I live in a touristy town that does this with J1 workers. I'll tell you why: The jobs pay $7.25/hour.

The J1s are then packed like sardines into houses where they pay rent by the week. Why by the week? To remind them they're expendable and can be deported at a moment's notice by the restaurant/hotel/amusement park/etc. they work at. The worst I've heard is 16 people living in a 3-bedroom, 1 bathroom house.

The J1s themselves are typically great people. A lot of them do everything they can to stay in the area via Green Cards or whatever. Business that treat their J1s like shit are usually blacklisted by locals, too. We'll actively tell tourists not to give those businesses any business and why.

People are willing to take a discount on their wages and quality of life for the intangible benefit of ‘the experience of living and working abroad for a summer’.

For non-native English speakers it also has the advantage of providing a free total immersion language course as well. People pay for opportunities like that.

So yes, an Italian 19 year old is willing to work for less money for the chance to work in a water park for a summer, improving their English and boosting their resume, and if it gives them enough money to be able to fund a couple of weekend trips to New York or DC so much the better. It’s a life experience and a working vacation.

That local 19 year olds are not seeing the same advantages to that sort of work isn’t surprising.

Same thing with au pairs and childcare work: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/09/683831264/au-pair-sponsor-age.... It’s basically below minimum wage.

I learned this hiring practice in my home state of MN. The lake Superior North shore has resorts that hire these types of workers and pay them shit.

Naturally, there’s an old This American Life episode about this which focuses on young international people who work summer at a highway rest stop.

Ep. 388

If this is like what I saw in Maine coastal tourist towns this summer I suspect its popular with Europeans because the $15.10/hour local wage is attractive. But more so it's because you get to spend time a few months in a beautiful location surrounded by other attractive young people. Party scene is probably great.

The right policy response would be telling the firms running these programs to get fucked if they can't successfully operate while paying staff the prevailing wage that local Americans would accept.

I agree. If the minimum wage is raised, there will be less incentives for businesses to hire cheap foreign workers.