Discussion 3, Ch. 19 + 20, Due 11/2/2

1. Compare and contrast the lives of migrants from Europe with the lives of African Americans that were migrating northward to cities in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Write a 4-6 sentence paragraph.
2. Explain why Article I of the Constitution prevents a president of the United States from enacting a federal budget on his or her own, without the consent of other branches of the federal government.  In your opinion, why would the framers of the Constitution have created such a government?  Write a 4-6 sentence paragraph.
3. In the late 1800s in the United States, workers transitioned from mostly agricultural workers to mostly industrial workers, and you have read the history of that transition.  Today, workers in the United States are transitioning from manufacturing workers to service and technology workers.  In your historically informed opinion, should the low wage workers of today in foodservice, retail, and other service industries organize, strike, and fight for higher wages, better treatment at work and more guarantees from employers?  Write a 4-6 sentence paragraph.
4. Post responses to two other students of at least 4-6 sentences for each response. 
5. https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/1-intr… this is the link to the book 

student 1

Both migrants from Europe and African American’s migrating from the south experienced many of the same living situations and issues in their attempts to make better lives for themselves. Both groups experienced “push” and “pull” factors in influencing their decisions to move. While African American’s could generally earn more in the north than if they stayed in the south the cost of living was also greater so the net economic benefit was not necessarily better. However other benefits such as personal freedom and access to education made up for this. The European immigrants arriving at this time were also in difficult situations. These were likely immigrants who arrived without much financial resources and were working low skill low pay jobs. They were also more likely to come from eastern or southern Europe, looked and acted different than the western/northern Europeans who arrived earlier and thus were discriminated against similar to the African Americans. In general these two groups had more in common than they had differences in their experience of migrating to the northern states.

Article I of the Constitution prevents the President from enacting a federal budget on their own by placing the power of creating spending bills in the hands of Congress. After these bills are passed the President then has the power to sign or veto the bill. This was likely done to help negate the spoils system of politics. It is common for President to practice political patronage and name those who supported them into positions of power. If the President had the power to enact a federal budget on their own it is likely this budget would heavily favor those who supported the President in their run to office. The framers of the constitution understood this and power into the three branches to prevent issues such as this from manipulating the country.

In my opinion the low wage workers of today do need to organize and fight for better pay in the workplace, but not in the traditional sense such as labor unions. Based on what happened with the farmers in the late 1800s, organizing together to influence politics may have minimal or very slow benefits. One of the problems the farmers faced was over production. They weren’t able to survive on what they were earning so they increased production hoping to earn more but this dropped the price of their crops. What if the farmers instead banded together and limited their production to increase crop prices and maximize their benefit, kind of like what OPEC did.

student 2

The first wave of immigrant were more educated and had while second wave was less educated and were treated more poorly. The greatest motivation for the old immigrants was the search for new land. Some of them were also seeking religious freedom while the new immigrants were in search for better economic opportunities. The old immigrants generally came from Northern and Central Europe especially England and its territories. Apart from these people, there were also slaves who were immigrating in search of work in the plantations while the new immigrants included people from Eastern and Southern Europe especially Italy, Poland, Greece, and Russia. 4.People from China and Japan also immigrated to the U.S. at this time.

The Framers of the US Constitution structured the government so that the three branches have separate powers. The branches must both cooperate and compete to enact policy. Each of the branches has the power to check the other two, which ensures that no one branch can become too powerful and that government as a whole is constrained. This structure ensures that the people’s will is represented by allowing citizens multiple access points to influence public policy, and permitting the removal of officials who abuse their power.

In my opinion low wage workers of today in foodservice, retail, and other service industries should not organize strikes, and fight for higher wages, better treatment at work and more guarantees from employers since unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree. Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow