Indian voter: priority is American jobs
TEXT OF STORY
STACEY VANEK-SMITH: The elections are just around the corner. In our series, “Interested Parties,” we talk to different voters about their economic concerns. Nandini Pandya came to the United States in 1983 to work as a computer programmer. She’s been a citizen for more than 10 years and lives in Milford, Connecticut.
NANDINI PANDYA: I grew up in India. I lived there until my early 20s. I didn’t have to go far to see people living with less, doing with less. So my politics is driven by making sure everybody has a chance at a living wage and a decent life. That, to me, is the priority.
Vis a vis the economy, I would like the next administration to at least accept that Americans have a right to expect to be employed in their own country. Until and unless we have consensus on that, we don’t have a hope of coming up with policies that can make that happen.
I think government has a big role to play. To give you an example, if we did not have a minimum wage law, I have no doubt in my mind that employers would try to get people to work for less than the minimum wage.
I’m not necessarily saying that people in other places are ignorant or anything, but clearly we have a system where a lot of thought has gone into rectifying some of these things that we don’t really think about.
So, yes, government does have a role to play.
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