No one knows the economic effect of illegals, whether they depress wages or not. Look at it backwards, a doctor makes 120k, what could you change to make them earn more or less? It is much harder than you think to figure out.
Devil's Advocate: If you made medical school tougher to get in, there would be fewer doctors, and their salaries would go up.....
Not necessarily. Look today how much rising malpractice premiums have eroded doctor's incomes. Today malpractice is a decisive factor in doctor incomes, tomorrow it could be something different (like Medicare solvency).
In the same vein... has subsidizing college loans made tuition more affordable?
At forty thousand plus per year I don't think so.
The examples are endless.
Say we got rid of the illegals today, wages will still be a function of like 25 variables: interest rates, stock markets, global politics, terrorism, oil prices, weather, education, healthcare, food, demographics, drugs, taxes, real estate market, etc.
One simply cannot say, either way, what the economic effect of illegal/guest/temporary/migrant workers has been.
Yet you see this casuist argument everywhere,
"Illegals are suppressing Americans' wages at the lowest skill level..."
To which I respond,
"How does the ability to pay a nanny only $400 a week, so both parents can further their careers, depress wages?"
Devil's Advocate: But they are likely high skill level people...
So you don't think that high wage incomes should be counted in those real wage averages?
Also, when high level earners go out to restaurants, remodel their kitchen, and whatnot, who do you think benefits from that spending?
Devil's Advocate: So you are trotting out the "trickle down" theory?
If you want to have that battle now....sure.
First of all, by citing the term "trickle down", you are manifesting yourself as a propaganda inhaler. As Thomas Sowell says,
"...there has never been any school of economists who believed in a trickle down theory. No such theory can be found in even the most voluminous and learned books on the history of economics. It is a straw man."
"Trickle down" is the socialist caricature of free market capitalism. Middle and lower class people absolutely benefit from the same free market low-tax environment that behooves wealthier people.
Don't believe my propaganda? Well then go out and try to find work where there are no rich people. Go up to Vermont or some rural town anywhere. Who makes more money, a bartender in Manhattan or one in Western Massachusetts? You won't even be able to earn money cutting lawns far outside of the big cities (away from the dreaded hoarding rich). There are no restaurants except maybe Applebee's and McDonalds. No Starbux. No Wholefoods. No hedge funds to work for.
Growing up in Worcester, Mass (a veritable economic wasteland), I couldn't so much as get a job above minimum wage when I was a teenager. I moved to Philadelphia and instantly got several lucrative jobs.
If you don't believe in "trickle down", then you're intellectually blind or parochially ignorant. You don't have to believe anything - just accept the empirical reality all around you.
Furthermore, if you still think you don't need rich people, why don't you move to where the homes are really cheap?
Read that whole Thomas Sowell column for his concise, yet trenchant explication of "trickle down" economics.
Devil's Advocate: So it seems like you come down on the side of "illegals aliens are a net positive"...
As usual, your inference is woefully off the mark. I just threw the "trickle down" stuff out to debunk that canard about illegals depressing wages. Had someone initiated the dialogue with,
"Illegals definitely stimulate the economy..."
I would have fired back,
"Have you considered the costs inflicted on hospital emergency rooms in the Southwest or the fact that over 20% of prison populations are illegals? Have you measured these societal costs? Do you not think that everyone else will end up paying for this in terms of higher medical bills and higher taxes?"
The only economic truth about illegal workers is that nobody knows their overall impact.
Another example. RightWingNews has a widely disseminated post titled,
Answering 13 Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration.
I take issue with number,
8) But, aren't these illegal aliens doing jobs Americans won't do?
"...Moreover, it needs to be pointed out that there's no such thing as a job, "Americans won't do." There are only jobs Americans won't do at a certain price. Consider your job. Would you still do it if the pay were 50% less? For most people, the answer to that question is, "no."
Well, since illegal immigrants generally come from poor countries with mediocre economies, they're willing to work for much lower wages than the going market rate because they're still making substantially more than what they can make at home. So, if there's a large influx of illegal aliens into an America industry, it depresses wages so much that Americans simply won't do those jobs any more for the going pay rate.
This harms poor Americans the most, because they're the group that generally ends up competing with illegal aliens for jobs on the low end of the pay scale."
While on most of the 13 questions they posed I generally agree with their perspective, this one here I take major issue with because it's redolent of Big Media Commi logic.
First, this statement,
"...large influx of illegal aliens into an America industry, it depresses wages so much that Americans simply won't do those jobs any more for the going pay rate."
This is total crap. Wages are set by both the demand and supply for labor. For many jobs, the demand for the work is very sensitive to the price (wage). For example, I may pay $40 every week to get my lawn cut but I will not pay if the price rises to $60. At that cost I will instead cut my own lawn. This whole argument that the illegal willing to cut grass for $40 is lowering the wage of the $60 worker falls flat on its face because that $60 job will never exist. So in this sense, many illegals ARE DOING JOBS THAT AMERICANS WON'T DO.
So ignore this pervasive canard, "There are only jobs Americans won't do at a certain price." because you can't separate the job from the wage that the market is willing to bear.
Always be wary of the Morons that don't consider both supply and demand components.
Speaking of demand and econo-illiterates, 8) also sounds like Big Media agitprop with its,
"This harms poor Americans the most, because they're the group that generally ends up competing with illegal aliens for jobs on the low end of the pay scale."
This is Demand Parsing. As I have said many times before,
Be wary of anyone who tries to parse the demand component of something. The demand parsers are, 9 times of 10, econo-illiterates trying to promulgate political propaganda.
In this case, they are saying, "Wake up you poor Americans, illegals are hurting you the most."
I hate this as much as when skinny people blame fat people for healthcare costs or when SUV drivers get blamed for char-broiling the earth and subsidizing terrorism.
Now there is some subtlety here that warrants further explanation. It's crystal clear that this notion of illegals disproportionately hurting the poor is a thinly veiled hypocrisy accusation. Rightwingnews is saying to all of the poverty advocates and self-styled vanguards of the "little guy" that they have to condemn illegal immigrants or don the hypocrisy badge.
Make no mistake, the "poor" are a rhetorical football. This may sound awful, but always be wary of anyone claiming to be on their side. First of all, I disagree with term "poor". The difference between poor people and rich people is not simply money. One could substitute "high school dropouts and teenage parents" for "poor" and be referencing almost the identical demographic.
I don't believe we even have poor people in America. The people with less money have more often than not, either spit on all of the opportunities implicit in a free public education and free market economy or simply made one bad decision after another. (I especially loathe the propaganda term "working poor".)
To say that "poor people" are simply competing with illegal immigrants for "the jobs Americans don't want do" is absolutely ridiculous.
Poor people are competing against lifetimes of bad decisions and immorality. They are competing against educated and diligent Americans and even against technological innovation. So sorry RightWingNews, poor people are competing against a lot more than simply illegal immigrants.
Certainly illegal immigrants put both downward and upward pressure on wages.
Certainly illegal immigrants are in some ways stimulating the economy and depressing it in others.
IT REMAINS ABSOULUTELY IMPOSSIBLE TO MEASURE THESE NET EFFECTS BECAUSE THEY ARE SIMPLY TOO MULTIVARIATE.
Please, keep your illegal immigration debates free of distorted economic theory. God knows, there are plenty of factually based arguments you can wield.
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