Editor’s Note: Dislike this Op-Ed or opinion? Share your own take here.

When we hear about investing in what makes America great, many of us overlook the average American worker.

We wonder why the minimum wage is not higher. We complain about the cost of products and basic services, but many of us don’t support our own by buying American made products. When we outsource jobs to cut costs, sure we get more competitively priced products, but we forget about the American family who suffers as a consequence.

Bernie Sanders spoke of raising the minimum wage and bringing jobs home, while Hilary Clinton splashed him down in a recent debate in Flint, Michigan because he did not support the bailout of the auto industry. Supporting the bailout of the auto industry is not investing in what makes America great. It is supporting the same people who have outsourced jobs to cut prices and stopped investing in what makes America great, the American worker.

Corporate America complains about spending money on the cost of health care for workers. Many people also complain that America spends too much money on welfare—what they call entitlements—yet they fail to see that if they simply invested in their own, these expenses would shrink.

If we made it mandatory to offer American applicants jobs first before outsourcing them, we would have more American citizens employed to full capacity. And we would have more Americans paying into the system, increasing tax revenues and the funds that go to support programs like Medicare.

When we outsource jobs, sure we cut costs, but we cut the American worker off at the knees. We leave them earning less, needing benefits and left with no choice other than public assistance to support themselves. By making it mandatory, not just a goal to hire Americans first before outsourcing, we not only protect the American worker, but we create millions of jobs that will help rebuild our middle class. Right now it is hard to increase the minimum wage without losing to competition because we are not playing on equal ground—we are competing with companies operating overseas for a fraction of the cost.

Those who received American’s tax dollars—such as the auto industry—are still outsourcing jobs to countries where people earn a fraction of what Americans earn, still cutting worker’s benefits and avoiding paying their fair share of taxes to increase their own profit.

This is no way to make America great again. We must build America from the ground up, and that starts by supporting American workers. We need more than empty promises from politicians; we need to actually start paying people a living wage. And with a higher minimum wage, Americans will be able to put their tax dollars into a system that pays for programs like health care, not bailouts to executives who promise they will not make the same mistakes again, yet exist to maintain the status quo.

Let’s start investing in our own people—this is how we will begin to truly make American great again.

 

 

~

Author: Jane Coco Cowles

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Wikipedia