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Ah. I was confused by the way you referred to "the Obama years."
Sorry about that. I'm not a big Obama fan, but in that particular exchange, I was simply defending my use of the word "persistent" vis-a-vis the unemployment numbers from 2009 to present.
Anti-nationionalist utilitarian?
If people didn't pay them illegal (below minimum wage) wages, then they would eventually stop coming. I don't think poor brown people who speak spanish should be punished for trying to feed their families, just because 'mericans happened to be born here here and can't figure out how "make a living wage".
The contradiction is right there in your sentence... if the "US economy offers fewer and fewer low-skilled jobs" ... why do illegal immigrants come here?
The two biggies right now are Agriculture and Construction which are at 19.5 and 17.1 respectively. Manufacturing is actually below the national average. Leisure & Hospitality and Professional & Business Services are the other two sectors in double digits at 11.6 and 10.3. Under occupations Transportation and moving occupations are at 12.
Married people have an unemployment rate of about 5.25. For the most part it isn't families that are struggling to find jobs or make a "living wage" in this environment. It is teenagers and some young adults.
In 2000 20-24 yr olds were at about 7 to 7.5. By the middle of the decade it was 8-9. The highest it hit was 16 in November of 2009 and 2010.
In 2000 25-34 yr olds were just under 4. By the middle of the decade they were around 5. The highest they hit was 10.6 in October of 2009.
Married men and women have seen their unemployment rate double since 2000.
Plenty of illegal immigrants make minimum wage or better, but the wages are below the market rates for legal residents. This is a big reason for the stagnant wages among low-skilled workers. It's basic supply and demand.
I'll take this in good faith and assume you were just being flippant with the "brown people" comment. My position on illegal immigration has nothing to do with ethnicity or country of origin. My position is based on two simple concepts: The first is that a nation that can't, or doesn't, enforce its borders isn't much of a nation. The second is that it's repugnant for a nation to import a de facto underclass to perform low-skill jobs at cut-rate wages under almost any circumstance, and it's doubly absurd to do so during periods of persistent high unemployment.
It's not that much of a contradiction. Without a doubt, working for cut-rate wages in the U.S. often yields a better income for low-skilled illegal immigrants than they would make back home, but it doesn't yield anything resembling the lifestyle the average American has come to expect. If you don't have a problem with the U.S. standard of living substantially regressing to the global mean, then your position is defensible. But it's tough to complain about stagnant wages when the U.S. continues to import low-skill workers and fails to enforce minimum-wage laws (and taxation, etc.).
What part of "anti-nationalist" don't you understand?
I disagree, Joe; clearly it's better for the illegal aliens, or they wouldn't come here.
I don't see why that matters; if it's better for them, it's better for them.
There are a lot of flavors of anti-nationalism. I didn't realize you were in the radical "world without borders" camp.
Regardless, your position is contradictory. You mentioned the lack of enforcement of the minimum wage in #603, but the minimum wage in a world without borders would be far lower than even the most exploited illegal immigrant in the U.S. receives these days.
***
Sure, but being better for them is, at best, half the equation. What's best for the U.S. also matters.
And once more, I need to reiterate that we are not "importing" people; they're migrating.
Sure, but being better for them is, at best, half the equation. What's best for the U.S. also matters.
How did we ever survive the 19th and early 20th century?
Only if you don't believe in the concept of nations and/or don't care about stagnant wages and a declining average standard of living* among low-skilled workers.
(* Absent massive government confiscation and redistribution.)
I don't deny the benefits of free trade. The problem is that not everyone can be a winner, either individually or nationally.
The U.S. started out at the top of the economic heap when free trade really started to take off a few decades ago. There have been plenty of winners in the U.S., but the winnings have disproportionately been at upper income and skill levels.
With 310 million people in the U.S. and over 7 billion people elsewhere, the majority of whom live on something like $10 per day, it's ludicrous to suggest that American workers will end up net winners if forced to compete on uneven terms with $3/day laborers elsewhere.
This is just another glib rejoinder. Importing early-19th century workers into an advanced 21st-century economy is both economic and societal suicide.
When 10 percent of a country's workforce is already idled, it's idiotic to import* more and more workers whose skills are increasingly obsolete.
(* Yes, I know David objects to the word "import," but it's not an incorrect usage. Aside from the people who migrate illegally, the U.S. has continued to issue millions of work visas despite stagnant job creation.)
And when you have 10% of the workforce idle it is also suicidal to increase costs.
Why do you think America will be net winners anyway? Like you said we are 310 million people while over half the population of the world was oppressed for either a century or two by the west. What makes you think our way of life is sustainable?
Having the lawn at your McMansion mowed for $50 instead of $70 isn't a birthright.
I never said it was sustainable. I said we shouldn't do things that make our way of life even less sustainable.
One more note on this: One of the reasons things haven't stabilized at the level of a "third world country" is that the movement of labor isn't truly free. The U.S. has done a poor job of controlling its borders, but it hasn't abdicated the responsibility altogether. Just in the Americas, polling shows there are tens of millions of people who would relocate to the U.S. ASAP if they were free to do so — i.e., if the U.S. fired the Border Patrol and would-be immigrants wouldn't have to enter illegally.
If we know 12 to 15 million people have come illegally, how many would come legally? Would 50 million be OK? 100 million? Pretending this wouldn't have a substantial effect on the U.S. standard of living is pure fantasy, even if all 100 million were doctors and engineers.
It doesn't imply any such thing. The U.S. continued issuing millions of work visas over the past few years despite a net contraction of the job market. That's "importing," by any economic definition. Obviously, the applicants had free will to apply for such visas, but that's a red herring anyway.
Because all it would take to end unemployment in America is to raise my lawnmowing expenses.
For the record I don't have a McMansion. I don't even have a McCloset.
I never said it was sustainable. I said we shouldn't do things that make our way of life even less sustainable.
Yet you keep pitching ideas that will make our way of life less sustainable.
Yet when the economy went down the flow of illegal immigrants dropped drastically. If the economy is chugging along people will come to this country to work and that is a good thing. When the economy stalls they don't come here and that is a good thing as well.
Less sustainable than allowing an unlimited inflow of low-skilled workers? LOL.
Not really. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the population of illegal immigrants peaked at 12 million in 2007, then dropped to 11.1 million two years later, and has ticked upward to 11.2 million now. A 7 percent reduction during the worst economy since the Depression is hardly a "drastic" drop.
There are at least 8 million Americans who haven't held a job in at least a year, and 8 million illegal immigrants in the workforce. The definition of "jobs Americans won't do" seems to be in need of an overhaul.
What would it have been without the drop?
Less sustainable than allowing an unlimited inflow of low-skilled workers? LOL.
Yes, quadruple or more raise on virtually everything is sure to be much more sustainable.
Answer it myself.
Before the drop we were averaging about 850,000 illegal aliens entering this country each year. Because of the economy it dropped to 300,000 per year. So 1.5 million illegals left and 600,000 came into this country from 2007 to 2009. So instead of 11.1 million in 2009 we would have had 13.7 million illegals in this country in 2009. One year later Pew reported that there were 11.2 million illegal aliens in this country. So about 200,000 people left and 300,000 people came. Without the economy being in the toilet we would be at 14.5 million in 2010 instead of 11.2 million. A 23% drop in population over 3 years.
For the US to be competitive in the long run with India and China, we depend on immigration.
High standards of living depend on relatively high density. In 60 years, factories won't be located in China because of cheap labor--they'll be located there because that's where all the customers are.
Immigration is great for our economy and great for immigrants. It allows for more industry, more jobs of every kind, because there are more people. As long as there is sufficient access to capital, it does not hurt the native population. For every job that is taken by an immigrant, another is created due to the increased demand immigration supplies. Of course, there are frictions in the job market, but that's why immigration is managed. Current quotas are far, far too low, but immigration is a job creator, not a job destroyer.
So the high-water mark is the new baseline? You'd make a good congressman:
"We were going to raise spending 10 percent but we only raised it 5 percent. See, we cut spending 5 percent!"
Now you sound like Geraldo Rivera. Prices would not quadruple without illegal immigrant labor.
So now all of our plans to restore the economy have dropped to the wayside and we're just going to focus on getting rid of illegal immigrants? Are we to just forget the last 500 posts? Immigration is a good thing.
So the high-water mark is the new baseline? You'd make a good congressman:
"We were going to raise spending 10 percent but we only raised it 5 percent. See, we cut spending 5 percent!"
You argued that the economy did not drop the population of illegal immigrants. It did and it did mightily. Before the economy went south 850,000 people a year were heading north. It dropped to just 300,000 during the recession and total illegal immigrant population dropped by 900,000 over the two year span. That is a huge reversal of trends that had been going on since the 90's.
Why wouldn't the factories relocate to where there's even cheaper labor? If American consumers of iPhones don't want to sit around making iPhones, as per comments in this discussion, then why would wealthier Chinese consumers of the future want to make iPhones instead of offshoring the labor to Burma or wherever?
Wholly unsupported by facts, especially at the lowest levels of the job market.
This is exactly the point I've been making: Immigration has been substantially mismanaged in recent years, with too much low-skilled immigration and not enough high-skilled.
I don't recall doing this.
You're using a lot of phony numbers. After the immigration amnesty in 1986 essentially reset the population of illegal immigrants to a million or less, the population of illegal immigrants grew to approximately 12 million people in 2007. That's not "850,000 people a year." Once again, you're using the high-water mark as the baseline, which makes no sense.
Yes, and within two years the numbers started increasing again, despite stagnant job growth in the U.S., and despite a stagnant housing sector, which employed huge numbers of illegal immigrants during the housing boom.
Anyway, that's all.
I'm using the numbers from the same source you are which is Pew.
Why wouldn't the factories relocate to where there's even cheaper labor? If American consumers of iPhones don't want to sit around making iPhones, as per comments in this discussion, then why would wealthier Chinese consumers of the future want to make iPhones instead of offshoring the labor to Burma or wherever?
They will and just like America that doesn't mean China will be devoid of manufacturing jobs. There economy will grow to the point where it doesn't need to rely heavily on cheap manufacturing labor to produce goods for foreign markets.
Yes, and within two years the numbers started increasing again, despite stagnant job growth in the U.S., and despite a stagnant housing sector, which employed huge numbers of illegal immigrants during the housing boom.
Gasp, 100,000 extra people. The horror, the horror.
So, this is really funny. You can offer zero evidence for your claims, but everyone else has the burden of proof?
I mean, here's the evidence. Not that it matters, because again, obfuscation and hand-waving will ensue, but I do hold myself to a higher standard of argumentation than random ########.
Here are three studies (I found a fourth that I have a summary for, but no link).
Jörn-Steffen Pischke
Rachel M. Freidburg
Christopher Worswick
Immigrants create jobs. They are built-in stimulus.
I'm not sure what's odd about it. The U.S. is the wealthiest country on the planet but shares a 2,000-mile border with a Third World economy. Why wouldn't there be a wall, or at least tight border controls?
A person who leaves a new iPad on the seat of an unlocked car is an idiot. A wealthy country that leaves its borders wide open is equally idiotic.
Accruing a population of 12 million illegal immigrants over a 21-year period doesn't come out to "850,000 people a year." The 850,000 number was the peak number during the housing boom.
The 100,000 people weren't the point. You claimed the recession had a "drastic" reductive effect on illegal immigration, which was a specious claim. The illegal-immigrant population dipped by less than 7 percent from 2007 to 2009 and then began increasing again, despite a stagnant U.S. economy.
Speaking of "funny," funny is claiming studies of immigration in Australia and Israel are somehow dispositive vis-a-vis illegal immigration in the U.S.
If you're so big on evidence, please show us some credible studies that show five or 10 or 15 low-skilled day laborers packing into a two-bedroom home and sending a third or half of their earnings back home to Mexico or El Salvador somehow creates jobs in the U.S. on a 1:1 ratio. I'd love to read some studies that claim that. I could use a good laugh.
The U.S. has at least 8 million people who haven't held a job in at least a year, and 8 million illegal immigrants in the workforce. And yet we're supposed to believe there's no crossover effect between the latter and the former. Funny, indeed.
Tell you what, why don't you just go ahead an email Pew and tell them they are wrong then.
The 100,000 people weren't the point. You claimed the recession had a "drastic" reductive effect on illegal immigration, which was a specious claim. The illegal-immigrant population dipped by less than 7 percent from 2007 to 2009 and then began increasing again.
Thank god you feel like quibbling instead of talking about absurd things like tariffs and illegal immigrants is the problem with the economy.
Without the downturn the population of illegal immigrants would be much much higher than it is now. Instead of a large yearly increase we saw a large yearly decrease for two years in a row with a third year seeing only an increase of 100,000. If you don't think that is a drastic change in the population of a group, well, oh well.
I take it you aren't big on evidence since you haven't provided any to the contrary.
A person who leaves a new iPad on the seat of an unlocked car is an idiot. A wealthy country that leaves its borders wide open is equally idiotic.
I think I see the problem now.
The unemployed are largely the same people that are always unemployed in America but at larger numbers. Teenagers and kids at college age and coming out of college. Somehow I just don't see that group fighting overly hard to pick lettuce, landscape, clean toilets, or any of those other low skilled low paying jobs.
Now of course you'll rebut that without the illegal immigrants those would be good paying jobs to which I would say hogwash. If you had pay more for it then the jobs wouldn't exist. Hell, the jobs vanished in this economy despite the low wages.
I don't understand why you keep belaboring this point. How does accruing 12 million people over a 21-year period come out to an "850,000 people a year" rate? Considering the site we're arguing on, I know you would never claim a guy who accrues 100 home runs over a 5-year period hits homers at a "40 homer a year" pace, so I don't see the point of this.
Yes, and without the housing implosion, everyone's home would have doubled in value again since 2007. For someone who lectured me about "sustainability" an hour ago, you don't seem to understand the concept. The high-water mark is not the baseline expectation.
I'm sure the millions of unemployed and underemployed people over the age of 22 will be thrilled to hear that there really isn't a jobs problem.
And as I've said several times, with persistent high unemployment, we might need to start redefining that list of "jobs Americans won't do."
So again. Hand waving and obfuscation. Got it. Because the US is drastically different than other countries who have immigration.
Again, here they are. Not that you'll acknowledge that you're wrong in any way shape or form.
Giovanni Peri
The wages of recent immigrants was found to be reduced by new immigrants, but you've implied you don't care about that.
Here's a study originally printed in the WSJ:
Here's a good article about what happened in Alabama, which took drastic actions to reduce the population of illegal immigrants. No impact on reduction of unemployment rate.
I think I'm pretty much done providing evidence to someone who's unwilling to meet the burden of proof.
What, exactly, is the iPad analog on the latter side of your comparison?
Right, the average native worker, not the average low-skilled native worker.
Bingo! These are the people competing with low-skilled immigrants (legal or illegal). And you believe this proves your point? Amazing.
LOL. A liberal citing the WSJ. We're truly down the rabbit hole now. The WSJ has been the leading proponent of cheap labor since time immemorial.
Once again, proves my point, not yours. Native-born workers haven't taken the ensuing jobs because the welfare state allows them not to. Not working should never, ever be a more attractive option than working, but the welfare state has perverted this concept. (Also, while markets tend to be efficient, they're not always quickly efficient. The Alabama law in question was passed less than a year ago.)
As of July 2011, the latest Department of Labor wage figures on California agricultural workers have those who plant and pick field crops earning a median wage of $8.89 per hour --- two cents less than the national median wage for field workers. Pickers in the lowest 10 percent earned an average of $8.13 while pickers in the highest 10 percent were paid $10.86 per hour.
According to Ronald G. Corwin, Professor Emeritus Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, up to 90 percent of the nation's farm workers are undocumented immigrants.
Question is why aren't legal citizens that are unemployed taking these jobs? Especially in California where unemployment is so high.
Yes, actually it does.
Here's your claim:
Rhetoric aside, if illegal immigration has no effect to a slight positive growth on the population of HS dropouts, and a significant positive effect on the wage growth of non-HS dropouts, then they are creating jobs on a grater than 1:1 ratio.
So . . . no actual argument here?
You are completely incoherent. You ask for evidence that immigration creates jobs. I supply it. Your counter-factual that immigration costs jobs has been tested and found false, and you ignore it.
Immigration has been found in study after study to have a stimulative effect on economies. Areas with high immigration after the financial crisis recovered faster. You've been shown numerous studies showing that immigration does not have a crowding out effect--either in good or bad economies. What's more, immigration actually raises wages for non-native workers.
What, exactly, is the counter-factual here? What would have happened to these industries in the absence of immigration? Your claim that they would provide jobs to HS dropouts is contradicted by the data. Is your counter-factual now that this would only occur in the case of countries without any form of welfare state? If so, it's still not true, but impossible to test as there are no countries with significant illegal immigration and no welfare state currently.
We can look to history, though, and see that immigration has always been a driver of growth.
Simple: The wages being offered are too low and California has a generous welfare system.
Once again, there's no such thing as a "job Americans won't do." There are only jobs Americans won't do at cut-rate wages.
Well, they can, actually. This implies, but does not quite come out and say, that at lower levels they haven't been winners. Even assuming I grant that the upper levels benefit more from free trade -- I don't -- it's not the case that the lower levels do not.This is just repeating the premise, not justifying it.
(1) No, it hasn't. Millions? You have a overinflated idea about the number of visas there are.
(2) We're not importing them, either. I object to the word "import" because it implies that they're being brought here, as opposed to them choosing to come here. Whether they're coming here legally or illegally doesn't change that.
Again, why don't you just go ahead an email them and tell them they are wrong? The 850,000 immigrants a year is from their site.
Yes, and without the housing implosion, everyone's home would have doubled in value again since 2007. For someone who lectured me about "sustainability" an hour ago, you don't seem to understand the concept. The high-water mark is not the baseline expectation.
High-water mark? You love quibbling don't you, and since I had a feeling you loved to quibble I also wrote post 630. Which is getting conveniently ignored so you can hand-wave away the entire issue because the math might be off by a few numbers.
I'm sure the millions of unemployed and underemployed people over the age of 22 will be thrilled to hear that there really isn't a jobs problem.
It's a problem that you and Snapper's solutions won't actually solve.
And as I've said several times, with persistent high unemployment, we might need to start redefining that list of "jobs Americans won't do."
Yes, now tell that to the Americans who are still not doing those jobs.
The study doesn't talk about the "population of HS dropouts," only the population of employed HS dropouts. Big difference.
Utter and complete nonsense. First of all, there's high unemployment among high school dropouts, who compete with — and lose jobs to — low-skilled illegal immigrants. Over 50 percent — 50 percent! — of HS dropouts older than 25 are unemployed. But you just hand-wave this away.
Second, there's absolutely nothing in the info. you've posted that establishes that for every illegal immigrant in the workforce, a job is created elsewhere. The only way this claim holds water is if you assume that millions of unemployed Americans are entirely unemployable and that illegal immigrants are truly adding value where none would exist.
According to your own "evidence," illegal immigration increases the wages of employed native-born high school dropouts by just 0.2 percent. Given the high unemployment among native-born high school dropouts (reminder: it's over 50 percent for people older than 25), the net effect on the entire cohort of native-born dropouts is clearly negative. Arguing otherwise is ludicrous.
LOL. Your little collection of links didn't prove half of what you seem to believe it did.
Yes, a whopping 0.2 percent wage increase for native-born HS dropouts, while more than 50 percent of the cohort remains unemployed. Huge benefit. No doubt our economy would be booming now if not for those bastards in the Border Patrol.
How much does a single male unemployed get from California?
Once again, there's no such thing as a "job Americans won't do." There are only jobs Americans won't do at cut-rate wages.
Well, at least that no talent high school dropout has principles! Misguided as they are.
Where aer you getting this from? This site has unemployment rate of 15.4% for high school dropouts 25 or older in 2010. Just less than a doubling before the start of the great recession. Plus that study was looking at a point in time when we had high unemployment. I can't imagine that since then unemployment soared to 50% while unemployment for everybody else went down. If that was true unemployment for everybody else in this country would be something like 2.3%
EDIT: Headed over to BLS and as of February 2012 the unemployment rate of high school dropouts is at 12.9. It has been steadily dropping for months.
Okay, dude. I give up. Provide competing evidence. If you are unwilling or unable to accept the burden of proof, then you are a troll. I've done my best to educate you, and it's ended exactly as the last time I jumped through your hoops.
Everything in your post 352 that scans like an argument actually has no evidence. You're using 2011 data on employment to discuss a study whose dataset was 1990-2004. Your implicit claim is that wage growth has no relationship to employment which is just bizarre, and you're shifting the goalposts from illegal immigration not creating any jobs to illegal immigration not creating jobs for HS dropouts.
You've provided zero evidence for your claims, and you keep on posting annoying #### where you raise further hurdles of evidence for other people. You haven't articulated your argument clearly, and you don't engage with evidence.
Money talks, bullshit walks.
You're assuming they enter the U.S. illegally just for the jobs. They don't. For one thing, U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants are U.S. citizens and, as such, are eligible for all sorts of financial assistance. Better schools, better healthcare, you name it — the list of benefits and incentives is long.
Come on, David. There are over 7 billion people on the planet and something like half of them live on $10 or less per day. You can't possibly believe a global system of free trade would result in an economic equilibrium at or higher than the current U.S. standard of living. It's pure fantasy.
I am? Per DHS, the U.S. issued well over a million new work permits last year.
This is mostly semantics. I don't see how it changes the discussion any by saying the U.S. "offers" employment to foreigners instead of "importing" them, but we can use the phrase "offer employment" if you want.
***
If a site tells me 2+2=5, I disregard it. I don't keep stridently citing it in online arguments. But to each his own, I guess.
It's not "quibbling" at all. You keep using the boom-era numbers as if they were always the average. You sound like the people who thought annual 25 percent r.e. appreciation was the "new normal" and was sustainable forever. Obviously, it wasn't.
Does false evidence count?
Doesn't that argue against millions?
If a site tells me 2+2=5, I disregard it. I don't keep stridently citing it in online arguments. But to each his own, I guess.
And yet you went right on ahead and used their numbers in support of your views.
A yearly "shortfall" in available visas arose beginning in the mid 2000s, despite a temporary increase in the yearly cap.[6] The number had been increased to 195,000 in FY2001, FY2002 and FY2003. The Department of Homeland Security approved about 132,000 H-1B visas in 2004 and 117,000 in 2005.[7]
In 2008, a total of 276,252 visa applications (initial, renewals and extensions) were approved, and in 2009 that number decreased slightly to 214,271[14] and 110,367 initial H-1B visas were issued from consular offices
I believe there are about 65,000 TN-1 Visas for Canadians.
According to the USCIS they approved about 950,000 I-765 Employment authorization requests.
By the way the processing fee on this is $380. I have no idea how many requests got denied but you're looking at over 400 million dollars in revenue. Not bad.
You're cherry-picking again. I specifically said HS dropouts older than 25. I took it from the WSJ:
***
Ha ha. The old Shipman "I tried to educate you" and "you're a troll" routine. Good times.
I assume you meant #652. With which parts did you disagree? Do you seriously dispute that HS dropouts are forced to compete with low-skilled illegal immigrants for low-skill jobs?
I didn't make this claim. I said a net 0.2 percent wage increase among employed native-born HS dropouts wasn't sufficient to offset the negative impact on the entire cohort of native-born HS dropouts, a huge percentage of whom are unemployed.
Illegal immigrants wouldn't need to "create jobs for HS dropouts" if they didn't take jobs FROM native-born HS dropouts in the first place by working for cut-rate wages.
Anything else? How was my spelling?
Umm, no I didn't. The data I gave you was straight from the BLS and it is for older than 25.
Not really. Per the CBO, USCIS was losing money on application processing to the tune of nine digits. They just raised fees again to help close the gap.
They went to the 2010 census data and found that roughly 25 million people did not finish high school (which consists of 10 million people who have somewhere between none to an 8th grade education) and are over 25 years old. They then looked at the BLS and found that a little over 10 million of these people are employed. So presto you have your 40%. Now does that mean the 15 million other people are unemployed? As in they want to work but can't find jobs? Well, no. The BLS says that 1.5 million want to work and haven't found a job and the 2010 census classifies about 14 million of them as "not in the civilian work force".
I don't know if this will show up well but here is a break down of how high school dropouts are employed. First column are those that did not even reach high school while the second column is those that got some high school education.
Occupation (Employed Civilians Only) 3,694 6,243
.Management, business, and financial occupations 147 355
.Professional and related occupations 32 138
.Service occupations 1,407 1,925
.Sales and related occupations 144 537
.Office and administrative occupations 96 467
.Farming, forestry, and fishing occupations 227 99
.Construction and extraction occupations 599 791
.Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations 145 325
.Production occupations 555 825
.Transportation and material moving occupations 344 781
Industry (Employed Civilians Only) 3,694 6,243
.Agricultural, forestry, fishing, and hunting 315 177
.Mining 14 63
.Construction 599 856
.Manufacturing 579 890
.Wholesale and retail trade 362 1,003
.Transportation and utilities 119 346
.Information 15 59
.Financial activities 41 124
.Professional and business services 453 613
.Educational and health services 371 766
.Leisure and hospitality 520 815
.Other services 272 455
.Public administration 35 77
Here is a link if it doesn't show up well.
Were they burning it? If not then they were spending it in America while employing Americans.
Well, sort of. By definition, the process of issuing a work visa or work permit begins abroad, and U.S. embassies and consulates assuredly aren't moneymaking operations.
Your #665 is interesting but I'm not sure what conclusion to draw. Did the WSJ assume an erroneously high percentage of HS dropouts would want employment relative to historical norms, other educational levels, etc.? There's obviously a big gap between the 15 percent number you cited and the 50-plus percent number in the WSJ, but the gap seems unexplained.
EDIT: Your #667 seems to answer some of the above. Thanks.
And this is why you link your sources and use reputable data.
It wasn't meant to be an exact analogy, but the basic point was valid: A wealthy country bordered by a poor country will watch its standard of living decline if it doesn't enforce its borders. It's just common sense (and basic math).
No one bashes the D.R. for enforcing its border with Haiti. It's odd how much acrimony is generated by the U.S. enforcing its borders (or pretending to).
Could you please do the basic math for us since this is actually in dispute.
No one's saying that we need a fence along our border with Canada.
It's in dispute that eliminating the border between the U.S. and Mexico would result in a lower average standard of living for what used to be the U.S.?
There's simply no way the U.S. could merge with Mexico (pop. 100 million) and end up with the same or better standard of living. Mexico actually has above-average global GDP, but it would be mathematically, economically, and demographically impossible to merge the two and somehow end up with the same or better standard of living than existed in the U.S. It would be like merging Miami Beach and Fisher Island; Miami Beach would drag down the average.
Here's a great example of why talking to you is frustrating.
You go from this:
to this:
in four posts. The first statement is substantially in contention, while the second statement had not been made until you made it.
Well, then you shouldn't have a problem showing the basic math proves it.
What are you talking about? How are either of those two statements "substantially in contention"? (BTW, McCoy specifically asked about the U.S./Mexico issue in #674.)
Is there a single example in history of a rich country (1) being neighbored by a poor country, (2) not enforcing its borders, and (3) suffering no net decline in standard of living, per capita GDP, etc.?
The U.S. enforces its border with Mexico. Mexico enforces its border with Guatemala. The D.R. enforces its border with Haiti. And so on and so forth. This is news?
***
The U.S. has 310 million people and per capita GDP of $48,000.
Mexico has 100 million people and per capita GDP of $11,000.
In what mathematical or economic universe can those two populations and GDP numbers be merged and end up with a per capita GDP equal to or greater than $48,000 on Day 1 of the newly merged country/economy?
What he is talking abou is that nobody here has made the argument that if we didn't police our border that all 100 million Mexicans would move to the US. Thus turning your position into that is absurd.
Ludicrous. Utterly ludicrous.
The U.S. has 310 million people and per capita GDP of $48,000.
Mexico has 100 million people and per capita GDP of $11,000.
In what mathematical or economic universe can those two populations and GDP numbers be merged and end up with a per capita GDP equal to or greater than $48,000 on Day 1 of the newly merged country/economy?
Perhaps you should switch to "inconceivable!"
Joe: in the first instance you were talking about border enforcement. Now you're talking about "merging." Those are different things.
I'd argue that there are jobs that will only be on offer below the minimum wage. And others that are on offer only (or primarily) at wages below what Americans are willing to do the work for.
It's generally not the case that the jobs an illegal will do would be done by a currently unemployed American.
West Germany/East Germany
A unified Germany saw their GDP per Capita decline initially but by 1995 it had surpassed the 1990 GDP per Capita of West Germany in 1990. From 1983 to 1990 the GDP per Capita of West Germany grew by 2 to 3% each year. The first year after the reunification decline Germany saw a 6% increase in ther GDPPC. It held steady the next year and then grew by 2 to 3% annually after that.
Now then West Germans themselves did not actually have a decline. The West Germans GDP per Capita actually increased by 4% the year of reunification and continued to increase by 4% for two more years after that. After which time it went back to increasing by about 2 to 3%.
Info on East Germany is of course sketchy but by all accounts they were trailing West Germany by at least half in terms of GDP per Capita. Even nowadays East German GDP per capita is only 72% of what West German GDP per capita is.
Feel free to hand-wave this away.
Isn't that the natural consequence of eliminating the border? Regardless, multiple polls have shown that between 25 and 40 percent of Mexicans would move to the U.S. if they could. That's 25 to 40 million people.
I like to argue as much as the next guy, but I don't understand the point of these last few posts. It's basic math and basic economics.
Well ... I actually agree that a true merger would probably reduce GDP *right now.* Germans didn't have language barriers which complicated manners, and there was significant political will to engage in permanent transfers as necessary to East Germany. Those two factors would probably doom any kind of effort to truly create some kind of North American Continental Government.
Given a bilingual society on both sides of the border and significant political will by the US, I don't think a "North American Zone" would be necessarily doomed to failure as long as it had binding fiscal authority (i.e., not like the Euro).
This is probably an unknowable.
Yes, but it's a distinction without a difference when talking about per capita GDP. Whether 10 million or 100 million people migrate to the U.S. from a country with a per capita GDP of $11,000, the U.S.'s per capita GDP of $48,000 would suffer, at least initially. I guess we could pretend the 10 million immigrants are all high-skilled, but I don't see the point. (E.g., high-skilled Mexicans are happy in Mexico.)
No doubt, but why should society subsidize the ability of wealthy homeowners and business owners to get cut-rate labor? It's debatable whether a single person can survive on minimum wage, let alone below it. And forget about supporting a wife and two kids.
And yet you haven't actually done any basic math or basic economics. You simply said they are and everybody is waiting for you to show us 2+2=4.
Isn't that the natural consequence of eliminating the border? Regardless, multiple polls have shown that between 25 and 40 percent of Mexicans would move to the U.S. if they could. That's 25 to 40 million people.
Is this another "WSJ" poll that we should ignore because it is the WSJ? But at least you've come down off the ledge and are no longer talking about having 100 million Mexicans come to America.
Given a bilingual society on both sides of the border and significant political will by the US, I don't think a "North American Zone" would be necessarily doomed to failure as long as it had binding fiscal authority (i.e., not like the Euro).
This is probably an unknowable.
I wasn't trying to argue anything more than that Joe's it is so basic I don't have to show anything and all I have to do is to keep saying "come on" is a flawed stance to take.
This whole shtick is quite strange. How much math or economics do you need beyond the population and per capita GDP numbers?
Low-skilled workers add to the U.S.'s total GDP but lower the per capita GDP. It's incredible we're even debating this. A third-grader would laugh at the idea that the "average" of 10 and 5 could somehow be 10 or higher.
No, it's a wide variety, from Mexican news outlets to Zogby.
Also, I never suggested 100 million Mexicans would move to America. The hypothetical involved eliminating the border between the two countries, thus creating one merged country/economy.
Well, that wasn't the hypothetical at all.
How much math or economics do you need beyond the population and per capita GDP numbers?
How about some? All you are doing at this point is saying "1, 4, 7, 8. See?"
A third-grader would laugh at the idea that the "average" of 10 and 5 could somehow be 10 or higher.
But you haven't actually shown that Americans would have their GDP per Capita go down. As I showed in the Germany Reunification example West Germans did not see a decline in their per capita because of the merger to a weaker economy and the East Germans saw an increase in their GDP.
No, it's a wide variety, from Mexican news outlets to Zogby.
What I found is that about a third would say they would go to America if they could. But "could" means a whole host of things. The question asked was "If at this moment, you had the means and opportunity to go to live in the US, would you go?"
That was for Zogby.
First of all, your comments in #683 seemed conflicting. You said the unified Germany saw an initial decline in GDP thru 1995, but then you said it didn't. Regardless, Germany was a one-off example of a previously unified country being reunified. There was no language barrier, East and West likely had similar educational levels and literacy rates, etc.
Meanwhile, in the U.S./Mexico example, we have a Spanish-speaking country with per capita GDP of $11,000 and an English-speaking country with a per capita GDP of $48,000. It's mathematically self-evident that averaging the two economies would yield a per capita GDP of less than $48,000.
So you went to Google already and found exactly what I said you'd find, but you want me to post links anyway? Well, OK:
— Pew Global via L.A. Times
— Zogby via CIS
First of all, your comments in #683 seemed conflicting. You said the unified Germany saw an initial decline in GDP thru 1995, but then you said it didn't. Regardless, Germany was a one-off example of a previously unified country being reunified. There was no language barrier, East and West likely had similar educational levels and literacy rates, etc.
This isn't complicated. When they combined EAst and West the entire country had a lower GDP per capita than West Germany had but that doesn't mean West Germans became poorer. In fact their growth kept on going and the East improved dramatically.
Meanwhile, in the U.S./Mexico example, we have a Spanish-speaking country with per capita GDP of $11,000 and an English-speaking country with a per capita GDP of $48,000. It's mathematically self-evident that averaging the two economies would yield a per capita GDP of less than $48,000.
So what? As I have shown with the Germany example that doesn't mean somebody living in Vermont would get poorer.
So you went to Google already and found exactly what I said you'd find, but you want me to post links anyway? Well, OK:
And as I said in that post
(What I found is that about a third would say they would go to America if they could. But "could" means a whole host of things. The question asked was "If at this moment, you had the means and opportunity to go to live in the US, would you go?")
It doesn't mean what you think it means.
This is not true, as was shown in the German example. The increased demand and reduced labor friction has a positive shock to GDP. You can't just average the two and say that's it.
To put it concretely: if we have 5 people A, B, C, D, E, with incomes of 10,9,8,7,6 (average: 8) and someone from Mexico comes here and earns 2 with nobody else's income changing, the "average" drops from 8 to 7. But so what? Nobody is worse off by that average dropping. Now, if you want to argue that the Mexican's arrival causes a decrease in the incomes of one or more of A-E, that's a different story -- but that requires actual evidence, not "math." It is not enough to say that "common sense" says that their incomes will fall. And, in fact, people who look at it do not find that to be happening.
The information posted above claimed that Germany's per capita GDP dipped for the first five or six years.
As for the U.S./Mexico example, you and McCoy are engaging in a lot of sophistry. There's no real-world economic model in which either massive additional low-skilled immigration from Mexico to the U.S., or the elimination of the border, would spike per capita GDP above the current $48,000. Every low-skilled immigrant to the U.S. lowers per capita GDP.
You're doing that libertarian thing again where you keep repeating the good things while refusing to acknowledge the bad. Cheap labor is not the only issue here. As the late Swiss writer Max Frisch put it, "We wanted workers but we got human beings" — human beings who need healthcare but rarely have health insurance; human beings whose kids need schooling; human beings who "borrow" citizens' IDs and SSNs; human beings who often work in the underground economy and don't pay taxes; etc. When one adds it all up, the "cheap" labor isn't all that cheap.
I noticed you didn't include any 0's for the people who can't find a job or lose their job to an illegal immigrant who undercuts them in the job market. For someone who seemingly dislikes the welfare state, you don't seem to mind that millions of low-skilled Americans are increasingly unemployable in the current system/job market.
No it didn't. West Germany's GDP per Capita never dipped below its pre-reunification level. While East Germany's GDP is sketchy before reunification we do know that after reunification it grew greatly. There was no Germany before reunification so there was no German GDP per Capita to dip. After reunification West Germans saw their GDP per capita rise and so do East Germans. This really is basic stuff here you are denying. The country as a whole got more productive after reunification than before.
Increasingly? Unemployment is declining and has been for awhile.
You're doing that libertarian thing again where you keep repeating the good things while refusing to acknowledge the bad. Cheap labor is not the only issue here. As the late Swiss writer Max Frisch put it, "We wanted workers but we got human beings" — human beings who need healthcare but rarely have health insurance; human beings whose kids need schooling; human beings who "borrow" citizens' IDs and SSNs; human beings who often work in the underground economy and don't pay taxes; etc. When one adds it all up, the "cheap" labor isn't all that cheap.
The weird thing is that you want to spend money keeping illegals out, raise wages for low skilled work, and then of course all those legal workers get all those benefits you just bemoaned and since they are at the low end of the pay scale they barely make any contribution to paying for those benefits. Basically you want to do away with cheap labor, American or otherwise. Like you said, cheap labor isn't so cheap.
By the way what is wrong with borrowing a SSN? If they are doing that they are paying taxes and it isn't like they get 10 different welfare checks because 10 different people are using the SSN.
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