Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It's bizarre that people don't see this. Anyone concerned about immigrants is surely, logically, also concerned about people having babies. But somehow people think that limiting birthrates as a bad thing and limiting immigration is a good thing. Just a complete inconsistency.
Most of us don't compete in the lower end of the market. Those who do are negatively effected.
Still, it's not cut and dried, at some point too many people will make an too much pressure on resources. Ie north Americans Europeans and east Asians consume per capita much more than people emerging economies.
Want to see this journalist change their mind, allow any journalist to settle in the us, anon and begin working legally.
So, when the blue collar worker sees a threat from unskilled immigrants, it's not surprising. Ask them if they would feel the same dislike for Mexican and Brazilian a d Indian doctors, probably not.
You don't see local hospitals posting H1B openings for physicians, because the American Medical Association would eradiate them off the face of the planet.
Want to practice in the US as a foreign trained MD? You have to apply to retrain here, with very specific restrictions, and compete against thousands of other expats. You will never be competing directly against American MDs.
This is in direct contrast to the tech industry, which has exactly zero licensing bodies with the ability to dictate who can practice within the profession. Hence, H1Bs galore.
People always make the mistake of comparing highly regulated industries to tech. They couldn't be further apart. A commenter on the Pao case raised this exact point: maybe women are too smart to get into a dog-eat-dog industry like tech! Women sure as heck have no qualms about law, medicine or nursing! Three professions with excellent guild protections and career stability once an initial licensing hurdle is passed.
For better or worse, tech is the wild west of professions. All things considered it's absurdly risky to get into, but for the few superstar talents, it's very lucrative because there are no barriers to entry. For the above average vet with 40 years of experience though, it can be a nightmare, as an eager H1B will sign up for indentured servitude any day to escape third world poverty.
I wouldn't recommend the tech industry to my kids. Too much volatility and risk. You're better off having a steady profession, and pursuing bootstrapped startups on the side. If your idea gets traction, you can always stop practising your profession and return at a later date. That's the beauty of guilds like the AMA, you'll never be thrown under the bus for a quick buck, because the status of an MD cannot be devalued.
The US should adopt Australia's point system based approach with a preference for the young and well educated.
In the US, average wage for employed individuals is about 42000 [2]. Since there are 300 million Americans and 6.7 billion non-Americans, America should shift almost entirely to the average to get income equality. This will mean the equivalent of a 55% across-the-board pay cut for every American, provided prices do not go down. Your rent will stay the same, but your income should go down 55%.
(This is in fact happening, but is manifesting as uneven inflation without corresponding wage rises, so you'd experience an 81% rise in average prices, rent, food, restaurants, ..., while seeing your wage stay the same)
Also note that average worldwide unemployment is at least a factor of 3 higher than in the US. So it would not just take a massive pay cut, but also firing close to 20% of all workers, to bring the US into the worldwide average.
This is why socialists are (or should be) against immigration, and should be pro-isolationist. I think that if you want to improve the conditions of the American working class, that would be the correct attitude to have.
In reality the period of 1950-today has been a very exceptional period in history where not only incomes were higher, by most measures, than ever before, but income inequality was far lower than the vast majority of economic history.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040 [2] http://www.worldsalaries.org/usa.shtml
I think it's better to try to help people in their own country, so their local economy is improved instead of allowing just anyone to emigrate to your own country.
One of the ironies of income-redistribution schemes. People are happy to soak the 1% to pay for benefits for our lower/middle-classes, but if poorer people come along it's a strain, never mind that they almost certainly need it more.
As for helping people in their own country -- it is unfortunate but (barring conquest) there's only so much you can do in places ruled by kleptocrats, rife with corruption, and with only weak protections of the rule of law.
Sure, but the University of Chicago is full of neo-liberals, of course they'd say that. Economics is more of an ideology with some math thrown in for taste, than a hard science.
Let's say that you're a "leading economist". You answer the question "Is immigration a net benefit or a net detriment to <first world country x>" with the carefully-chosen response "Well, immigration comes with benefits and downsides, and they more or less balance one another out. Of course, some people, most notably women and minorities already existing in the country, will be hardest hit".
By the law of the excluded middle, claiming to be ambivalent on immigration would mean that you are either for or against immigration. And since if you were for immigration, you'd just come out and say it, you must be against immigration. And by the law of headlines always choosing to word things in the most sensationalist way, that would mean that you are racist.
You say "law of excluded middle" when really you're posing the fallacy of excluded middle [1]. Some folks really can actually be on the fence about something as nebulous as "immigration".
Labor shortages have conspicuously caused an increase in wages at all times even as far back as the middle ages [1]. The people in power today respond exactly as they have in every case since the dawn of times: to suppress it.
The "imposing resctrictions" serves a two-fold purpose:
1) Politicians have to balance being re-elected by going what their voters want, which in most cases is less immigration or more tight control on it, and the interests of businesses that fund them who want immigrant workers.
So, at least they have to put on a show of being against immigration.
2) For businesses it makes sense to want immigration ALONG with strict rules against immigration and a general anti-immigrant sentiment.
That's so they can exploit cheap immigrant labor without having to pay the same amounts as they would do to locals. It's not just about increasing job supply to lower wages, it's also about using the immigrant (and illegal immigrant) status of some workers to pay them even less than they would a native citizen.
Kind of like the strawberry picking jobs in California, where they bring in Mexicans from Mexico, with semi-legal status, in order to pay them as little as they can, and use force and special laws to ensure they don't get paid as much.
E.g.:
At a time of high unemployment, many Americans are convinced that these aliens take American jobs. As a test, this summer the United Farm Workers (UFW), the main agricultural union, launched a campaign called “Take Our Jobs”, inviting willing Americans to work in the fields. In the following three months 3m people visited takeourjobs.com, but 40% of the responses were hate mail, says Maria Machuca, UFW's spokesman. This included e-mails such as one reading: “We're becoming more aggressive in our methods. Soon it may come to hands on, taping bitches to light posts.”
Only 8,600 people expressed an interest in working in the fields, says Ms Machuca. But they made demands that seem bizarre to farmworkers, such as high pay, health and pension benefits, relocation allowances and other things associated with normal American jobs. In late September only seven American applicants in the “Take our jobs” campaign were actually picking crops.
That was the point, says Arturo Rodriguez, the UFW's president. America's farm jobs, which are excluded from almost all federal and state labour regulations, are not normal jobs. Americans refuse to do them. The argument about stolen jobs is “just a façade” for a coarser scapegoating, says Mr Rodriguez, and “we demonstrate the hypocrisy.”
As you pointed out, the existence of a visa system keeps things stable and voters - rich and poor - happy, just like the Black Death-era laws kept things stable and the landed gentry happy.
But the argument I responded to that implied neoliberal arguments for loosening restrictions on migration are analogous to fourteenth century laws prohibiting the movement of labour was frankly bizarre.
To such an extent that it is how Jack Kerouac and friends paid for the journey in "On the Road" without thinking about it.
The same suppression applies to all wages from lab technician to programer from the twenty-first century to the fourteenth.
Could you point to harder evidence on the subject, from a harder schience? Or are you claiming that there has been no real science done on the subject?
I could imagine you saying "Illegal immigrants are bad for my family." Then I would ask how you know. The best way to know this is economics.
Economics does not override my values, it tells me how I should act on my values. It will never tell me that deathcamps are okay, because my values tell me that they are not.
But my values also tell me that I would like as many people as possible to not worry where their next meal is coming from. Economics is the best tool I know of to find out how I should act on those values.
Indeed, understanding that money is just a means to Utility is very important to understanding economics in general, especially when you start getting into macro topics like Inflation where the value of money fluctuates. And any economic analysis which hides important costs or benefits (like Values) off the balance sheet is bound to produce nonsense results.
Perhaps if you'd taken an introductory course in the topic, you would have been disabused of these notions. Cute straw-man, though.
- Develop a tool that monitor front page of HN
- Train a classifier that detect immigration topic
- Automatically post a well explained comment for your side of the debate
- Make it open source so the other side can have one.
Perhaps the confusion arises because the immigrant does not necessarily purchase goods and services produced in their new country. We all work in a global economy were its impossible to follow all of the transactions between what we produce and what we consume. That would be true even if nothing ever crossed international borders.
For example even if the number of mouths to feed increases, the number of farmers cannot increase beyond what there is farmland for. So the hands will be competing for who gets to plough the fields, in exchange for a meal. Too many hands along with too little land, and the losers starve.
And, it is not necessary that we would just raise salaries without cheaper labor available through immigration. Many jobs at the lower end would simply be automated or a service might disappear altogether (e.g. gardeners are a luxury, too expensive you just do it yourself).
I hope someday we'll be able to think more globally, maybe we can in a future post scarcity economy.
That's from a purely economic perspective. What nobody ever wants to discuss is that creating an ever-more culturally and ethnically fractious country is a huge problem looking ahead decades quite aside from near term GNP prints.
And before someone claims that immigrants don't participate in normal labor pool, then you should advocate for open border, free market style
Really though they do take jobs. It just depends on where you are in the job world how affected you are. Where I am we end up with a lot of people from India, a lot because some of the contract companies we use are owned by immigrants, now naturalized, or the like. Still they are displacing a good number of natural born. I am all for their immigration, they bring good skills and a great work ethic which is lost on a lot of people born here.
Looking south of the border, the damage here is that low skilled low pay jobs will get filled likely by those who come to work. Whether they displace natural born citizens is another thing, the difference is the later likely qualifies for more assistance programs and have been on them to the point of dependance.
Make no excuse though, the push for integration of the large influx from Mexico and Central America is business oriented. They want these people as they are coming to work jobs many already here turn their noses up at. That some will become dependent on the government makes both parties salivate, that they cause concern to people of both parties doesn't hurt either
As one of those people stealing your jobs. I agree. And I don't even have to be on-site to do it. Because internet is awesome.
Interestingly, it's usually the middle-aged, middle-class who are complaining, considering the young and poor are most affected by it.
Or, you know, you're working class/poor black/unskilled laborer etc, which for a rich american or upper/middle-class it's same as "shit".
I find this argument BS. Those people, from factory workers, to cooks, to street cleaners, to miners, nurses, construction workers, farm workers, etc, do a valuable job, much more essential actually than most of "knowledge economy", in that everything would stop to a standstill without those jobs, whereas we did have an economy in the 70's even without Google and the internet.
The thing is, immigrants are "taking" all jobs. Not just the low level ones. I even know a bunch of people who immigrated to the US to steal the coveted job of "startup founder" and "CEO". Theoretically speaking, one more funded immigrant means one less funded true-blooded american. Whatever that might be since the US is a nation of immigrants anyway.
The lack of fellow-feeling with these people really disturbs me. OK, you were blessed with some brains and are doing well. Everybody grinding it out in your country with a worse job deserves your scorn?
Newsflash: odds are good one of your kids won't be especially smart. Unless you've lined up a huge inheritance, a horrible cut-throat labor market is probably going to hurt your progeny.
That's an appeal to relatively narrow self interests. The lack of concern for fellow citizens out of principle amazes me. If you think citizenship and borders are irrelevant you need to grow up. Who do you think will have your back if it hits the fan and we have to tough out a nuclear war or similar? These fresh of the boaters sure won't.
People will. FOB or not doesn't matter. I'd venture as far as saying that most FOBs I've met are far nicer people than most americans. Regardless of the originating culture.
Most Americans in fact display the exact same arrogance you just did. They're better than everyone else just because they happen to have won the geographic lottery.
America is great because it is filled with Americans. The geography is relevant but not so much as is fashionable to claim.
If you fill America with people from other places it ceases to be America. It will more and more resemble the inferior places the newcomers come from.
> FOB doesn't matter
Have you renounced your foreign national citizenship? How many passports do you hold? It definitely matters. You're going to go wherever you can earn a buck. Rootless cosmopolitan and you know it. I'm here until I die for sure.
I remember seeing Eddie Izzard in Slovenia. The fact that he's from the UK, not from Slovenia, did not seem to detract one bit from his famous Darth Vader joke.
Russel Crowe is also a great example of a comedian that's pretty well known in the US, but who is in fact from the UK.
But what about philosohers. Slavoj Zizek is really well known in the US and he's Slovenian. He's published more books with US publishers than he has at home.
University professors are also a great example of a high profession that is ruled by immigrants.
Spoilers: while I don't see immigration specifically addressed here, "cheap labor" is very, very high on the agenda. Free trade and outsourcing score each score >85% support... and it seems unlikely that the free-trade attitude will evaporate just because it's free trade in labor that we're talking about. The sentiments you've expressed can neatly be construed as another kind of economic protectionism of the sort economists loathe...
In any case, suggesting that people are advocating for "unlimited" immigration is a bit disingenuous as it implies a practically infinite supply of new immigrants. Setting aside the question of where the lines would be drawn under any systematic reforms, there are a number of factors that affect whether a person chooses to immigrate (time, expense, tradeoffs of moving, etc.). The simple fact that the entire population of Mexico hasn't already absconded for the United States would suggest that the fears of an endless horde of immigrants are as unfounded as worry over the population of the Ukraine running for Germany because of European border laws.
You might find this article of interest [1], since it counters both these points. Here are a few quotes, first advocating for unlimited immigration, and second suggesting that there is a practically infinite supply of immigrants.
1. "The gains to eliminating migration barriers amount to large fractions of world GDP—one or two orders of magnitude larger than the gains from dropping all remaining restrictions on international flows of goods and capital... For the elimination of trade policy barriers and capital flow barriers, the estimated gains amount to less than a few percent of world GDP. For labor mobility barriers, the estimated gains are often in the range of 50–150 percent of world GDP."
2. "The Gallup World Poll finds that more than 40 percent of adults in the poorest quartile of countries “would like to move permanently to another country” if they had the opportunity, including 60 percent or more of in Guyana and Sierra Leone... The size of these constraints is apparent in the annual U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery, which allocates permanent emigration slots mainly to developing countries. In fiscal year 2010, this lottery had 13.6 million applications for 50,000 visas (U.S. Department of State, 2011)—272 applicants per slot."
Here is a back-of-the-envelope calculation from the paper:
"We can check these calculations on the back of the metaphorical envelope. Divide the world into a “rich” region, where one billion people earn $30,000 per year, and a “poor” region, where six billion earn $5,000 per year. Suppose emigrants from the poor region have lower productivity, so each gains just 60 percent of the simple earnings gap upon emigrating—that is, $15,000 per year. This marginal gain shrinks as emigration proceeds, so suppose that the average gain is just $7,500 per year. If half the population of the poor region emigrates, migrants would gain $23 trillion—which is 38 percent of global GDP."
[1] Clemens, Michael A. 2011. "Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3): 83-106. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.25.3.83
We're well on the course to a peak population over 400 million, which is way beyond any sane carrying capacity for north america in terms of environmental foot print given american standards of living.
Of course, not every square mile is equal - water is a vital component that's set to become a very pressing topic in interstate negotiations in the coming decades.