The Trump effect: Americans — not foreigners — continue to gain jobs



Citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data accessed through the Federal Reserve Economic Data system, Snopes indicated that under former President Joe Biden, native-born Americans' share of job gains from January 2024 to June 2024 was 51.7%. While native-born Americans picked up roughly 1.09 million jobs, foreign-born individuals grabbed 1.02 million jobs.

Under President Donald Trump a year later, native-born Americans accounted for 100% of non-seasonally adjusted job gains from January to June.

The U.S. Department of Labor revealed on Friday that this trend continued into last month, stating, "Wages are up, investments are pouring into our nation, and native-born workers have accounted for ALL job gains since January!

'That's a result of our strong immigration policy.'

According to the latest jobs numbers from the BLS, the employment of American-born workers was up roughly 383,000 last month. Meanwhile, foreign-born worker numbers plunged by 467,000.

Bloomberg noted that the imported workforce — a mix of legal and illegal migrants — is down roughly 1.7 million jobs since March.

RELATED: Blaze Media's Julio Rosas embeds with Noem's DHS as it slams shut South America's illegal migration pipeline

Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation's Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, noted that "despite [a] disappointing headline, this jobs report was best [July] ever for employment among native-born Americans, up 2 million Y/Y and annual growth 2.2 million faster than among foreign-born workers; native-born American employment is now 1.8 million above pre-pandemic level."

Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.

Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CNN that "since the president took office, he [has] created about 2.5 million jobs for Americans, whereas we've eliminated about a million jobs for foreign-born workers. That's a result of our strong immigration policy, of our strong border policy keeping America safe."

"Eventually the outflow of foreign workers in these data were bound to show up in the establishment surveys, as they finally did this morning," added Miran.

The jobs report indicated further that in July, 73,000 new jobs were added; the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2%; the labor force participation rate was 62.2%; and the "federal government continued to lose jobs."

Following the release of the latest jobs report, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) stated, "Unlike during the Biden administration, when taxpayers were forced to pay for millions of new bureaucrats while watching their grocery and gas bills skyrocket, President Trump’s economy is freeing the private sector to create new jobs with more financial security for American families.

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Report: Medicaid Recipients The GOP Made Work Part-Time Watch TV And ‘Relax’ 6 Hours A Day

Reestablishing a culture of work via the reconciliation bill represents a hard-earned victory for common sense.

Trump can’t let Reagan’s greatest mistake become his legacy



Charlie Kirk reported this week that President Trump faces growing pressure from GOP donors to cut a bipartisan deal offering amnesty to illegal aliens working in agriculture and hospitality. The donor class has long hated Trump and especially his supporters’ demand for real border security and immigration enforcement.

Big business pushing for cheap labor isn’t surprising. What’s alarming is Trump echoing their rhetoric.

What was effectively Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty doomed California. It transformed a red stronghold into the Democrats’ electoral anchor. Trump can’t afford to make the same mistake.

Donald Trump says a lot of things. Anyone who gets emotionally exasperated at any single statement will start to look like a hysterical journalist. Salena Zito’s sage advice — “Take Trump seriously, not literally” — still applies. He might joke about annexing Canada, but those lines rarely lead to action.

At the same time, Trump takes public opinion seriously. He gauges crowd response and often walks back proposals that don't land. That makes it important to push back on bad ideas without losing perspective.

Trust the plan — but verify the plan regularly.

Kirk understands this. That’s why he’s mobilized opposition now to any amnesty deal, real or imagined. He wouldn’t act unless he sensed real movement inside the swamp. Corporate America has tolerated immigration enforcement as long as it targeted gang members and drug dealers. But when Immigration and Customs Enforcement started raiding farms and hotels, the donor class panicked.

Suddenly, Trump began repeating talking points from Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about farmers and hotel owners losing their “best workers.” He promised to help them get the labor they need. His administration quietly issued guidance exempting farms and hotels from immigration raids.

The online backlash came fast — and fierce. The administration reversed course and rescinded the exemptions.

But Trump didn’t quite drop the issue. He kept talking about farmers’ need for labor. In the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which delivered major funding for border security, Beltway insiders started floating a pivot: tack back to the center and strike a deal.

That whisper campaign likely prompted Kirk to sound the alarm.

Special carve-outs for illegal labor would betray MAGA’s core promise. Maybe 10 years ago, building a wall and deporting the worst offenders would have been enough. But after eight million illegal aliens surged across the border under Biden’s illegitimate regime, the situation changed. Democrats intentionally flooded the country to shift its demographics and tilt elections. If we don’t reverse that flood, they win.

RELATED: Where the left gets its rage against borders

Photo by Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images

After Kirk’s warning, Rollins re-emerged to promise that mass deportations would continue. The base cheered. But she added that future enforcement would be more “strategic” — a telling hedge. Trump followed up by insisting he opposed amnesty, then immediately floated a new “worker program” to help farmers. That language did not reassure.

The United States already has legal guest worker programs. Farms that ignore them and hire illegal aliens are breaking the law. They don’t deserve special treatment. They deserve prosecution.

The truth is, letting illegal aliens stay and rewarding them with American jobs is amnesty. Redefining the term won’t change that.

Conservatives have heard this pitch before. At this point, it’s almost comical. Every “immigration reform” ends the same way: Illegal aliens stay, and the floodgates reopen. It starts with the workers, then families follow. Chain migration becomes mass migration.

Trump was elected because he promised to break this cycle. He built his legacy on tough immigration policies — mass deportations, the wall, an America First agenda. To flirt with a Reagan-style amnesty now would be an incredible betrayal.

What was effectively Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty doomed California. It transformed a red stronghold into the Democrats’ electoral anchor. Trump can’t afford to make the same mistake.

He must shut down this talk — shut down Rollins especially — and remember why voters chose him over the establishment in the first place. The donor class got Trump wrong in 2016. If he listens to its members now, they’ll take him — and the country — down with them.

Why tariffs beat treaties in a world that cheats



President Trump’s tariffs are set to snap back to the “reciprocal” rates on Wednesday — unless foreign countries can cut deals. So far, the only major players to reach agreements in principle are the United Kingdom and, ironically, China.

Others aren’t so lucky. The European Union, Japan, and India all risk facing a sharp increase in tariffs. Each claims to support free trade. India has even offered a so-called zero-for-zero deal. Vietnam offered similar terms.

Free trade is a myth. Tariffs are reality. The Trump administration should raise them proudly and without apology.

The Trump administration should be skeptical. These deals sound good in theory, but so does communism. In practice, “true” free trade — like true communism — has never existed. It’s impossible. The world’s legal systems, business norms, and levels of development differ too much.

Economists may still chase unicorns. But the Trump administration should focus on tilting the board in our favor — because someone else always will.

Free trade is a mirage

Start with the basics: Different countries are different. Their economies aren’t equal, their wages aren’t comparable, and their regulations certainly aren’t aligned.

Wages may be the most obvious example. In 2024, the median annual income for Americans was around $44,000. In India, the median annual income was just $2,400. That means American labor costs nearly 20 times more. And since labor accounts for roughly a third of all production costs, the math practically begs U.S. companies to offshore work to India.

RELATED: Trump’s tariffs take a flamethrower to the free trade lie

Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images

It’s China in 2001 all over again.

Back then, the average U.S. wage was about $30,000. China’s? Just $1,100. When China joined the World Trade Organization, American manufacturers fled en masse. Since 2001, more than 60,000 factories have disappeared — and with them, 5 million jobs.

The result: decimated towns, stagnant wages, and hollowed-out industrial capacity. And don’t blame robots or automation. This was policy-driven — an elite obsession with free trade that delivered real pain to working Americans.

We’ve run trade deficits every single year since 1974. The inflation-adjusted total? Roughly $25 trillion. And while U.S. workers produce more value than ever, their wages haven’t kept up. They’ve been undercut by cheap foreign labor for decades.

Equal partners? Think again

What if the other country is rich? Can free trade work between economic peers?

Not necessarily. Even when GDP levels match, hidden differences remain. Take regulation. America enforces labor standards, environmental protections, and workplace safety rules. All of those raise production costs — but for good reason. American-made goods reflect those costs in their price tags.

Meanwhile, competitors like China or Mexico cut corners. They dump waste, abuse workers, and sidestep accountability. The result? Cheaper products — on paper. But those costs don’t vanish. They just get pushed onto others: polluted oceans, exploited laborers, sicker consumers.

This is why the sticker price on a foreign good doesn’t reflect its true cost. The price is a lie. Cheapness is often just corner-cutting with a smile.

National strength means self-reliance

Rather than debating whether free trade is possible, we should ask whether it’s good for America.

Should we outsource core industries to foreign nations with no loyalty to us? Should we depend on countries like China for our pharmaceuticals, our electronics, or even our food?

The founders didn’t think so. The Tariff Act of 1789 wasn’t about boosting exports — it was about building an independent industrial base. A sovereign nation doesn’t beg for favors. It builds.

We aren’t just an economy. We are a people — a nation united by heritage, language, faith, and trust. That matters more than quarterly profits.

Free trade is a myth. Tariffs are reality. The Trump administration should raise them proudly — and make no apologies for putting America first.

Going Soft On Illegal Labor Is A Betrayal Of American Workers Like My Family

Competitors blew past my parents like they were standing still, mostly thanks to the stream of cheap, illegal labor my parents refused to tap into.

Illegal labor isn’t farming’s future. It’s Big Ag’s crutch.



I’m a strong supporter of President Trump. I respect his drive to secure our borders, restore national sovereignty, and bring real vitality back to the American economy.

But the Department of Homeland Security’s latest move — limiting workplace enforcement and putting a stop to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on agricultural employers — cuts against the very heart of the America First agenda. It protects the same corporate giants that are bleeding rural communities dry.

If DHS and USDA want to fix agriculture, they need to stop hiding behind the word ‘farmer’ when they’re really talking about corporate middlemen.

Let’s not kid ourselves: This policy isn’t about helping “farmers.” It’s a gift to foreign-owned industrial agriculture giants like JBS and other multinationals that built their business models on cheap labor, government handouts, and total control over every link in the supply chain.

These are the corporations responsible for wiping out independent family farms across the country.

The Biden administration let Big Ag off the hook. Is Trump really about to follow suit?

Hiring legally and thriving

You don’t need to hire illegal workers to run a successful farm or ranch. In fact, some of the best in the business don’t.

Look at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia. Or Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. Or Meriwether Farms out in Wyoming. These aren’t fantasy models. They’re real, thriving operations built on legal labor, strong local roots, and, when needed, carefully managed visa programs.

They don’t rely on mass illegal labor. They don’t need to.

What they do is create real jobs. They pay honest wages. They bring life back to rural towns.

Will Harris is the biggest employer in Bluffton — not because he cuts corners on labor, but because he heals the land, strengthens his community, and delivers food independence.

This is what Trump’s golden age of American farming should look like: self-reliance, real prosperity, and pride in a job well done.

A free pass for Big Ag

With this new policy, DHS basically gave corporate amnesty to the likes of Tyson, Smithfield, JBS, Cargill — you name it. These are companies that depend on cheap, illegal labor to keep their bloated, centralized model afloat.

We’ve been down this road before. Remember Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty? Legalization now, enforcement later — except “later” never came.

And now, we’re repeating the same mistake.

This policy protects a broken system built on:

  • Top-down corporate control
  • Massive consolidation
  • Debt traps and labor abuse
  • De facto open borders
  • Slave-wage labor
  • Legal loopholes for billion-dollar companies

What we’re left with is what journalist Christopher Leonard called “chickenization” — a corporate takeover of the food system that treats farmers like serfs and workers like machines.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s loyalty to these monopolies has already hollowed out towns, forced families off their land, and turned our food supply into a global pipeline where cartel-linked produce replaces homegrown independence.

This doesn’t serve America. It serves the bottom lines of a few mega-firms that like open borders and look the other way on enforcement.

And whether it admits it or not, this is how the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals get implemented — quietly, through broken farms, outsourced jobs, and illegal hires.

RELATED: Trump orders ICE to ramp up deportations in Dem-controlled cities following MAGA backlash over selective pause on raids


Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

This isn’t just about agriculture. It’s about national security.

A nation that can’t feed itself without breaking its own laws isn’t sovereign. And one that lets multinationals run roughshod over the heartland while outsourcing production to places run by cartels is heading for trouble.

We can do better

If DHS and USDA want to fix agriculture, they need to stop hiding behind the word “farmer” when they’re really talking about corporate middlemen.

Trump has a chance to change course — one that truly puts Americans first. That means backing the producers who follow the law, hiring citizens or legal workers, and building food systems that support independence, not dependence.

Independent farmers and ranchers are ready to help. They’ve already shown what works: strong property rights, legal labor, fair water access, and a commitment to community.

This isn’t some policy wish list. It’s already happening.

And it’s winning.

Let’s not give our food, our land, or our future back to the monopolies that wrecked the past.

Trump’s Amnesty For Illegal Workers Punishes Employers Who Follow The Law

If the cost of maintaining a sovereign nation is paying, in the short term, slightly more for food grown and harvested by American hands, then it's a price worth paying.

Rubio, Vance outline the 'work of a generation,' next steps for the American renewal: 'This is a 20-year project'



Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed ways forward for the country under the Trump administration and beyond at the American Compass New World Gala on June 3.

Although the two Republicans, who appear to be contenders in the 2028 presidential election, hit different beats, they were largely singing the same tune about prioritizing Americans, strengthening the country, and abandoning the failed globalist thinking that has undermined security, prosperity, and dignity in the United Sates.

Their outlooks on the future provided some indication of the staying power of President Donald Trump's vision as well as how it might evolve in the years to come.

Returning to reality

Rubio kicked off his speech by countering the progressive notion that human nature changes over time, stressing that "technologies change, the clothes we wear change, even languages change, governments change — a lot of things change, but the one thing that is unchanged is human nature."

Rubio suggested that this static nature accounts for why history often repeats itself and helps explain humans' unshakable "desire to belong," which naturally scales up to nationalism, despite nationhood being a relatively "new concept" in the grand scheme of things.

"If you put humans anywhere — a handful of people anywhere — one of the first things they start doing is trying to create things that they can join or be a part of," said Rubio. "The advent of the nation-state is a normal evolution of human behavior because people think it's important to belong to something, and being part of a nation is important. And I think that's really true, obviously, increasingly in how geopolitical decisions are made."

'We've undermined our position in the world.'

Despite man's immutable desire to belong and the naturalness of this desire's expression in nationalism, Rubio suggested that many in the West nevertheless entertained the fantasy that the dissolution of the Soviet Union meant the inevitable and imminent universalization of liberal democracy — that "the entire world is going to become just like us"; that "nationhood no longer mattered when it came to economics"; "that right now the world would no longer have borders"; and that it didn't matter where things were made.

Rubio noted that this idealistic outlook "became part of Republican orthodoxy for a long time," which accounts for why the GOP long proved indifferent to the outsourcing of labor and the offshoring of productive capacity.

RELATED: Liberals freaked out over Vance's Munich speech. Just wait till they read the State Department's Substack.

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The decades-long flirtation with liberal globalism "robbed a nation of its industrial capacity, of its ability to make things," thereby hurting the economy, hurting the country, robbing people of jobs, and eating away at the social fabric of the nation, suggested Rubio.

"What you find is because of all of those years of neglect, because of the loss of industrial capacity, we didn't just undermine our society, we didn't just undermine our domestic economy — we've undermined our position in the world," said the secretary of state, whose department recently signaled an interest in taking up the mantle of Western civilization.

'You can never be secure as a nation unless you're able to feed your people.'

Now that America and the rest of the world are facing a "crunch," the days of illusion are over, and geopolitics are adjusting accordingly.

Rubio indicated that the Trump administration is undertaking a reorientation of domestic and foreign approaches "to take into account for the fact that you can never be secure as a nation unless you're able to feed your people and unless you're able to make the things that your economy needs in order to function and ultimately to defend yourself."

Accordingly, Rubio suggested that the country moving forward needs to:

  • make decisions with the nation-state in mind and engage the world "in a way that prioritizes our national interest above all else";
  • guarantee America's access to the requisite "raw material and industrial capacity that is at the core both of the decisions that we're making and the areas that we're prioritizing"; and
  • rectify trade imbalances with fully developed countries.

While this direction is possibly good news for the American people, it bodes poorly for stubborn champions of the globalist dream.

RELATED: 'Woke right' smear weaponized by liberal interlopers against MAGA conservatives, populists — and Arby's?

Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie, for instance, recently complained about the MAGA vision for the future.

The MAGA movement is waging war on the nation's economic future, rejecting two generations of integration and interdependency with the rest of the world in favor of American autarky, of effectively closing our borders to goods and people from around the world so that the United States might make itself into an impenetrable fortress — a garrison state with the power to dictate the terms of the global order, especially in its own hemisphere. In this new world, Americans will abandon service-sector work in favor of manufacturing and heavy industry.

After presenting the possibility of a powerful, indomitable, and reindustrialized America as a terrifying prospect, Bouie stumbled upon the truth of the project under way, stating, "The aim, whether stated explicitly or not, is to erase the future as Americans have understood it and as they might have anticipated it."

Kicking bad habits

Oren Cass, founder of American Compass, pressed Vance about the project of "reshoring and reindustrialization" that the Trump administration is pursuing.

Vance noted that at its core, the project is about addressing "stagnating living standards" affecting normal Americans "who just want to start a family, work in a decent job, earn a livable salary, and have dignified work."

'The complete disconnect between their views on foreign policy and economic policy made me realize, again, that we're governed by people who aren't up to the job.'

The vice president suggested that the offshoring of industry, an under-investment in technology, heavy industrial regulation, and high energy costs are among the factors that have made it difficult for "normal people who work hard and play by the rules to have a good life."

He also identified a "misalignment between the ... normal Americans and the talking heads in Washington" and an unworkable separation of the making of things from the innovating of things — a issue he raised in his March speech at the American Dynamism Summit — as problems warranting remedy.

RELATED: Vance: Trump’s growth plan ditches cheap labor for real jobs that will fuel American greatness

Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Blaze News previously noted that in his American Dynamism speech, Vance suggested that the Trump administration plans to help innovators wean off cheap foreign labor and begin on-shoring industry, partly by incentivizing manufacturing and investment inside the United States with tax cuts and other policy instruments; by erecting tariff walls around critical industries; by reducing regulations and the cost of energy; and also by enforcing immigration law and securing the border to drain the pool of cheap illegal alien labor.

In his conversation with Cass on Tuesday, Vance reiterated that America needs to effectively get innovators and labor back on the same page and in the same country and to ensure that educational institutions are equipped to supply them with talent.

Vance also criticized "pro-globalization" elements of the leadership class who are indifferent to "whether a given part of the supply chain existed here, or China, or Russia or somewhere else" yet frequently champion foreign entanglements fought with outsourced munitions and technologies.

"The complete disconnect between their views on foreign policy and economic policy made me realize, again, that we're governed by people who aren't up to the job," Vance told Cass, "until four months ago when the American people actually gave the country a government it deserved. And obviously we're in the very early days, but I think that we've done more in four months to solve these problems. But this is not a five- or a 10-year project. This is a 20-year project to actually get America back to common-sense economic policy."

When asked by NBC News' Kristen Welker last month whether he figured the MAGA movement could survive without him as its leader, President Donald Trump said, "Yes, I do. ... I think it's so strong. And I think we have tremendous people. I think we have a tremendous group of people. We talked about a number of them. You look at Marco, you look at JD Vance, who's fantastic."

Trump added that Vance is "a fantastic, brilliant guy" and "Marco is great."

A straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February reportedly found that 61% of the over 1,000 attendees said they would support Vance as the future GOP standard-bearer.

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Majority of US employers polled say immigration enforcement will impact their workplaces, cause staffing shortages



The employment law firm Littler recently surveyed 349 executives, in-house lawyers, and senior human resource professionals across various industries about their chief concerns in view of the federal government's shifting priorities. The Trump administration's clampdown on illegal immigration was apparently top of mind — a potential wink at big business' reliance on illegally imported labor.

When asked how great an impact the expected "enforcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Homeland Security, and compliance with their respective requirements" will have on their workplace over the next 12 months, 26% of respondents said they anticipate a "significant impact," and 44% said they anticipate a "moderate impact." The remainder suggested there would be no impact at all.

When asked to what extent their organizations were concerned about "workforce staffing challenges as a result of the Trump administration's immigration policies," 32% of respondents answered "slightly concerned," 20% answered "moderately concerned," and 6% said "very concerned."

"Large employers are more concerned than their counterparts about ICE/DHS enforcement (84% expect a significant or moderate impact on their workplaces) and workforce staffing challenges (69% expressed concern, versus 58% overall)," said the report.

Employers in manufacturing and retail/hospitality were apparently the most concerned about the other shoe dropping when it comes to the administration's enforcement of federal immigration law.

'There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force.'

Eighty-three percent of employers in manufacturing, compared with 75% of all employers, listed immigration at the top of the policy changes that would impact their businesses over the next year.

Where retail/hospitality employers were concerned, 89% indicated ICE and DHS enforcement will have a significant or moderate impact on their workplaces.

The Pew Research Center indicated that as of 2022, there were roughly 8.3 million illegal aliens in the workforce. The largest share of illegal aliens in the workforce reportedly serve in construction.

"Though employers have reasonable cause for worry — it is anticipated, after all, that Trump 2.0 will increase ICE/HSI I-9 audits to up to 15,000 a year and ICE raids to more than 100 a year — workplace enforcement actions as of the writing of this report have not yet resulted in any formal ICE raids of employer worksites," said the report.

The report strongly insinuated that these concerns pertain to the impact of the administration's targeting of illegal aliens, as it notes "employers may be underestimating the impact of Trump 2.0 on legal immigration, which declined by about 40% during the president's first term and could have costly consequences for employers that are unable to bring in the necessary talent."

Jorge Lopez, chair of the firm's immigration and global mobility practice group, told Axios, "I was just flabbergasted by how high the concern was among our clients."

White House spokesman Kush Desai framed the potential staffing shortages as an opportunity to draw from neglected depths of the American talent pool.

"Over 1 in 10 young adults in America are neither employed, in higher education, nor pursuing some sort of vocational training," Desai told Axios. "There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump's executive order to modernize workforce training programs represents this administration's commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential."

The survey also found that nearly 85% of respondents anticipate that changes to workplace regulations and policies regarding DEI will impact their businesses during President Donald Trump's first year back in office.

According to Littler, 60% of organizations with over 10,000 employees are concerned about DEI-related litigation.

Despite these concerns, only 55% of respondents are considering making some changes to their DEI policies and programs, and the remainder are not contemplating new or further rollbacks.

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How St. Joseph reveals the true meaning of work — and exposes the emptiness of socialist ideology



Many of us in the West are familiar with May Day, and most of us would say we are opposed to it.

When asked why, we might say that it promotes communism, or that the evil regime of the Soviet Union enforced its celebration. These arguments may be perfectly reasonable, but I do not believe they are sufficient.

'There could not be a better protector to help you to let the spirit of the gospel penetrate your life.'

To understand fully why Christians ought not to celebrate May Day, we should look at what the holiday is really about: the socialist understanding of work and the worker.

Challenging May Day

In response to the growth of socialist power and influence throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Catholic Church repeatedly pushed back against the ideology, especially under the leadership of Leo XIII (1878-1903), Pius XI (1922-1939), and Pius XII (1939-1958).

In 1955, as a direct challenge to May Day, Pius XII established May 1 as the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. It's through the figure of Joseph that the Church exposes the emptiness of the socialist idea of work.

“Cursed is the earth in thy work;” God tells Adam in Genesis 3. “With labor and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.”

Man will always need to "labor and toil." Any hope for a work-free, earthly utopia rests on the fundamental ignorance of this basic fact. To be human is to work; it is an essential and permanent aspect of any human society.

Meaningful work

The question then becomes: What is the purpose of our work? What makes it meaningful?

According to the socialists — best exemplified by the massive labor force of the Soviet Union — the purpose of work was simply the betterment of the state. The “rights of the worker" exist only to allow each individual to contribute to the good of the collective.

For Pius XI, this negation of man's true purpose was the fundamental problem of socialism. In his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, he admits that while communism produces the the evils of unrelenting class warfare and the total abolition of private ownership, less extreme versions of socialism cannot be as broadly condemned.

'Utterly foreign to Christian truth'

This is because some of the concerns expressed by socialists are not unfounded. The central example Pius XI points to is Western capitalism's tendency to allow the market to seize “sovereignty over society."

In contending that such sovereignty belongs “not to owners, but to the public authority,” the pope emphasizes that socialism's opposition to Western capitalism is not in itself enough to dismiss it. Instead, he cuts to the real issue — that socialism's very "concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.”

Man is placed on earth so that he might order his life “unto the praise and glory of his creator.” Man derives happiness in this life and the next from seeking to do what is pleasing to God.

Socialism, writes Pius XI, is “wholly ignoring and indifferent to this sublime end of man.” In the socialist view, human society exists “for the sake of material advantage alone.” We can clearly see how an ideology devoid of supernatural meaning cannot possibly possess a correct understanding of work and its purpose.

When Pius XII established the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, he showed why socialism and the socialist celebration of May Day are incompatible with the Christian understanding of work.

In speaking to workers' associations, he reminded them, “Your first concern is to preserve and increase the Christian life of the worker.” This prioritization of the divine is in direct conflict with the materialist worldview of socialism.

Capitalism's excesses

Like his predecessor, Pius XII did not dismiss the concerns of socialists without due consideration. He warned against the excesses of unchecked capitalism (which could also become an oppressive system if not properly subordinated to Christian charity) and declared that the worker must be “supported and sustained in his legitimate demands and expectations.”

In highlighting these concerns and how Christianity might best address them, Pius XII reveals the utter incapacity of socialism to respect the inherent dignity of man as well as the true dignity and purpose of the worker.

Instead of seeking solace in the empty promises of socialism, Pius XII urges Christians to order their lives and work toward God. To that end, he recommends St. Joseph as a model and patron, pointing out that “there could not be a better protector to help you to let the spirit of the gospel penetrate your life.”

A tangible example

In placing workers under the patronage of St. Joseph, the pope gives them a tangible example on which to model their labor and their lives and a visible counter to the socialist idea of work as a merely material endeavor.

Today, we may no longer be threatened by the looming behemoth of the Soviet Union, but we still contend with the rise of communist China and the rampant secularization of our own workplaces. We can still look to St. Joseph as an example of “the dignity of the worker.”

It is as important now as ever to recall that our work is, above all else, in service to God. It is from this service that we draw pleasure and meaning in our work. Do not fall for the empty platitudes and vain anthems of the socialists and their May Day. We know that true solidarity and true meaning in our work and in our lives are found in joyful service to Christ our Lord.