Thread: A Staggering 36 Million Americans Lack Basic Work Skills

2/28/2015 @ 10:54PM

A Staggering 36 Million Americans Lack Basic Work Skills

A report conducted by the OECD and commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education entitled Time for the U.S. to Reskill? has found that a staggering 36 million adults in the U.S. are “low-skilled.” That is, they lack the most basic skills in literacy, numeracy and problem-solving deemed minimally necessary for meaningful employment in a high-tech global economy.

According to the OECD, black and Hispanics are “three to four times more likely to have low skills than whites.” In addition, 43% of adult Hispanics and 35% of adult African-Americans possess low literacy skills compared with “only 10% of whites.”

Moreover, one-third of these low-skill workers are immigrants.

While the U.S. prides itself as “a nation of immigrants,” it does not seem to be doing a good job – compared to other developed nations – in integrating immigrants into the workforce. Notes the OECD, “Non-English-speaking immigrants in the United States with low-educated parents are 10 times more likely to have low literacy skills (on a test in English) than native-born adults whose parents have at least a high school education. These odds are higher than the average for other industrialized countries, which … may indicate that the United States is not integrating immigrants as effectively as other countries through language classes or other services.”



What the OECD does not discuss, however, is that many of these immigrants may have entered the U.S. illegally. Thus, they may not be eligible, or may not believe they are eligible, for government-sponsored educational benefits. Moreover, because of their status, illegal immigrants might be afraid to get training in crucial language skills. In addition, English may not be spoken in the home, at work, or in their community, further hindering English language development.

Historically, the low-skill status of immigrants has not been so troubling. In fact, it has been a hallmark of the American immigrant experience for centuries. Whether Irish, German, Polish, Italian, Mexican, Chinese or what have you, new immigrants (legal or not) have historically taken the low-rung, low-skill jobs that more skilled or longstanding Americans no longer felt compelled to take.

Moreover, the children of these immigrants have historically gained access to new skills through America’s free and extensive primary and secondary schools, near-free community colleges and low-cost state universities.

Consequently, they accrued far greater skills than their parents did, enabling they and their offspring to move quickly up the American economic ladder.

Unfortunately, this comforting narrative has been interrupted. And the anti-corporate nostrums of liberal economists like Paul Krugman – addressed in my previous column, “Education Is The Answer To Income Inequality” – are not making the resolution of this interruption any easier.

You see, over the last decade a near-permanent underclass of low-skilled workers has become a pernicious part of the American economic experience. The evidence is inescapable.

According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), young adults in the U.S. have only slightly better skill sets than their parents or caregivers. Moreover, according to the OECD, “U.S. adults with low levels of education who have parents with low levels of education are 10 times more likely to have low skills than are those who have higher-educated parents.”

In other words, as our stagnant PISA results over the last decade confirm, the skills of young adults are not likely to improve anytime soon. Moreover, America’s low-skill legacy is being passed on from generation to generation. Notes the OECD, this “inter-generational link is much stronger in the United States than in other countries.”

In the next piece, I showcase the dramatic implications of the low-skills crisis and offer practical, real-world ways to end it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmar...c-work-skills/

Well, see, this is why we regulate and control immigration through US immigration law. It's all a numbers issue. When Congress passes a law to allow 1.3 million legal immigrants into the nation each year, which is what it's been for the past several years, that's because in their presumed wisdom, our nation could handle that many. Of course, their wisdom off, the numbers were excessive, that's a new San Antonio every year, and we have neither the time, money, jobs or wage rates to absorb this number of new people every year without it impacting Americans in a very negative way. That number needs to be drastically reduced. It's an insane number and Congress is off its rocker allowing that many. We now need a moratorium on all new immigration to allow our country to catch up with this disaster.

But in addition to this 1.3 million number, we have 2 to 5 million illegal aliens coming in every year, 2 to 5 x the prescribed legal number in addition to the legal number. Then since 2009, we have the Obama Administration handing out work authorizations to 7.4 of these illegal aliens who now march off and take a good legal job. And now the Obama Administration wants to hand out 5 million more.

We are not a nation of immigrants. Why people claim this is astonishing. Yes, we've had some immigrants, but very few until recently. Most of the US population is native born, generations of them. And the reason for that is our wise founders and early leaders knew the problems with immigration, which is why Congress had the authority in our Constitution to ban or prohibit it after 1808.

So what's happened during the Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama years is unprecedented, unconstitutional, illegal and the worst betrayal of our citizens in the history of the world. And of course one of the consequences is going to be a downgrade or loss of all the things Americans had worked for, excellence in education, a high-skilled capable work force, independent self-sustaining individuals and families, enterprising and innovative businesses, to name a few.

At the end of the day, the human species is really no different than any other. You have too much of something undesirable, and it takes over, like .... hmmmm ...... parasites. They destroy their host. It's the same with people who want to feed off a host country. They don't raise it up, they bring it down, and if something isn't done about it, the country is devoured. If poverty is undesirable, then you don't want to import it. If illiteracy is undesirable, then you don't want to import it. If low skills are undesirable, then you don't want to import them. Otherwise, you'll have more poverty, more illiteracy and more low skills.

So again, as we see so often in the headlines of these articles, it's not 36 million Americans shocking the world with their lack of basic work skills, it's illegal aliens and immigrants who lack basic work skills, which begs the question why American businesses want to hire them when they don't even know English or why government would want to let them in or let them stay when 71% of illegal aliens and 57% of all "immigrants" are on welfare unable to sustain themselves.

So tell me, why do businesses want to hire them and why does government want to hand out welfare to them? It makes no sense, so their labor it's not a legitimate explanation for them being here in the first place.

We need a Special Prosecutor appointed and funded by Congress through Jeff Sessions committee to investigate the largess of criminal activity embedded deep and dark into the illegal immigration and excessive immigration movement, because it is not and I repeat not about normal free market business decisions to hire them.

If I had the choice to hire an unskilled or low-skilled Black American who knows our culture, our ways, and speaks English or an unskilled or low-skilled Illegal Alien or Immigrant who does not know our culture, our ways and doesn't speak English, then I'm going to hire the Black American and train that person. Why would I do or want to do otherwise? And for those who may not know, let me tell you, "low skill" Black Americans know a whole lot of stuff and how to do it that many of us college graduates don't know, and it may not be specific skills on an OECD list, but skills that are very valuable to a business. I know this first-hand from personal business experience. So, there's no just or reasonable explanation for what's going on other than these companies and government officials are on the take with the cartels behind this travesty of illegal immigration and excess immigration.

So my advice to Congress is put your "free trade" agenda in File 13, and hire a Special Prosecutor to investigate this disaster, because it's all criminal, every single person of it, the illegal aliens, their 501 C 3 aiders and abetters, their illegal employers, their Congress advocates, their protectors in the Department of Homeland Security, and of course without a doubt, the White House.

What's "staggering" is the volume of crimes involved in the travesty of illegal immigration and excess immigration, not the "lack of basic work skills" of Americans.

They must be counting Obama's "Americans in waiting", the illegals that don't read or write in any language but find their way way to the welfare office and the tax prepared. The Democrats are going for the ultimate low information voter as they try to legalized foreign nationals to stay in power.