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

wakephan09 said:
No, but Townie has demonstrated what we might call intellectual curiosity. Even cursory Google searches are closer to research than retweeting internet ideologues and mindlessly spouting partisan talking points.
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`Do you have any idea who George Borjas is?
 
wakephan09 said:
Just another left-liberal academic shutting down free speech on our campuses and indoctrinating our youth. Sailor knows what I'm talking about.
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I get it. When the facts/reality conflict with your deeply held beliefs, it's easier to wander off into fantasy land.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
I disagree with you about population decline being a negative for Japan, I think Japan is in a much better position economically than most (if not all) western countries, and I think their immigration policies are far more sane than ours.
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BobStackFan4Life said:
I get it. When the facts/reality conflict with your deeply held beliefs, it's easier to wander off into fantasy land.
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Irony, thy name is BSF.
 
wakephan09 said:
Agreed, Bob. Glad to see some introspection from you.
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FACTS:
The National Academy of Sciences recently published a report titled The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration. Borjas mentions a few major takeaways from the report:
1. There has been a slowdon in assimilation- "the rate of relative wage growth and English language acquisition among the foreign-born is now slightly slower than it was for earlier immigrant waves.”

2. Immigration has a harmful effect on the earnings of low-skill workers

3. Immigrants and their dependent children create a fiscal burden

4. "the current stock of immigrants lowered wages by 5.2%" This is equal to $500 billion.
 
The report itself is behind a paywall. Here is a quote from the abstract, which can be found here:

Among the report’s key findings and conclusions:

When measured over a period of 10 years or more, the impact of immigration on the wages of native-born workers overall is very small. To the extent that negative impacts occur, they are most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born workers who have not completed high school—who are often the closest substitutes for immigrant workers with low skills.

There is little evidence that immigration significantly affects the overall employment levels of native-born workers. As with wage impacts, there is some evidence that recent immigrants reduce the employment rate of prior immigrants. In addition, recent research finds that immigration reduces the number of hours worked by native teens (but not their employment levels).

Some evidence on inflow of skilled immigrants suggests that there may be positive wage effects for some subgroups of native-born workers, and other benefits to the economy more broadly.

Immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S.

In terms of fiscal impacts, first-generation immigrants are more costly to governments, mainly at the state and local levels, than are the native-born, in large part due to the costs of educating their children. However, as adults, the children of immigrants (the second generation) are among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the U.S. population, contributing more in taxes than either their parents or the rest of the native-born population.

Over the long term, the impacts of immigrants on government budgets are generally positive at the federal level but remain negative at the state and local level — but these generalizations are subject to a number of important assumptions. Immigration’s fiscal effects vary tremendously across states.
“The panel's comprehensive examination revealed many important benefits of immigration — including on economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship — with little to no negative effects on the overall wages or employment of native-born workers in the long term,” said Francine D. Blau, Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and professor of economics at Cornell University, and chair of the panel that conducted the study and wrote the report. “Where negative wage impacts have been detected, native-born high school dropouts and prior immigrants are most likely to be affected. The fiscal picture is more mixed, with negative effects especially evident at the state level when the costs of educating the children of immigrants are included, but these children of immigrants, on average, go on to be the most positive fiscal contributors in the population. We hope our detailed analysis of the evidence will be of use to policymakers and the public as they consider this issue.”
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Looks like Dr. Borjas shares your difficulty with accepting facts that conflict with long-held beliefs.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
FACTS:
The National Academy of Sciences recently published a report titled The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration. Borjas mentions a few major takeaways from the report:
1. There has been a slowdon in assimilation- "the rate of relative wage growth and English language acquisition among the foreign-born is now slightly slower than it was for earlier immigrant waves.”

2. Immigration has a harmful effect on the earnings of low-skill workers

3. Immigrants and their dependent children create a fiscal burden

4. "the current stock of immigrants lowered wages by 5.2%" This is equal to $500 billion.
Click to expand...

I only trust facts recorded in serif fonts. And only in black ink.
 
The evidence is pretty clear that immigration at current levels has mixed impacts. It's a macro-economic good thing for the economy overall, and it has some negative consequences on our lowest-skilled native-born countrymen. The Trumpian call to "shut it all down" amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. More can and should be done to ameliorate the impact of immigration and trade on the lowest-skilled Americans. But the rest of America should not have to suffer very serious negative impacts on the economy and overall well-being to provide very slight wage protection to high school dropouts and people who can't be bothered to retrain for new careers after their textile jobs go away. Those people can be helped by government interventions - even direct government job programs - that don't require shutting our country off from the rest of the world. If that sounds elitist, tough shit. This election is all about the #realtalk.
 
Deacon923 said:
The report itself is behind a paywall. Here is a quote from the abstract, which can be found here:

Looks like you have difficulty understanding Dr. Borjas was tasked with

Looks like Dr. Borjas shares your difficulty with accepting facts that conflict with long-held beliefs.
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Seeing as Borjas was one of the academics who worked on the report, I'm pretty sure he has a better grasp of what's in it than you.
In fact, he was asked to write an article explaining what's in the report for a general audience. If you want to have an honest discussion about what's in the report, I suggest you read this article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-national-academies-sciences-report-fiscal-economic-impact-native-born
 
The concept that Japan's incredibly low birthrate of 1.41 isn't a negative for the Japanese economy illustrates a glaring lack of knowledge of such factors. Add to that the aging of the country and their social and health pact with it citizens is in increasingly dire straits.

If by 2060 60% of the Japanese populous are senior citizens (http://www.dw.com/en/impact-of-japans-shrinking-population-already-palpable/a-18172873 ). you are looking at a potential collapse of their economy.

Plus bob refuses to address who Charles Murray is.
 
The NAS report does not conduct the final calculation that adds up the economic gains and compares that number with the fiscal burden. But anyone with a pencil and the proverbial back of an envelope can do so using the numbers in the report. Immigrants have both a labor-market impact and a fiscal impact. Do the economic gains generated by working immigrants outweigh the fiscal burden that immigrants impose?

The report concludes that there is a short-run fiscal burden. Across all levels of governments, the annual burden ranges from a minimum of $43 billion to nearly $300 billion, depending on what is assumed.

But what does the report say about the “immigration surplus,” the increase in wealth accruing to the native population as a result of immigration? As immigrants enter the labor market and reduce the wage of natives, they increase profits for the employers. Plus the immigrants themselves produce additional output, generating even more profits. In the end, the aggregate wealth of natives — both workers and firms — rises, and there is a redistribution of wealth from workers to firms. The NAS report their estimate of the immigration surplus in chapter 4:

Immigrant labor accounts for 16.5 percent of the total number of hours worked in the United States, which . . . implies that the current stock of immigrants lowered wages by 5.2 percent and generated an immigration surplus of $54.2 billion, representing a 0.31 percent overall increase in income that accrues to the native population.

That short paragraph contains a lot of important information. First, the immigration surplus is relatively small, about $54 billion. Unfortunately, the report avoids giving a transparent estimate of the size of the wealth transfer from workers to firms, reporting instead that, on average, wages went down by 5.2 percent. It would be better if they had reported the actual number of dollars involved in that transfer. That number, it turns out, would be about $500 billion. So, yes, immigrants created an additional $54 billion worth of new wealth, but a byproduct of that creation was a wealth transfer of half a trillion dollars.

I would add a huge caveat to the $54 billion estimate of the surplus. It ignores all the externalities that immigrants create along the way. The externalities are both good and bad. The good: The entry of extremely high-skill immigrants surely accelerates innovation, makes us more productive, and has a beneficial impact on economic growth. The bad: The entry of some high-skill immigrants, such as those who enrolled in flight schools and learned to fly planes and then flew them on September 11, 2001, can make us all much worse off. The NAS did not even try to quantify the value of all the many positive and negative externalities (and, in fact, neither has anybody else). So, in the end, all we really have to go on is an estimated surplus of $54 billion in the short run.

If we then take the report’s estimates of the surplus and the fiscal burden at face value, it is self-evident that the impact of immigration on the aggregate wealth of natives is, at best, a wash. Instead, the impact of immigration is distributional. Those who compete with immigrants are effectively sending billions and billions of dollars annually to those who use immigrants.

There is a lot of temptation, particularly in the middle of a presidential campaign in which immigration is one of the core issues that completely differentiate the two candidates, to spin aspects of the NAS report in ways that will further a particular narrative. There are enough scenarios in the NAS report that would enable the construction of practically any factoid. As always, it is crucial to open that hood and look inside before you buy into it.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-national-academies-sciences-report-fiscal-economic-impact-native-born
 
translation for those of us normal humans who like to read legible fonts

BobStackFan4Life said:
The NAS report does not conduct the final calculation that adds up the economic gains and compares that number with the fiscal burden. But anyone with a pencil and the proverbial back of an envelope can do so using the numbers in the report. Immigrants have both a labor-market impact and a fiscal impact. Do the economic gains generated by working immigrants outweigh the fiscal burden that immigrants impose?

The report concludes that there is a short-run fiscal burden. Across all levels of governments, the annual burden ranges from a minimum of $43 billion to nearly $300 billion, depending on what is assumed.

But what does the report say about the “immigration surplus,” the increase in wealth accruing to the native population as a result of immigration? As immigrants enter the labor market and reduce the wage of natives, they increase profits for the employers. Plus the immigrants themselves produce additional output, generating even more profits. In the end, the aggregate wealth of natives — both workers and firms — rises, and there is a redistribution of wealth from workers to firms. The NAS report their estimate of the immigration surplus in chapter 4:

Immigrant labor accounts for 16.5 percent of the total number of hours worked in the United States, which . . . implies that the current stock of immigrants lowered wages by 5.2 percent and generated an immigration surplus of $54.2 billion, representing a 0.31 percent overall increase in income that accrues to the native population.

That short paragraph contains a lot of important information. First, the immigration surplus is relatively small, about $54 billion. Unfortunately, the report avoids giving a transparent estimate of the size of the wealth transfer from workers to firms, reporting instead that, on average, wages went down by 5.2 percent. It would be better if they had reported the actual number of dollars involved in that transfer. That number, it turns out, would be about $500 billion. So, yes, immigrants created an additional $54 billion worth of new wealth, but a byproduct of that creation was a wealth transfer of half a trillion dollars.

I would add a huge caveat to the $54 billion estimate of the surplus. It ignores all the externalities that immigrants create along the way. The externalities are both good and bad. The good: The entry of extremely high-skill immigrants surely accelerates innovation, makes us more productive, and has a beneficial impact on economic growth. The bad: The entry of some high-skill immigrants, such as those who enrolled in flight schools and learned to fly planes and then flew them on September 11, 2001, can make us all much worse off. The NAS did not even try to quantify the value of all the many positive and negative externalities (and, in fact, neither has anybody else). So, in the end, all we really have to go on is an estimated surplus of $54 billion in the short run.

If we then take the report’s estimates of the surplus and the fiscal burden at face value, it is self-evident that the impact of immigration on the aggregate wealth of natives is, at best, a wash. Instead, the impact of immigration is distributional. Those who compete with immigrants are effectively sending billions and billions of dollars annually to those who use immigrants.

There is a lot of temptation, particularly in the middle of a presidential campaign in which immigration is one of the core issues that completely differentiate the two candidates, to spin aspects of the NAS report in ways that will further a particular narrative. There are enough scenarios in the NAS report that would enable the construction of practically any factoid. As always, it is crucial to open that hood and look inside before you buy into it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-national-academies-sciences-report-fiscal-economic-impact-native-born
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ImTheCaptain said:
translation for those of us normal humans who like to read legible fonts
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Most people ain't reading all that which is why I change color, size, and use bold. To get them to hopefully read at least the highlights.
 
Actually I think you'll find that as long as you stay engaged and on topic, which you largely have on this thread, people will engage with the things you post. Another option instead of wall of text with big colors and font changes is to only include relevant items when you copy and paste.

I don't particularly feel like arguing with a guy who brings up 9/11 as a "negative externality" in an economic discussion of immigration and fiscal policy, but generally speaking, there are pluses and minuses to immigration, and as 923 pointed out, on the whole they are a net good. Highlighting the $54 BN as "revenue" to $500 BN as "cost" figures are, to quote your friend Dr. Bourjas "to spin aspects of the NAS report in ways that will further a particular narrative."
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
Seeing as Borjas was one of the academics who worked on the report, I'm pretty sure he has a better grasp of what's in it than you. I''m sure he does. I'm sure he was also upset that his co-authors (who also know more than me, not to mention more than you, and possibly more than Borjas) chose not to over-emphasize and over-hype the negative aspects of immigration in the abstract. which is a nice segue to....
In fact, he was asked to write an article for a right-wing, sometimes but not always anti-immigrant magazine explaining what's in the report for a general audience of right-wing, frequently anti-immigration readers. If you want to have an honest discussion about what's in the report, I suggest you read this article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-national-academies-sciences-report-fiscal-economic-impact-native-born
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I don't think Borjas is stupid or dishonest. His points are valid and impacts of immigration on the low-skilled and on the public fisc should be understood. But his co-authors (i'm sure over his ardent objections) were wise enough to point out that there are many other positive impacts of immigration that must be weighed when considering any policy response. Which is why the Trumpian policy response is dumb, and there are many other policy proposals that are much smarter.
 
Not sure what "shut down low-skill immigration" means. We should be relaxing visas for agricultural workers since Americans simply don't do that. But yeah, we should ban unskilled worker visas. It is ridiculous that we allow immigrants to come here permanently and fill jobs that require absolutely no experience. The "skilled worker" category isn't much better, as it only requires 2 years of experience, but is a necessary fallback to a lot of folks who don't have 4 year bachelor's degrees. But the larger issue is that we have illegals coming over who are either unskilled or skilled as manual laborers, which ARE jobs that Americans will do, and they keep wages low in those areas. Then we give them amnesty every couple of years and those jobs go from the "underground" to aboveboard.

I won't get into how we have too many fucking H1Bs and haven't cut back as the job market has required. Dems sold out their labor roots for immigration because more votes stood to be gained. And long term it was a savvy move for them.
 
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EatLeadCommie said:
I won't get into how we have too many fucking H1Bs and haven't cut back as the job market has required Dems sold out their labor roots for immigration because more votes stood to be gained. And long term it was a savvy move for them.
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lol literally represents .0014% of the workforce

85,000 out of 60,000,000 workers
 
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