesn't magically make the work you do more valuable. The reason Mexicans are paid less, has nothing to do with the minimum wage, or the politicians or something.
The reason they are paid less, is because the relative value of their money is lower, and the quality of their work is lower. Anyone who is in programming at a large company, can tell you how the quality of code from outsourced locations is often of a lower quality.
Now this is acceptable because they are paying a lower price. This is normal for all human existence. Your Chevy isn't the same quality as a Mercedes, and you are ok with this because you don't pay as much for a Chevy. And guess what.... people who were on the assembly line at the Chevy plant, are not paid as much as those at the Mercedes plant.
This is normal.
Additionally, the cost of living is much lower. So you would expect wages to be lower, because the cost of living is lower. And by lower, I mean massively lower. When you compare the cost of living in Seattle where Microsoft is, to where their offices are in Mexico, the cost of living is nearly 150% higher. That means you can take a cut in pay from $100,000 to $40,000, and have the equal standard of living.
So Mexican labor is not under paid. They are not paid less because of politicians, nor because of the minimum wage, and they would not be paid more because of the minimum wage.
If the politicians did jack up wages, it would merely result in Mexicans being out of a job. The value of the work, does not increase, because a politician said so.
Instead you just have more people unemployed. And with that, more would be coming to the US for employment.
