I think that your argument proves too much. By the same logic, under the open borders regime if 1 billion migrants come to America and find employment, the natives would only benefit from the cheap labour. However, it's clear that the such a change would change the country profoundly. It's a legitimate desire not to have one's country transformed this way.
Baristas should make $45 an hour and have gold package health care, 4 months of PTO, 401k matching, free childcare, and free meals. But Starbucks needs to stop greedily gouging everyone so much on the price of coffee. Coffee should be $1. Is that so much to ask?
The obviously intelligent author ignores so many issues that are both pertinent and obvious to the discussion of low cost immigrant labor that it leads me to question the honesty of his argument.
As someone who employs hundreds of low wage workers, here’s my basic take:
1. It’s perfectly rational for people to oppose low wage immigration for various reasons. People in low skilled occupations face competition. The general public can be opposed to the behavior of the sorts of people who are only capable of earning low wages. Budget hawks can oppose the net government costs of bringing in immigrants whose taxes don’t cover the cost of schools/medicaid/etc.
2. People should be clear about what the tradeoffs are: higher prices, lower availability of services. Especially in fields where automation is less possible (looking at you, services). The thing with immigrants too is that they are more likely to be good employees at the low end of the wage scale. You might get a nurse from Africa working as a CNA, for example.
3. You end up with some funny equilibria. In my state for example, rules mandating EVerify for in-home caregivers results in a world in which most are black rather than Hispanic. The patients are often upset about this, but they almost certainly vote for the rules that caused it.
4. My own 2c - I think we’re close enough to advanced robotics to create the conditions in which we may no longer need low skilled migration at all. This is assuming people are comfortable with robots doing things like elder care and food service, and AI taking over call centers.
Of course there will always be low wage labor. It’s the market in action. But even the low wage laborer needs democratic protections through legal representation. This is done through processes of documentation and citizenship. As a contractor wanting to grow into their business, working under the table encourages both the undocumented and the tax evader to bid low, undercutting the competitive worker who adds whatever percentage of federal and state taxes to their bids. I feel like you know all this but you disingenuously conflated “immigrant” worker as de facto low wage. When the actual problem with low wage labor is with undocumented labor and that doesn’t necessarily mean “immigrant.” My biggest qualm with the Right’s approach to this problem is that politicians don’t advocate for harsher sentences on American employers who accept under the table labor. Second, they make the same mistake that you make: rhetorically using “immigrant” worker as a term they must mean “illegal”. We all know this is a slight of hand to signal somekind of sick morality that treats all immigrants with sweeping stereotypes. Both the left and right are guilty of this.
“…if I thought I could centrally plan the labor market and I had special insight into who should be hired for which jobs and at what wages, I would be a socialist.”
As usual you get the basic economics right. But I must insert my usual reminder that if we have road communism (ironically, your tacit position and even worse than socialism), we can’t possibly know how many immigrants are efficient; therefore, defaulting to “let the government decide” its own type of central planning in that you are imposing your preferences upon the rightful owners of the streets/roads. The fact that the government holds these properties in trust for the natives/taxpayers does not mean that no one owns these properties or that no one should have a say in how they are used. That would be weird, right? Democracy has to be the temporary solution until they are privatized.
Given your tacit support for road communism, your views on immigration are, ironically, just PC populism. One day this will click for you because you are very smart and libertarian minded. But until then you will continue to (daily? hourly?) moralize against racism just like Matt Walsh moralizing about Clancy.
"There is no rational basis to get upset about employers hiring immigrants who earn lower wages"
Are you referring to documented or undocumented immigrants? The distinction matters. In fact it is crucial to the argument but you don't make it. Sheer laziness.
I think that your argument proves too much. By the same logic, under the open borders regime if 1 billion migrants come to America and find employment, the natives would only benefit from the cheap labour. However, it's clear that the such a change would change the country profoundly. It's a legitimate desire not to have one's country transformed this way.
Baristas should make $45 an hour and have gold package health care, 4 months of PTO, 401k matching, free childcare, and free meals. But Starbucks needs to stop greedily gouging everyone so much on the price of coffee. Coffee should be $1. Is that so much to ask?
The obviously intelligent author ignores so many issues that are both pertinent and obvious to the discussion of low cost immigrant labor that it leads me to question the honesty of his argument.
As someone who employs hundreds of low wage workers, here’s my basic take:
1. It’s perfectly rational for people to oppose low wage immigration for various reasons. People in low skilled occupations face competition. The general public can be opposed to the behavior of the sorts of people who are only capable of earning low wages. Budget hawks can oppose the net government costs of bringing in immigrants whose taxes don’t cover the cost of schools/medicaid/etc.
2. People should be clear about what the tradeoffs are: higher prices, lower availability of services. Especially in fields where automation is less possible (looking at you, services). The thing with immigrants too is that they are more likely to be good employees at the low end of the wage scale. You might get a nurse from Africa working as a CNA, for example.
3. You end up with some funny equilibria. In my state for example, rules mandating EVerify for in-home caregivers results in a world in which most are black rather than Hispanic. The patients are often upset about this, but they almost certainly vote for the rules that caused it.
4. My own 2c - I think we’re close enough to advanced robotics to create the conditions in which we may no longer need low skilled migration at all. This is assuming people are comfortable with robots doing things like elder care and food service, and AI taking over call centers.
Of course there will always be low wage labor. It’s the market in action. But even the low wage laborer needs democratic protections through legal representation. This is done through processes of documentation and citizenship. As a contractor wanting to grow into their business, working under the table encourages both the undocumented and the tax evader to bid low, undercutting the competitive worker who adds whatever percentage of federal and state taxes to their bids. I feel like you know all this but you disingenuously conflated “immigrant” worker as de facto low wage. When the actual problem with low wage labor is with undocumented labor and that doesn’t necessarily mean “immigrant.” My biggest qualm with the Right’s approach to this problem is that politicians don’t advocate for harsher sentences on American employers who accept under the table labor. Second, they make the same mistake that you make: rhetorically using “immigrant” worker as a term they must mean “illegal”. We all know this is a slight of hand to signal somekind of sick morality that treats all immigrants with sweeping stereotypes. Both the left and right are guilty of this.
“…if I thought I could centrally plan the labor market and I had special insight into who should be hired for which jobs and at what wages, I would be a socialist.”
As usual you get the basic economics right. But I must insert my usual reminder that if we have road communism (ironically, your tacit position and even worse than socialism), we can’t possibly know how many immigrants are efficient; therefore, defaulting to “let the government decide” its own type of central planning in that you are imposing your preferences upon the rightful owners of the streets/roads. The fact that the government holds these properties in trust for the natives/taxpayers does not mean that no one owns these properties or that no one should have a say in how they are used. That would be weird, right? Democracy has to be the temporary solution until they are privatized.
Given your tacit support for road communism, your views on immigration are, ironically, just PC populism. One day this will click for you because you are very smart and libertarian minded. But until then you will continue to (daily? hourly?) moralize against racism just like Matt Walsh moralizing about Clancy.
"There is no rational basis to get upset about employers hiring immigrants who earn lower wages"
Are you referring to documented or undocumented immigrants? The distinction matters. In fact it is crucial to the argument but you don't make it. Sheer laziness.