It is no better for the disabled (SSI/SSDI recipients)with dependent children, or those who must use Medicaid, subsidized child care or food stamps.  To secure that aid, the parent must go through the welfare system, which will put her into a job.  Virtually everything she earns is cut from benefits, keeping the family in poverty.  The disabled are too often “placed” into jobs that are painfully disabiity inappropriate, but if they stop working, full benefits aren’t restored for several months while the reduced benefits don’t cover basic needs.Case workers are quick to remind them that if they stop working, social services could take their children into “indefinite custody” for “failure to ADEQUATELY provide”.  That does create a captive workforce which then surrenders virtually all earnings to the state.  Once in the trap, it can be very difficult to get out. Insurance is unaffordable on a min. wage job, but is an absolute necessity for children. That’s a complex set of policies in the proverbial “nutshell”, but the point is that what was once a welfare system is now a system of indentured servitude.  And because America chose not to speak up against these policies, we can expect to see indentured servitude continue to spread, taking in one subset of society, then another, then another.

From my POV the undocumented worker aka illegal immigrant “problem” is a labor issue.

Because we turn away from the clear violations of our labor laws--minimum wage, health and safety, right to organize, overtime pay, etc., etc. etc.--we are creating a an indentured servant class of worker. The “indentured” is the direct result of the fear of deportation and the need to feed one’s family. This is about as an effective a ball and chain as one could forge.

And WE THE PEOPLE have allowed this to evolve right under our noses in clear view. Where were the pickets of the meat packing plants exploiting workers? The boycotts of products produced under sweatshop labor conditions right here in this country? Where are the investigations of workers injured or killed on the job?

What the hell, we get our lawns mowed.

Are we all so engrossed in “getting ours” that we have forgotten the solidarity of labor that has kept us free and growing ... up unil now?

I am like Pogo, meeting the enemy in the mirror.