Word: waging
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Instead of racial tensions, the conflicts here are tribal: classroom cliques of jocks, nerds, skateboarders, cheerleaders. The movie suggests that, by junior year, kids are pigeon-holed in their groups, afraid to explore other, ornery dreams. Like white-collar wage slaves, but 30 years too early, they are undergoing a mid-teen crisis. The received wisdom (voiced in the most irresistible of the movie's nine radio-friendly songs) is to "Stick to the stuff you know... Stick to the status quo." Yet a few kids harbor subversive ambitions. The inner Troy wants to try out for the school musical...
...plan to put most of the country's 12 million illegal immigrants (except for the estimated one million or so who have been in the U.S. for less than two years) on an eventual path to citizenship and open up a massive new legal immigration system for low-wage workers; at the same time, it would have removed many of the draconian penalties that were in a bill passed by the House last December...
Meanwhile, the more soft-spoken Tunes was getting frustrated with his minimum-wage job at a local Dunkin Donuts. When he quit, Luny recommended his friend to his boss at Harvard. In September 2001, Tunes started work as a dishwasher in Leverett...
...large, yes. Immigrant labor is a drag on wage growth, thus keeping a lid on inflation and interest rates. As a result, prices for goods and services are lower, and citizens can purchase more. And immigrants are consumers too: some 80% of what undocumented workers earn in the U.S. stays in the country. A recent study by economists at the University of North Carolina found that Hispanic residents, 45% of whom were undocumented, contributed $9.2 billion in spending to North Carolina's economy in 2004. By taking the least desirable jobs, says John Kasarda, a co-author of the study...
Many employers already pay minimum wage to illegal workers. Although some shifty employers may still exploit workers they can keep off the books, "I really don't think most serious corporations want that," says Jagdish Bhagwati, an economist at Columbia University. That's because, says John Gay, a lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, "a steady supply of dependable labor is more important [than minimum wage] to employers trying to grow their business." Forecasts of labor shortages spook some employers; restaurants expect 15% job growth over 10 years, while the labor force is predicted to grow only...