This from an advocacy group with a clear agenda. But if they wanted to raise wages they could just advocate for less immigration and robust enforcement. Restrict supply, wages will rise.
But they don't.
Nike opens factories in low-cost areas because they're allowed to. Before Clinton, most things were built in the country. Profits were lower, but the wage gap was also much lower.
What I see missing most in discussions around immigration is what it does to the home countries of the people trying to move to the United States. I know a lot of families who have come into the country from Mexico, and I don't blame them - I'd probably do the same. But if you look at the towns they're leaving (which I've done many times), it's creating a vacuum of good, hard-working people. As a result, crime and drug lords fill the vacuum, making it even more unsafe.
If you ask a lot of those people (which I've done), they'd really like to stay in their home countries - provided that there weren't growing concerns over crime. As Americans, why do we have to act like this is the only place in the world where people can be successful, and the only safe haven? What if we instead supported those countries and encouraged their brightest and best citizens to stay so that their communities can thrive?
I love immigrants, and I also love a lot of the countries they're coming from. I just wish we could stop pretending that everyone needs to move to the United States to be happy, productive, or successful.
And yes, markets tend to be affected by supply and demand, the labor market included. If you have an almost unlimited supply of people looking for work and willing to work at very low wages, of course we're going to see wages stagnate.
does this not describe literally every successful coordinated collective effort? can you be more specific about what you mean by this?
- While some policymakers have blamed immigration for slowing U.S. wage growth since the 1970s, most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages.
- The available evidence suggests that immigration leads to more innovation, a better educated workforce, greater occupational specialization, better matching of skills with jobs, and higher overall economic productivity.
- Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets. But not all taxpayers benefit equally. In regions with large populations of less educated, low-income immigrants, native-bor
https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116727/documents/...
"most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages."
Right, with this sentence being important right after:
"studies suggest that these gains come at the cost of short-term losses from lower wages and higher unemployment."
Clearly there foreign workers at Starbucks or there would not be protests: According to the popular videos circulating over the Internet, Starbucks halted a few minutes of their services across the nation as a form of protest against the recent “illegal deportation of immigrants.” "We are stopping work for a few minutes to read a statement in protest of actions against our fellow workers," Starbucks Workers United members at the Ellicott City location in Maryland said in a statement during their strike on April 1.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/glob...?
Immigration’s impact on wages, especially in the long term, is not as straightforward as “less supply → higher pay.” Multiple studies from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and leading labor economists find that immigration has only small effects on native-born workers’ wages, and in most cases boost overall wage growth by fueling demand, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Restricting immigration might reduce competition in some low-skill job markets, but it can also harm industries that rely on labor shortages being filled, push up costs for consumers, and slow economic growth, which in the longer run counteracts any wage gains.
"Restricting immigration might reduce competition in some low-skill job markets, but it can also harm industries that rely on labor shortages being filled"
So restricting immigration of low wage workers, would push up wages in low wage industries. Seems pretty clear.
Cut low-wage immigration and you don’t just raise some hourly rates. You also shrink output, kill complementary jobs, and push prices up for everyone, which erodes those wage gains. The National Academies’ comprehensive review finds immigration’s impact on native wages is small overall and often positive for some groups, with clear long-run growth benefits. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23550/the-economic...
Classic natural-experiment evidence like the Mariel Boatlift shows big low-skill inflows had essentially no hit to local low-skill wages. Labor markets adjust. https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf
Meta-work by Peri and coauthors show across many settings, native wage effects are near zero, while immigration raises productivity and lets natives move up the job ladder. https://giovanniperi.ucdavis.edu/uploads/5/6/8/2/56826033/pe...
Recent CBO work attributes stronger labor-force growth and higher GDP to immigration. Reverse that and you get slower growth and upward price pressure that cancels your “clear” wage story. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60569
So yes, if you freeze the rest of the economy in place, fewer workers can bid up some wages. Once you allow demand, complementarities, and prices to move, the simple “less supply → higher pay” slogan stops matching the data.