The American worker lives by the motto “an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.” While the attitude behind that adage is celebrated this Labor Day, it is important to remember that Americans work for more than just money — we take pride and purpose in what we make and accomplish.

American workers are not some cog in a machine. They are craftsmen, perfectionists, innovators and, most of all, worthwhile investments. Ipsos polling in 2023 showed that a majority of Americans believe it is “extremely important” that their work “helps people and society.”

Unfortunately, some employers seem to have forgotten the value of American workers, preferring to outsource jobs overseas or replace American workers with foreign labor. This is a huge mistake that has disadvantaged American workers and has harmed many great companies.

Take Boeing, for example. This year has been a rough one for America’s top manufacturer of commercial airliners. In January, Americans booking flights began checking more than just prices and flight times. For the first time ever, many were anxiously researching the type of aircraft they would be boarding, fearing the reports of mechanical malfunctions across Boeing’s fleet. Whether it was loose doors, cracked windows, a missing wheel, or an engine fire, many travelers tried to steer clear of these planes.

Part of the reason for the sudden rise in incidents seemed to be a simple lack of quality control, due in part to the outsourcing of these and other critical functions. In fact, federal investigators uncovered a severe lack of workmanship, as foreign-assembled planes were flown into the United States only to be rushed through the domestic quality assurance process and expedited into service.

This disregard for Boeing’s American workforce and travels traces back decades, as revealed by a 2019 congressional investigation of two other Boeing crashes that resulted in 346 total deaths. A Bloomberg headline from that year infamously blamed the crashes on faulty software that had been “outsourced to $9-an-hour engineers.”

These are the consequences of treating American workers like they are “too expensive.” When reducing labor costs becomes more important than protecting quality, everyone pays the price. The lesson: Hire quality American workers, pay them what they are worth, and get the job done right. Swapping pennies for American quality is a senseless strategy.

When I was administrator of the Small Business Administration, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders with a “hire American” directive. The first, signed just three months after his inauguration, aimed to generate higher wages and employment rates for U.S. workers by rigorously enforcing and administering immigration and work visa laws. The second executive order directed federal agencies to review and limit the use of foreign labor in federal contracts, ensuring that opportunities for American workers were protected and prioritized.

The Trump administration understood that investing in American workers pays off. This is especially true for minority workers and underserved communities, as former President Trump recently highlighted, pointing out that the Biden-Harris administration’s mass immigration scheme has stolen job opportunities from black Americans. This fact is backed up by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which shows that all increases unemployment, reduces wages and increases incarceration rates among black Americans.

This Labor Day, we should all remember that American workers are not expendable. Our policies should prioritize the creation of family-sustaining jobs for Americans — not by micromanaging the workplace, but by making economic choices that result in a maximum wage for as many workers as possible. We should unleash the value of the American worker on our economy by eliminating overburdensome and unnecessary regulations that make manufacturing in the United States prohibitively expensive, enacting trade policies that give “made in America” products a competitive edge, and enforcing employment laws that limit outsourcing and noncitizen hiring.

Companies that take the “cheap” route of hiring foreign labor weaken the industries that underpin our economy, worsen the products in our stores, and reduce the quality of life for our families and communities. This Labor Day, let’s remember that today is not just a day off at the end of summer. This is about shared prosperity. This is about public safety. This is about putting America first.

Linda McMahon is the Chair of the America First Policy Institute and its Center for the American Worker. She is also the former Administrator of the Small Business Administration and the Chairman of the Daily Caller News Foundation’s Advisory Council.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Featured Image: Elvert Barnes/Flickr