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Comment by throwaway2037 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway2037

Yes, it has been widely discussed by economists in the last few years.

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/04/nx-s1-5140039/labor-market-jo...

    > Friday's report shows 150,000 people joined or re-joined the workforce last month. Much of this growth is driven by immigration. The foreign-born workforce has grown rapidly over the last year, adding 1.4 million workers, while the native-born workforce shrank by nearly 600,000 workers.

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That does look like a problem. Yet it doesn't mean unskilled immigrants are going to do better than natives, rather that both will have wages suppressed. And natives will still benefit from social services that may be unavailable to immigrants until they become citizens. So I think the statement is still misleading.

Immigrants are only doing better than their choices back in their country of origin, not better than what natives could attain in the new country.

It's a huge problem. If we keep allowing corporate interests to hire from a pool that is willing to live in 3rd world conditions (all these immigrants are sharing a living space in such a way that natives do not) then not only are we suppressing wages, but suppressing jobs from natives. That leads to homelessness of natives trying to maintain a lifestyle they were previously accustomed to. Some moved back to parents house, some just moved onto the streets.

Agreed. It's also important not to exaggerate or misrepresent a problem, since that undermines the point.

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