Immigration and Wages
July 25th, 2008
A large crux of the case against immigration is that it takes work away from American workers. That sounds logical, as any filled position is one less position in the pot. The opposite of that argument is that immigrants are filling jobs that native workers do not want to fill, and doing so with little to no worker’s rights. I do not want to get into that argument today, it is Friday after all, but I do want to highlight some actual data concerning the issue. I guess my point is that people can argue whatever they’d like, but it is real statistical, proven data that makes the best cases. I found this data posted in a blog of Atlantic contributor Matthew Yglesias, it is data from a study concerning immigration’s effects on workers’ wages:
“Using our estimates and Census data we find that immigration (1990-2006) had small negative effects in the short run on native workers with no high school degree (-0.7%) and on average wages (-0.4%) while it had small positive effects on native workers with no high school degree (+0.3%) and on average native wages (+0.6%) in the long run. These results are perfectly in line with the estimated aggregate elasticities in the labor literature since Katz and Murphy (1992). We also find a wage effect of new immigrants on previous immigrants in the order of negative 6%.”
Yglesias then comments on this data’s relationship to the recent wave of immigration raids and crackdowns. He writes, “When you take into account the fact that immigration is beneficial to the immigrants and to the recipients of their remittances, and that cracking down effectively on illegal immigration would entail large direct costs, this makes the case for a crack-down look extremely un-compelling. You’re talking about very small short-term losses that are offset by very small long-term gains.”
I agree with Yglesias that the crackdown and raid are very un-compelling. They cost all parties involved a ton of money, and do not make any ‘mindset changes.’ That is the real way to stop factory owners from hiring illegal immigrants. By arresting a large amount of people all at once, tearing a part families, temporarily closing businesses, you just create larger messes. Messes that, call me cynical, are likely to be cleaned up by another batch of illegal immigrants.
You can read the post here, as well as some interesting comments regarding the post…I will be able to see the effects that the Pottsville raid has had on the community, as Sunday I am traveling to Iowa with the JCUA. I am looking forward to the trip, not as much the 5 hour bus ride, but it will be interesting to see first hand the Potsville Community.
Whatever you are doing this weekend, I hope you do it safely.







