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Prominent Libertarian Charles Murray Changes His Mind on Low-Skill Immigration

Man this is such a huge problem with so many different ramifications and competing stakeholders. If only we had some large, relatively diverse, representative, and deliberative body that was empowered to enact laws to address them. That body could get together, thoughtfully address all the issues, and come up with a compromise that is better than the current system.

I guess I'm just a dreamer though. We could never have nice things like that.
 
Deacon923 said:
Man this is such a huge problem with so many different ramifications and competing stakeholders. If only we had some large, relatively diverse, representative, and deliberative body that was empowered to enact laws to address them. That body could get together, thoughtfully address all the issues, and come up with a compromise that is better than the current system.

I guess I'm just a dreamer though. We could never have nice things like that.
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Like most things in this country, the system is designed to benefit the elites and hurt everyone else. And it does a good job at it.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
Like most things in this country, the system is designed to benefit the elites and hurt everyone else. And it does a good job at it.
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the problem is likely that the elites do not have enough power; the fact that we allow the un- and under-educated participate in the process is just ridiculous
 
ImTheCaptain said:
the problem is likely that the elites do not have enough power; the fact that we allow the un- and under-educated participate in the process is just ridiculous
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mjst6h6ktrpx.jpg
 
TownieDeac said:
lol literally represents .0014% of the workforce

85,000 out of 60,000,000 workers
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C'mon, man. That's a pretty dumb analysis, frankly. We are dealing with degreed professionals, something this board should be more concerned with, rather than just a snapshot of 60 million workers. How many millions is that of the 60 million? And most are IT guys if you want to get more specific. You have also not taken into account that the H1B program is not a convenient one year thing. It's a visa that is, by regulation, good for up to 6 years. After that, you can extend indefinitely if you have your green card pending until the green card is worked, at which point you are no longer an H1B visa holder but a green card holder and can stay here forever.

So for the sake of your argument, let's take your 85k (which is the cap number and not accurate as a reflection of actual visas issued) and multiply it times 6 for 510k. Now let's consider that this program has been ongoing now for nearly 20 years and that many stick around to become green card holders and/or eventual citizens. For the sake of argument, let's peg that number at half, which may be low or high, I don't know. That would mean that every 2 years you have an extra year of H1B visa holders becoming a permanent part of the labor force. So in the last 16 years, you would effectively have 8 years of H1B visas permanently entrenched in the labor force, plus the 6 years of visa holders always in the US. So by my count that is 510k plus another 8 years worth, which is 680k. So well over a million basically, even if we account for things like death and retirement. And yes, I realize that some folks go back to India or wherever, but I also realize that your 85k number is low. Point being you are way lowballing the effect of H1Bs on wage stagnation in the professional workforce. Congressmen and businessmen tend to look at the numbers like you do, however, and fail to realize that, oh yeah, these folks are staying around for the long term. More power to them for doing the legal thing, but the H1B visas should be adjusted to account for that, and certainly should've been adjusted anyway to account for economic doldrums.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
C'mon, man. That's a pretty dumb analysis, frankly. We are dealing with degreed professionals, something this board should be more concerned with, rather than just a snapshot of 60 million workers. How many millions is that of the 60 million? And most are IT guys if you want to get more specific. You have also not taken into account that the H1B program is not a convenient one year thing. It's a visa that is, by regulation, good for up to 6 years. After that, you can extend indefinitely if you have your green card pending until the green card is worked, at which point you are no longer an H1B visa holder but a green card holder and can stay here forever.

So for the sake of your argument, let's take your 85k (which is the cap number and not accurate as a reflection of actual visas issued) and multiply it times 6 for 510k. Now let's consider that this program has been ongoing now for nearly 20 years and that many stick around to become green card holders and/or eventual citizens. For the sake of argument, let's peg that number at half, which may be low or high, I don't know. That would mean that every 2 years you have an extra year of H1B visa holders becoming a permanent part of the labor force. So in the last 16 years, you would effectively have 8 years of H1B visas permanently entrenched in the labor force, plus the 6 years of visa holders always in the US. So by my count that is 510k plus another 8 years worth, which is 680k. So well over a million basically, even if we account for things like death and retirement. And yes, I realize that some folks go back to India or wherever, but I also realize that your 85k number is low. Point being you are way lowballing the effect of H1Bs on wage stagnation in the professional workforce. Congressmen and businessmen tend to look at the numbers like you do, however, and fail to realize that, oh yeah, these folks are staying around for the long term. More power to them for doing the legal thing, but the H1B visas should be adjusted to account for that, and certainly should've been adjusted anyway to account for economic doldrums.
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680k is still just over 0.01% of the workforce though.

It's also dumb thing to zero in on because H1B workers don't deflate wages nearly as much as low skill workers do. It costs employers roughly the same to employ foreign workers in high skill jobs now as domestic workers.

Most data also suggests that
H1B workers "do not drive down wages of native-born workers, with some studies showing a positive impact on wages overall.

From the creation of the H-1B program in 1990 to 2010, H-1B-driven increases in STEM workers were associated with a significant increase in wages for college-educated, U.S.-born workers in 219 U.S. cities. A one percentage point increase in foreign STEM workers’ share of a city’s total employment was associated with increases in wages of 7 to 8 percentage points paid to both STEM and non-STEM college-educated natives, while non-college educated workers saw an increase of 3 to 4 percentage points."
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Still, I appreciate your approach to this a lot more than bobstackfan's, which is to say attempts to address points with facts.
 
TownieDeac said:
680k is still just over 0.01% of the workforce though.

It's also dumb thing to zero in on because H1B workers don't deflate wages nearly as much as low skill workers do. It costs employers roughly the same to employ foreign workers in high skill jobs now as domestic workers.

Most data also suggests that

Still, I appreciate your approach to this a lot more than bobstackfan's, which is to say attempts to address points with facts.
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Can you refute any of the points I made? Or rather, any of the points that Borjas and the scholars who wrote the NAS report made? No? Then stfu you delusional dipshit.
 
Using townies number of 680K H-1B Visa for STEM workers, his .001% of total workers in meaningless.

According to this article - http://dpeaflcio.org/programs-publi.../the-stem-workforce-an-occupational-overview/ - there are 8,827,000 STEM workers in the US. Thus, the 680,000 H-1B STEM workers represent 7.7% of all STEM workers.

It's totally irrelevant to compare STEM workers to burger flippers. What is relevant is to compare them to the applicants for jobs they are doing. 7.7% is a significant impact.
 
RJKarl said:
Using townies number of 680K H-1B Visa for STEM workers, his .001% of total workers in meaningless.

According to this article - http://dpeaflcio.org/programs-publi.../the-stem-workforce-an-occupational-overview/ - there are 8,827,000 STEM workers in the US. Thus, the 680,000 H-1B STEM workers represent 7.7% of all STEM workers.

It's totally irrelevant to compare STEM workers to burger flippers. What is relevant is to compare them to the applicants for jobs they are doing. 7.7% is a significant impact.
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rj, I said talking about H1Bs was dumb precisely because it was such a small segment of the workforce. Hence my use of the .001 number. But even in an apples to apples comparison, the data I presented showed that H1B employees were a net positive in the workplace.
 
TownieDeac said:
rj, I said talking about H1Bs was dumb precisely because it was such a small segment of the workforce. Hence my use of the .001 number. But even in an apples to apples comparison, the data I presented showed that H1B employees were a net positive in the workplace.
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Tell that to this guy and his co-workers you anti-American piece of shit. Fuck you traitor.
 
Seems like you need to blame Disney.
 
yeah, disney and the guy who waited around assuming he was more valuable than he was
 
Point there being that in the macro sense, wages have stagnated while efficiency has skyrocketed, and it has little to nothing to do with the micro effects of H1B or any other forms of immigration. There are lots and lots and lots of other factors, but businesses (back at the micro level) have been forcing early retirements, cutting pension programs, hiring more unpaid or part time workers, etc., for a lot longer than the current immigration reform has been a boogeyman.
 
TownieDeac said:
rj, I said talking about H1Bs was dumb precisely because it was such a small segment of the workforce. Hence my use of the .001 number. But even in an apples to apples comparison, the data I presented showed that H1B employees were a net positive in the workplace.
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Apples to apples is how many high paying jobs do they take away from Americans and how the relate to the pay of people in their sector. Cities that have high numbers of STEM workers have higher paying jobs than other cities.

What's relevant is how H-1B Visas impact the pay scale of STEM workers not other workers.

From both sides of the aisle showing that H-1B visas get paid less and screw qualified American workers:

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...am-gives-american-workers-raw-deal-ian-tuttle

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers

http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/displaced-american-stem-workers-spur-senate-hearing

"The hearing’s emotional high point came in the testimony of Leo Perrero, an information technology (IT) worker with 20 years of experience, more than 10 of them at Disney. In a voice choked with emotion, he told of being invited to a meeting with a company executive in 2014. Because of his previous excellent evaluations, Perrero said, he went in expecting a bonus or promotion. Instead, he abruptly learned that his job would end in 90 days and that, to receive severance pay, he would have to spend his remaining time with the company training his replacement. “[M]y team, along with hundreds of others, were displaced by a less-skilled foreign work force imported into our country using the H-1B visa program,” Perrero said. “The former Disney employees, with far superior skills and knowledge, were the trainers, and the guest workers just entering the technology field were the trainees.” During the months of training, he said, he and his colleagues “all felt extremely humiliated.” Sessions asked Perrero whether he or any of his laid-off colleagues had found higher paying work, managerial or otherwise; Perrero responded that none had.

“What happened at Disney is not an accident; it was clear statutory design,” testified attorney and former computer programmer John Miano, co-author of a recent book about the H-1B visa. “In 1998, Congress made it explicitly legal to replace Americans with H-1B workers,” he said. Then, “in 2004, Congress changed the H-1B prevailing wage system to allow employers to pay these workers extremely low wages. Normally, the prevailing wage is the median wage, the 50th percentile,” but for the H-1B program, “the normal prevailing wage is the 17th percentile.” In normal-wage areas, this creates a wage differential with domestic workers of about $20,000 per worker, and in high-wage areas like Silicon Valley, it creates a differential of about $40,000, with “predictable result,” he said. The law, he added, is “needlessly complicated … and this complexity seriously hinders enforcement.”

When 10 senators sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor in 2015 wanting to know if Southern California Edison’s replacement of American workers with H-1B workers who were $40,000 a year cheaper was legal, the department responded that it could not investigate because it had received no complaints from workers, Hira said. The reason for that lack, he continued, was company gag orders that workers are forced to accept, which prevent them from speaking about their experience. These gag orders, Durbin said, are “hurting us dramatically” in gaining information about the situation. (Perrero stated he could testify because he had abandoned his career in the IT industry.) Nonetheless, “in the face of the intimidation from gag orders and the threat of being blackballed from the industry, some brave workers stepped forward to file complaints, and the Department began investigating,” Hira continued. Ultimately, the “labor department … affirmed [that] American workers can legally be replaced by … H-1B worker,” who “can legally be paid much less than American workers,” he said."
 
Seems like business owners hiring non-Americans are the real traitors.
 
Did not expect rj to go that way. Huh.
 
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