| ▲ | paxys 5 hours ago | |||||||||||||||||||
The difference is the number. Workers on temporary visas make up ~1% of the labor force in the US. And a large chunk of them will eventually get citizenship or permanent residency and qualify for benefits later in life. Countries like Singapore and all of the Middle East meanwhile rely on a revolving door of cheap immigrant labor. In the extreme cases like Qatar 95% of the working population are on short term visas. Most of these countries don't have a pathway to citizenship at all for this worker class. You could live there, work and pay taxes for 10 or 20 or 50 years, but the day you "retire" you need to pack up and leave. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | temp8830 4 hours ago | parent [-] | |||||||||||||||||||
The US also has a huge pool of undocumented immigrants who don't get any benefits, don't pay into the social security system, and can be paid below minimum wage (because officially they don't exist). Any time this labor supply is threatened, the construction and agriculture industries rise up (and probably sponsor all those massive protests you see in the news). | ||||||||||||||||||||
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