There is no Republican fantasy more deeply ingrained than that of the lazy, entitled (and traditionally non-white) jackass living off of the government because they don’t want to work — just collecting welfare, SNAP, Medicaid, etc. while eating king crab legs for dinner every night. This person is largely imaginary for a variety of reasons starting with the fact that it’s pretty tough to get public assistance of any kind, beyond unemployment, as a single person with no actual disabilities.
They love it, they cherish it, they seethe over it. It is the imagined existence of legions of these people that has motivated them to be the callous, uncaring, empathy-free humans we all know and … well, know.
On Tuesday, Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins tapped into this by announcing — contrary to what even Trump himself has been considering in response to pressure from farmers and other employers dependent on the labor of undocumented immigrants — that the mass deportations will continue, and those workers can just be replaced by people on Medicaid.
“There will be no amnesty,” she announced. “The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce toward automation and 100 percent American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly."
There are a few issues with that, starting with the fact that there are not, in fact, 34 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid. Don’t be frightened, but we’re about to do some basic math!
There are 71 million Americans on Medicaid. Of those 71 million, 41 million are adults. Of those 41 million adults, 26 million are working-age and not covered by SSI or disability insurance, which would denote … disability. Of that 26 million, 64 percent (or 16 million people) are already working full or part time; another 18 percent (or almost 5 million people) are students or caregivers. Another 10 percent (2.6 million people) are sick or disabled while not specifically receiving SSI (which is quite hard to get!). That leaves just eight percent — around two million — who are not working because they are retired or can’t find work or for some other reason.
Here, enjoy this helpful illustration!
Or some people enjoy a bar chart instead. Please enjoy!
So you’re left with two million people. How many of those two million are not retired, are near one of these farms or able to move to one?
Not only that — how many of them would even be qualified? There’s this assumption on behalf of Republicans that these are jobs anyone can do, but they really aren’t. They involve skill, speed and other attributes that people are not going to necessarily have on their first day on the job (or possibly ever!). Friend of Wonkette Dr. Sarah Taber has trained less-than-willing agricultural workers, sometimes convicts or people doing mandated community service; it did not go well.
The math, as they say, is not mathing. That is the problem with clinging to a faulty premise. Republicans convinced themselves that these people exist in large numbers, and so think it would be perfectly easy for them to take over the jobs that undocumented immigrants were doing. But these imaginary people — as effective as they might be at inspiring Republicans to get to the polls in order to destroy our social safety net — can’t do non-imaginary jobs.
Also yesterday, Missouri Republican Senator Eric Schmitt stated that he was pretty sure American workers would flock to the jobs previously done by undocumented workers, given the opportunity.
“The answer here is opening those opportunities up for American workers. You just saw a food processing plant open up that had some folks who were arrested and sent away, and then you had American workers actually sign up and do those jobs. It's a myth that Americans don't want to work hard and do these jobs. Of course they will,” he told Fox News.
That did happen, at a plant in Omaha. But the plant in question was already using e-Verify to ensure that its workers were here legally, and now it’s still using e-Verify for the newest bunch of applicants and hires, many of whom are still Spanish-speaking people.
Otherwise, it has not been going so well! And while unemployment has increased under Trump after having remained under 4 percent throughout most of Joe Biden’s term, it hasn’t yet increased that much. There is still a labor shortage in many sectors of our economy. In fact, there have been labor shortages in construction work (500K employee deficit) and manufacturing (400K employee deficit), and farming (2.4 million, and that was in 2024) for a while now — three industries that frequently employ undocumented immigrants. The issue isn’t always about low pay or not wanting to do hard work, either. Often times, again, the issue is that there are not enough qualified workers who want to do those jobs. If the answer to this problem was “Well, just pay people more and they’ll take those jobs,” that probably would have kicked in/worked by now.
I mean, hey! Maybe that’s part of why Republicans are so excited about AI. They think it’ll get Americans out of their cushy office jobs and into jobs involving heavy manual labor. Maybe they’re even hoping that, because of this, more kids will forego college (or even finishing high school) and thus less likely to become Democrats. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past them.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
The problem with America is people who make $700/hour have convinced people who make $25/hour that people who make $7.25/hour are the problem.
Real talk:
Last Saturday I hosted a do in one of my favorite places and got to hang with friends. One I’ve known in meatspace for years, the others I’d known online but not yet in person. It was a good hang.
After being safely dropped off, I dutifully typed up my after-action report and posted photos for the peanut gallery. And then I curled up into a ball for three hours, which is how long it took me to process the fact that no one had tried to hurt me while I was out, because agoraphobia.
That’s one of the things that are wrong with me, and these fucks expect me to work the fields.
Insanity.