income inequality debate

[BobStackFan4Life]

Somehow I suspect you'd not be cool with it if the market was suddenly flooded with millions of immigrants who could do your job. But hey, Americans would benefit by having to pay less for your services. It's easy to make that argument when you're not the one being hurt. The people who are primarily hurt are those living day to day, for whom something as small as an extra hundred dollars a month would make a huge difference in their quality of life.

 

[RJKarl]

Oooh you got me! I admit it!

Obviously that's so, and I said so above. Why did you feel the need to play a completely gratuitous gotcha card?

Aside from that - sure, poor unskilled people are often disproportionately impacted by immigration. They are also disproportionately impacted by technology - the number of hands required to run a farm now is a small fraction of what it was 50 years ago, due to technology. But those populations also benefit from immigration and technology, by paying less for food and clothing than they would otherwise pay. It's not a one-dimensional issue. Again with the agricultural example - there are maybe 2,000,000 immigrant farmworkers in the US, legal and illegal. If we immediately kicked them all out and farmers had to pay Americans what it would take to get them to work in the fields, theoretically 2,000,000 Americans would get part-time and full-time jobs, but all 330,000,000 Americans would pay more for their food - a cost which impacts poor Americans much more than it impacts wealthy Americans, because they pay a much higher percentage of their income for food. Again, it's easy to say that one solution or another is a silver bullet, but you have to understand the impact those bullets have throughout the economy.

You mean like when farmers in AL, GA and other places lost millions due to immigration laws?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...w-costs-millions-in-unharvested-crops/240774/

Where were the Americans willing to take thee jobs?

This also created higher prices for consumers.

 

[Deacon923]

Somehow I suspect you'd not be cool with it if the market was suddenly flooded with millions of immigrants who could do your job. But hey, Americans would benefit by having to pay less for your services. It's easy to make that argument when you're not the one being hurt. The people who are primarily hurt are those living day to day, for whom something as small as an extra hundred dollars a month would make a huge difference in their quality of life.

it's obvious how the balance comes down for you, and that's fine. Just appreciate that it is a balance, and not everyone is required to see the trade-offs the same way you see them.

It's clear that America (and the West generally) have done a shitty job managing the negative impacts of migration, technology, and globalization. My preference is that any action we take to mitigate those impacts come out of the pocket of those who are reaping the biggest profits, not focused on the poor and middle class. Economists pretty much unanimously agree that shutting down immigration and putting up trade barriers would be very harmful to the American economy. Instead of harming the economy for everyone, I'd rather tax the rich (who overwhelmingly reap the benefits of migration, technology, and globalization) to expand access and quality of education, provide a better safety net, quality housing, better infrastructure, and so forth.

The hypothetical about "how would you feel if immigrants took your job" is a canard. I'd feel bad, but I only have one vote. Buggy whip manufacturers got the shit end of the stick too, but setting national policy to preserve and protect every single American individually is not only impossible, but foolish to even attempt. You can just look at some of the European economies and how stagnant their employment markets are because they put up these huge barriers to make it impossible to fire anyone - the result is, nobody gets hired, demand stagnates, and unemployment rises while GDP slumps.

 

[P4nthers11]

Did you read the article or just a few sentences? The title is "Are There Really Jobs Americans Won’t Do?", which is a common argument made by the pro-immigrant crowd. The data clearly shows that no, there are not jobs Americans won't do, and in fact almost all jobs have a workforce where the majority of employees are native born. Therefore, it is false to say there are jobs that Americans won't do. How does this not make sense to you?

Nobody actually thinks there are jobs that literally not a single American will do. The "Americans won't do those jobs" expression to me really just encapsulates the broader point that in particular industries the absence of immigrant labor would result in severe labor shortages. I think the data used in the article supports that. Of course not every maid and house keeper is going to be foreign born. According to the US bureau of labor and statistics there are 926,240 maids and housekeepers in the US. For roughly half of them to be foreign born is a gigantic number and is hugely disproportionate considering they make up 12% of the population.

 

[PhDeac]

Why don't people pitch as big a fit about outsourcing jobs? At least illegal immigrants and their employers are spending money in the US and paying taxes in the US.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

Why don't people pitch as big a fit about outsourcing jobs? At least illegal immigrants and their employers are spending money in the US and paying taxes in the US.

MAKES YOU WONDER

 

[dot com]

Outsourcing is just smart business, and it keeps those brown people in their dirty countries. -Trump

 

[ChrisL68]

Why don't people pitch as big a fit about outsourcing jobs? At least illegal immigrants and their employers are spending money in the US and paying taxes in the US.

Huh? The populist left is constantly complaining about outsourcing but including any impact of illegal immigration on domestic jobs is off limits as racist.

 

[PhDeac]

Huh? The populist left is constantly complaining about outsourcing but including any impact of illegal immigration on domestic jobs is off limits as racist.

The operative words are "as big of a fit." The populist left is nowhere close to as passionate about outsourcing as the right is about immigration.

 

[Deacon923]

The operative words are "as big of a fit." The populist left is nowhere close to as passionate about outsourcing as the right is about immigration.

That's very subjective and I doubt subject to objective proof. There have been actual riots by far-left types about globalization issues, i.e. the 1999 Seattle anti-WTO riots.

 

[JuiceCrewAllStar]

Huh? The populist left is constantly complaining about outsourcing but including any impact of illegal immigration on domestic jobs is off limits as racist.

The far left would say the force that leads to mass immigration and outsourcing is the same: global capitalism. The cries of racism are when people treat immigrants as less-than.

 

[BobStackFan4Life]

Harvard economist George Borjas has a paper coming out about the impact of the Mariel boatlift on similarly skilled native born workers.

His research seems to overturn the notion that native born workers were not negatively impacted.
https://gborjas.org/2016/07/13/final-version-of-mariel-study/

 

[BobStackFan4Life]

The "Americans won't do those jobs" expression to me really just encapsulates the broader point that in particular industries the absence of immigrant labor would result in severe labor shortages. I think the data used in the article supports that. Of course not every maid and house keeper is going to be foreign born. According to the US bureau of labor and statistics there are 926,240 maids and housekeepers in the US. For roughly half of them to be foreign born is a gigantic number and is hugely disproportionate considering they make up 12% of the population.

Obviously some employers will have to start offering more in order to attract native born workers- that's the way the economy should work imo. You shouldn't be allowed to flood the market with millions of people who will harm the bargaining power and earnings of native born workers. The article makes clear that unemployment in high-immigrant occupations tends to be much higher for native born workers:

Natives tend to have high unemployment in high-immigrant occupations, averaging 14 percent during the 2009-2011 period, compared to 8 percent in the rest of the labor market. There were a total of 2.6 million unemployed native-born Americans in high-immigrant occupations.

 

[BobStackFan4Life]

it's obvious how the balance comes down for you, and that's fine. Just appreciate that it is a balance, and not everyone is required to see the trade-offs the same way you see them.

It's clear that America (and the West generally) have done a shitty job managing the negative impacts of migration, technology, and globalization. My preference is that any action we take to mitigate those impacts come out of the pocket of those who are reaping the biggest profits, not focused on the poor and middle class. Economists pretty much unanimously agree that shutting down immigration and putting up trade barriers would be very harmful to the American economy. Instead of harming the economy for everyone, I'd rather tax the rich (who overwhelmingly reap the benefits of migration, technology, and globalization) to expand access and quality of education, provide a better safety net, quality housing, better infrastructure, and so forth.

The hypothetical about "how would you feel if immigrants took your job" is a canard. I'd feel bad, but I only have one vote. Buggy whip manufacturers got the shit end of the stick too, but setting national policy to preserve and protect every single American individually is not only impossible, but foolish to even attempt. You can just look at some of the European economies and how stagnant their employment markets are because they put up these huge barriers to make it impossible to fire anyone - the result is, nobody gets hired, demand stagnates, and unemployment rises while GDP slumps.

First, it's not a canard, it's reality. If your earnings suddenly dropped dramatically and your standard of living was put at risk because the government allowed a significant number of people into the country with your skill set you'd be angry. But because it's someone else who is negatively impacted, primarily the working poor, you're able to remain relatively unconcerned. Out of sight, out of mind. We've gone over this time and again- to me the research makes clear that from an economic standpoint there are really only two groups that significantly benefit from our immigration policies- employers and the immigrants. And native born workers who are forced to compete against the immigrants are harmed. Keep in mind, the following chart does not factor in welfare benefits, which I've posted before are significant.

Of the $1.6 trillion increase in GDP, 97.8 percent goes to the immigrants themselves in the form of wages and benefits; the remainder constitutes the “immigration surplus” — the benefit accruing to the native-born population, including both workers, owners of firms, and other users of the services provided by immigrants.

The standard textbook model of a competitive labor market yields an estimate of the immigration surplus equal to $35 billion a year — or about 0.2 percent of the total GDP in the United States — from both legal and illegal immigration.

The immigration surplus of $35 billion comes from reducing the wages of natives in competition with immigrants by an estimated $402 billion a year, while increasing profits or the incomes of users of immigrants by an estimated $437 billion.

Although the net benefits to natives from illegal immigrants are small, there is a sizable redistribution effect. Illegal immigration reduces the wage of native workers by an estimated $99 to $118 billion a year, and generates a gain for businesses and other users of immigrants of $107 to $128 billion.

http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature
But I'm not just opposed to our current levels of immigration because of the negative impact on native born workers, generally those who least afford to be hurt. I'm also concerned with the environmental impact and quality of life issues that come with the population growth fueled by our levels of immigration, which is an aspect that rarely gets considered.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

Borjas's original working paper on the topic was based on a n=24 sample

 

[Deacon923]

I am no economist. I do know that Borjas is the flagbearer for anti-immigrationists and tends to find negative effects of immigration wherever he looks. When I look at the linked study in particular - although I have read only the executive summary and not the whole thing - it seems to me to have a glaring omission. It seems to look only at immigrant wages and the gains to the employers of those immigrants (and alleged losses by native workers). I don't see any discussion of the gains to the firms who are selling those immigrants food and cars, renting them apartments, or providing them with services. If in fact immigration depresses wages, I don't see any discussion of the impact of lower-priced labor on the price of goods and services produced thereby. Those are gains from immigration that the paper seems to pretty much ignore.

Borjas has been arguing for 30 years that immigration hurts high school dropouts (that's pretty much the only group he can show is harmed). Other economists don't agree with him, or find smaller effects than he finds. My point is that even if we assume Borjas is right and high school drop outs are harmed by immigration, policy makers have to determine (a) whether mitigating that harm is important, and (b) what to do to mitigate the harm in a way that will cause the least damage to the rest of the economy.

 

[BobStackFan4Life]

Lower prices, the savings to consumers, are included in the $35 billion net gain to natives.

 

[Deacon923]

Lower prices, the savings to consumers, are included in the $35 billion net gain to natives.

That's not what it says.

The immigration surplus of $35 billion comes from reducing the wages of natives in competition with immigrants by an estimated $402 billion a year, while increasing profits or the incomes of users of immigrants by an estimated $437 billion.

Even if that number (a pretty damn big number, I might add) is meant to capture consumer savings, it still does not appear to capture gains from consumption by the immigrants. The paper seems to assume that all those wages paid to immigrants just vanish into a black hole, like the immigrants have a 100% savings rate or are sending all the money back to Mexico.

Again, even if we assume that the entire "immigrant surplus" is "only" $35 billion, policy makers should think long and hard before they do something that flushes $35 billion out of the economy, yes? That's equivalent to flushing the total 2015 profits of JP Morgan and Cisco Systems down the drain.

 

[BobStackFan4Life]

That's not what it says.



Even if that number (a pretty damn big number, I might add) is meant to capture consumer savings, it still does not appear to capture gains from consumption by the immigrants. The paper seems to assume that all those wages paid to immigrants just vanish into a black hole, like the immigrants have a 100% savings rate or are sending all the money back to Mexico.

Again, even if we assume that the entire "immigrant surplus" is "only" $35 billion, policy makers should think long and hard before they do something that flushes $35 billion out of the economy, yes? That's equivalent to flushing the total 2015 profits of JP Morgan and Cisco Systems down the drain.

That $35 billion (about two-tenths of one percent of the GDP) comes at a heavy cost. The redistribution of income is huge compared to the net benefit and most of that $35 billion is going to the employers:

The immigration surplus of $35 billion comes from reducing the wages of natives in competition with immigrants by an estimated $402 billion a year, while increasing profits or the incomes of users of immigrants by an estimated $437 billion.

Working poor Americans are the ones who have been bearing the brunt of it for decades. And as I said, it's not just the economic devastation, I consider there to be other negative aspects, such as environmental and quality of life issues, which economists are often unconcerned with.

 

[Deacon923]

I appreciate the conversation. I certainly do not think that our current immigration policy is ideal or that we should throw open the doors to all comers, and I certainly think more needs to be done to ameliorate the impact of immigration on lower-income Americans. I don't think that building a yuge beautiful wall and deporting 12,000,000 people is the answer, though. We need a sensible immigration policy that prioritizes higher skill workers and we need to enforce immigration laws against employers that hire illegals, for starters. I don't think the data is as clear as you and Borjas want it to be; he is extrapolating an awful lot from a very small sample size, and has never been able to prove deleterious effects on any group other than high school dropouts. You can call me elitist if you want to, but I don't think the world's leading economic power should be making immigration policy based solely on what is best for its high school dropout population.

As for environmental and quality of life issues - what I have noticed is a lot of middle class people have a higher quality of life because they can afford to buy more fresh produce and have someone else do their yard. American quality of life overall has in no way declined due to immigration.