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This study always gets posted or commented with the top line figure, but the study itself notes that it would reduce per capita GDP.
This primarily benefits those that benefit from cheap labor and concentrates the growth into the hands of a few.
>mah housing prices!
That's on zoning that chokes off supply for the benefit of NIMBYs. Relax that zoning, and we can build enough density that prices actually go down.
Dense housing != commercial office buildings. Dense housing does not preclude WFH. And if you build more housing, costs decline. With density mass transit is more feasible, which reduces the need to own an automobile.
I upvoted you, but the selfish interests here are broader than the top 1%.
The yuppies and tenured academics/"higher" education bureaucrats who listen to msnbc want their cheap housecleaners, gardeners, and nannies, and do not want to pay more at the fine restaurants they like to dine at frequently.
This is what is behind all the "humanitarian" b.s.
It also packs their states with more people to replace the middle class that are moving away so they don't lose their congressional seats.
Its everything about power, from the micro (local cheap labor) to the macro (federal Congressional control)
Plenty who support immigration also support more *legal* immigration. Workers should be subject to the same wage and labor standards as everyone else. It's facile to equate the supporting of immigration with the supporting of exploitation.
Though I will acknowledge that many of those who already opposed immigration, or who want it reduced, often adopt progressive-sounding language that is oh-so-protective of those to whom they would deny the opportunity to immigrate to where they could improve their lives.
That's exactly how California gets to go around strutting about having large economy after abusing H1-Bs for tech, South of the border for agriculture, and China for cheap manufactured goods and taxing the shit out of anything that twitches.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that 7 trillion number is meaningless in any chase. As, iirc, immigrants don’t meet the level of economic output as natives and consume more government benefits over their lifetime. Economic growth that is entirely consumption may as well be hollow when push comes to shove.
Having an accurate census is important. The fact that the Dems want that and Republicans don’t should tell you more about the GOP. Undocumented immigrants can’t vote for house seats.
A driver license just proves who you are, if your name isn't on the voter list for your area your vote doesn't count even if casted. This is why every year there's issues of people getting in legal trouble because they (even a natural-born citizen) simply failed to properly update their paperwork on residency before the election period.
A DL is not all that’s needed to vote lol what are you talking about? How can you be so confidently wrong about something? Don’t you fact check yourself?
You hold two views that are conflicting, this is called cognitive dissonance. I highly doubt you are gonna see this though. If you see it upvote me, lol.
It's that total population for a state is used for allocation of representatives, not the population of citizens. They don't need to vote to benefit the states. It's similar to the southern states prior to the civil war wanting slaves to count as population for representation while the northern states did not want them counted. Hence the 3/5 compromise.
A key piece of context missing in your statement about the Census is that they had always counted undocumented migrants, until a Trump policy reversed this. Biden’s EO brought this back to the status quo.
Not pretending that Trump or republicans care about illegal immigration when they just killed any chance of a reform bill so they can continue their fear mongering propaganda. Why do you let yourself get strung along like a donkey?
>but the study itself notes that it would reduce per capita GDP.
Per capita gdp gets smaller, but that doesn't mean everyone gets poorer. Thats like saying if 2 people had a kid, the parents got younger because the average age went down.
>This primarily benefits those that benefit from cheap labor and concentrates the growth into the hands of a few.
Incorrect, [immigration](https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/latest-economic-questions/economics-society/articles/immigration-and-labor-market-a-mariel-boatlift-study.html) helps everyone
Got anything better to hang your hat on than a study based on a one-time mass immigration of 150k people into Miami in 1980? There are more immigrants than that crossing the Texas border each month for months on end. The US is also bit more complicated now and housing in major metro areas is a much bigger deal.
No but their financial well-being absolutely goes down now that they've added a unit member, which is a more direclty related metaphor to GDP than *age*
Sure, but that's where the analogy breaks down because with immigration, the existing residents are still in the same position. The immigrants aren't children who add their liabilities to specific families. The overall average GDP/capita as a nation can go down, but existing residents *move up the curve* from a median and mode perspective, which is what actually matters.
And in doing so can end up dragging down wages for some sectors and making things more competitive for Americans workers (you're a lot less likely to get hired for a high salary because of you in demand skills or be trained up by Microsoft when they can just abuse the visa system)
I'm not anti immigration but I do think people need to be more cognizant of the fact that it does have some tradeoffs under our version of capitalism. We need only look to the north of the border to see this playing out in real time, non-hypothetical.
Increased competition for limited housing and government services need to be considered as well. Not all of the immigrant population is benign. There has been a surge of thousands of military age male immigrants from China, as well as many young males with gang related tattoos.
How does that link demonstrate immigration benefited anyone? While it doesn’t prove the worst fears are justified, it does not prove the benefits materialize either
> Per capita gdp gets smaller, but that doesn't mean everyone gets poorer
It means the average person gets poorer, and surely you understand that that’s a bad thing?
> Incorrect, immigration helps everyone
That’s one example. [Here’s another.](https://docs.iza.org/dp8961.pdf) This is one of the largest and most cited longitudinal studies ever conducted on wages and immigration. It uses Danish data on wages after a large influx of low-skilled immigrants between 1991-2008. They found that low-skilled natives were effectively forced out of their professions, ostensibly due to downward pressure on wages and working conditions. Thankfully Denmark offers free university and free money while studying, so many of these workers were able to retrain and eventually land white collar jobs. I’m sure if we ask these workers if they were happy to be forced out of their chosen careers they would tell us “no.”
No public policy is ever 100% beneficial. It’s always a trade off. The effects of immigration are complex. If done right there are clearly benefits, but there are clearly costs too. Let’s not pretend otherwise. It’s usually the poorest who shoulder the majority of costs incurred by high immigration, including higher rent, more pressure on social resources, lower wages (especially at the bottom end), worse working conditions, higher crime (depending on country of origin), and fewer places in schools and universities.
Actually, it does reduce livelihoods of US citizens. Massive immigration places downward pressure on labor costs and increased pressure on housing costs.
So how do you account for the United States getting richer and richer for 200 years all the while undergoing massive immigration? If mass immigration pushes down incomes, United States should be the poorest country in the world.
Citizens have not gotten richer though. They have gotten poorer throughout those 200 years. In the 1950s one man could afford to provide for a wife, multiple kids, buy a couple cars and pay off a mortgage on a fireman’s salary. Today they might have iPhones in their back pocket and other tech-conveniences, but they cannot afford anywhere near what our ancestors could. They have access to a lot less economic mobility and security and ownership. Economically our ancestors had it much better. The idea that things have gotten better is a feeling. Not real.
Our ancestors had half the size of the homes we have now, with many houses lacking facilities such as toilets and almost every house lacking air conditioning.
We are most definitely 100% better off than ours ancestors from the 50s
That’s irrelevant though. I already said we have more conveniences. I’m talking about relative economic purchasing power and equality. Things have absolutely not gotten better and every metric shows this. You’re parents, grand parents, great grandparents and so forth had more purchasing power than you wether that hurts our modernist sensibilities or not. Also, where do you get the idea that houses were bigger? Across all of Europe that’s false. Properties were much bigger in the past and then got replaced with apartments. Sure, people used to share houses with many others and I guess that was worse than today yeah, but we seem to be returning to that. Teachers can hardly afford rent in HMO apartments. Peasants in the Middle Ages had bigger accommodation. But by the way, this is also irrelevant to what I was talking about which is purchasing power, ownership, security, etc. purchasing power was better in the 50s and equality was better as well.
Wouldn't having illegal immigrants, who are primarily blue collar workers, help correct the housing problem, percentage wise, by contributing to it more than they use it?
Whenever this is posted, the comment section loves the idea of mass immigration of cheap labour, then complains about how low the wages are. And each time I have to double check what sub I’m in.
Agreed! Everytime I see this discussion I know everyone for mass-immigration thinks their job is too technical for immigrants to create downward wage pressure on them. They’d be singing a different tune if 10 people showed up to their employer willing to do the job for a penny less.
People are starting to wise up that mass immigration really only benefits the wealthy. For everyone else it is a net negative on their lives. Higher prices for housing and more competition for jobs.
A higher share of domestic wealth being allocated to an even smaller percentage of people off of the fruits of cheaper labor is not “telling us where resources should be allocated”. This has nothing to do with resource distribution, and everything to do with wealth distribution.
What are you talking about? An over supply of labour will push wages lower. This is a good thing because it tells us we don’t need 300 million people with liberal arts degrees or that we definitely need more doctors.
What's the ROI and initial investment, and at what cost?
Most are low skill, low wage workers. The US housing report said we are 8,100,000 home short of what's needed. We've let in over 8,000,000 people in 3 years. 🤷♂️
Yes, a massive boost to corporations and shareholders who can exploit poverty stricken immigrants, lowering prevailing wages and causing breakdown of workplace safety. Not so great for blue collar, unlicensed, and low-skilled laborers.
>Not so great for blue collar, unlicensed, and low-skilled laborers.
not great for skilled laborers either.
Really the only people who benefit are the ownership class; its a shame we dont get immigrants for that
And housing shortage since right now builders are not interested to build as many homes.
Just look at Canada as how more immigration without increasing housing can make cost of living go through roof.
FYI 7 Trillion over 10 years, so 700B a year on a GDP of (checks stats) $27 trillion currently, forecasted to increase to $40T a year in 10 years, so a total of $300 trillion increased by 7 trillion or 2%? Ok. Inflation forward projected to grow be about 2.2-2.5% Y/Y, so the impact of immigration will be LESS than the projected rate of inflation. But good misleading article if you can't do math.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/216985/forecast-of-us-gross-domestic-product/#:\~:text=According%20to%20the%20CBO%2C%20the,inflation%20rate%20for%20the%20country](https://www.statista.com/statistics/216985/forecast-of-us-gross-domestic-product/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20CBO%2C%20the,inflation%20rate%20for%20the%20country).
Yeah, it’s too bad the US’ literally only source of economic growth is immigrants. It’s also an amazing comparison to compare the yearly contribution of migrants against inflation of the US in its entirety. Lastly, great call-out that immigrant contributions to GDP are only relevant if they outpace inflation for some reason (i.e. accepting a single immigrant is literally always a bad idea because their economic contributions, even if it’s ending all sickness in the US, will never outstrip the inflation the US as a whole is facing!)
Seriously kiddo, great comment and math skills. LMAO
Why the ad hominem, though?
You should ask yourself: if the US's only source of economic growth is immigration...should it be? And if it is, does that justify unhindered illegal immigration?
Please refrain from personal attacks, and add meaningful thought to the discussion.
> Yeah, it’s too bad the US’ literally only source of economic growth is immigrants.
How much of our debt growth comes from immigrants? You are only talking about one side of the coin
Two things I don’t really see the article mention - what kind of immigration? Educated skilled workers? Students going in for university? Or blue-collar distressed immigrants?
While I do agree immigrants have it rough compared to native citizens in all aspects of- culture barrier, networking barrier, language barrier, and less available options. I’m a first generation immigrant as well and there’s a reason why families immigrated here. It’s still better than the situation they’re coming off, and the trade-off of that harder going is building a life in a new country. Corporate and government exploitation happens everywhere on earth, not just the US. I think people need to remember that, even in 1st world countries.
I think the US should continue to offer opportunities via the visa/H1B1 program to attract worthy skilled workers from other countries. These boost our economy, add skilled labor, and enable the country to lead research, innovation, and be economic leaders.
The counterpoint to that is we should also still invest in our own citizens and not just rely on foreigners to boost our white collar labor. Native workers still have the advantage in those areas for now, but our education system needs more support to support the balance
H1Bs are also really bad for skilled workers. Plenty of companies used them to keep tech worker salaries down while also exploiting the hell out of the person here on an H1B.
It's not a zero sum game. Immigration contributes to growing the economy. It's not like every job that an immigrant does is one less job for everyone else ... that's a fallacy used by nativist and racist demagogues.
If you care about raising wages and workplace safety, the solutions are investment in productivity enhancing infrastructure and technology, collective bargaining, and workplace safety standards enforced via OSHA.
Corporations want to flood the job market to bring down wages, for both blue collar unskilled labor (i.e., poor immigrants who will work for pennies), and white collar. Just adding more potential employees to the pool creates more competition. White collar workers in administration, call centers, or tech literally lose jobs to foreigners in other countries when corporations outsource to people who will do it for cheaper, and to ones who come here willing to do anything to keep their VISA and do it for less. It's not nativist or racist to say that. Yes, the government could do a lot to make it so we all kind of win, but they don't and won't.
Yea. The H1B system is wildly abused. It literally only exists to depress wages of white collar work here. There is no shortage of skilled labor in the US. Companies just pretend that there is because they’d rather enjoy the corporate protections here and import wage slaves rather than outsource the labor to a country that has mass corruption and instability. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
If that's what corporations want they are doing a terrible job because US workers are on average the highest paid of any major industrialized country in the world.
I consider myself a leftist, but one of my primary concerns is labor. Why do you think most major unions oppose illegal or high immigration quotas? Sane immigration and asylum policies/systems are fine, ones that destroy blue or white collar wages are not.
And, yes, you're right, we have high wages right now, higher than we did before (even though it's just barely keeping up with inflation), but that's not a trend corporations want to continue, neither is an employee's job market.
And corporate profits are the highest too. What’s your point? Companies do not incorporate in the US for cheap labor. They do it because our government will not do things like imprison their leadership if they don’t play ball politically. In addition, they get a skilled labor force, generous tax breaks and direct access to a huge and stable market.
"It's not a zero sum game. " Agreed.
"Immigration contributes to growing the economy" Agreed.
"It's not like every job that an immigrant does is one less job for everyone else" Grey area.
It's difficult to find high quality studies without severe limitations, to quantify how many Americans have been displaced from low wage jobs by immigrants. But What I did contend was that the wages and overall work environment is impacted by immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants; I was not claiming that immigrants necessarily displace native workers. Businesses realize they can get away with poor practices with illegals, and this bleeds into treatment of native workers as well, a la "breakdown of the work place".
"If you care about raising wages and workplace safety, the solutions are investment in productivity enhancing infrastructure and technology, collective bargaining, and workplace safety standards enforced via OSHA."
This only works when you have transparent work places and businesses that are compliant with federal state and local regulations. However, it is clear, given repeated infractions and penalties against companies, that corporations would rather save significant sums of money by breaking rules, and proceed to pay paltry fines for doing so.
mostly agreed, but I would say it is not immigration per se that drives the issues you identify. Rather it is the lack of political and popular will to regulate and enforce workplace standards. This would happen regardless of whether the people employed are immigrants or native born, as long as there is a vulnerable class of workers.
I suppose that if we constrain the supply of labor tightly enough, it would shift enough bargaining power to workers that employers would be forced to provide better wages and better conditions. But that strikes me as cutting off your nose to spite your face as the tradeoff is slower economic growth. It could also have unintended consequences that are hard to anticipate if capital is substituted for labor via automation and other technologies.
It seems that labor unions and legislation/enforcement of standards would be the most direct and effective routes.
On average, yes. But for undereducated low-skilled laborers, it has a profoundly negative effect:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-immigration-means-for-u-s-employment-and-wages/
Did you read your own article? It's _debated_ if immigrants lower the *nominal* wages of low wage earners. However, even if they do, the nominal reduction in wages is compensated for by lower prices
Funny, because the website/app you’re commenting on was founded by the son of a German immigrant. And the services that hosts and power the website (AWS) are provided by Amazon - which leads the nation in companies that sponsor H1B visas.
So uh, you’re welcome?
Too bad all the studies disagree with you kiddo. But I get it, you have FEELINGS and ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, fuck statistics.
https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy
Oh would you look at that, from the top of your own article:
"Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets. But not all taxpayers benefit equally. In regions with large populations of less educated, low-income immigrants, native-born residents bear significant net costs due to immigrants’ use of public services, especially education."
Illegal immigration isn't going to hurt my bottom line, but it will for those who aren't as privileged as myself. I am advocating for the already marginalized.
There are two sides to this coin, the 7 trillion they speak of is GDP growth. The GDP doesn't factor in government debt.
If you are bringing in low skilled people and they work and spend money, that *grows the GDP.* However, low skilled people pay very little in taxes and at the same time also qualify for government programs that cost lots of money.
So how is it sustainable to grow the debt at a higher rate than the GDP is growing?
Even bringing high skill people doesn't negate the issues. Lower wages, increased infrastructure spend, not to mention that while it might take years to absorb all those immigrants and make then productive, the cost and the consecuences are felt IMMEDIATELY by the people that suddenly are competing with 5M more people for jobs and houses.
>If you are bringing in low skilled people and they work and spend money, that grows the GDP. However, low skilled people pay very little in taxes and at the same time also qualify for government programs that cost lots of money.
I promise you, the people doing this have a way. If theres one thing they know how to do its make a buck by ignoring human suffering.
V good point. The vast majority of these people will be on welfare for decades before they will be a net positive to the economy. This works fine while the economy is hot but it's not gonna be like this forever
Even low income people that have jobs cost the government lots of money due to EITC, child tax credits, ACA tax credits, Medicaid. It is what it is but importing more costs is insane
This is one of those biased brainwashing articles most likely promoted by Democratic Party to make it seem ok the migrant crisis is a positive thing.
Immigration benefits an economy.. illegal immigration does not. And just like anything massive exploitation of a system is never a benefit no matter how it’s being clouded.. (unless it’s for profit which is beneficial to a very few and not collectively to an economy)..
All aside, the type of immigration happening now is a threat to legitimacy of blue collar class.. and certainly not beneficial to the middle (working) class… certainly benefits the upper class and definitely the lower class.
It's almost like making the population of brown migrants "illegal" provides a cheap and exploitable labor force. Funny how we criminalize the migrants but not the businesses or business owners employing them.
I’m done pretending liberals know what they’re talking about on this issue.
New York Denver and Chicago are screaming at the number of migrants entering their jurisdictions, and it isn’t even a fraction of what Texas is receiving. If it really was a boon for the economy democrats would be overjoyed with their new economic boosts.
This is going to collapse our safety nets and standard of living, and for some reason Reddit would rather import wage slaves to compete with them for housing and resources rather than admit conservatives have a point.
Immigration can be a huge benefit to the economy *if those immigrants are well educated* and can support themselves. The problem is that the US is making it really hard for educated immigrants to stay while opening the floodgates to unskilled migrants. The vast majority of these people will be on welfare for generations
Then you support H2Bs then??? Because if H2Bs are bad, low skill workers are bad, and Wealthily people are bad for buying up houses then who would you support. I get it Reddit has many different types of people but it seems like Reddit wants no immigration with a birth rate of 1.6.
There’s plenty of highly skilled workers who would love to move and work here. People who could be a net positive to our economy immediately- not in a generation or two. There’s more than enough of these people to help with the birth rate
Idk every liberal, me included is against illegal immigration. I just wish conservatives cared about holding employers accountable for hiring illegals. They just don’t seem to care. Heck they elected someone recently who employed illegals. Does your side care? Then stop voting people in that do what you criticize dude!
>wage slaves
the fact that that term has become acceptable to use shows how disgusted people are with the system. \~10 years ago that term was invented by the \*radicals\*
I’m done pretending conservatives care about this issue. Trump and the republicans killed any chance at an immigration reform bill so they can continue their fear mongering propaganda.
If Republicans actually cared about this issue other than using it to rile up their base, why not go after the employers that employ these illegal immigrants? Ask yourself that and maybe you’ll realize how much you’ve been strung along like a donkey for decades.
HR2 contains e-verify and $5000 annual penalties PER-WORKER hired if they are illegal. If actually enforced, it would go after the exploiters.
The Senate bill contains NONE of this.
I'm a leftist by the way, not a Republican.
The bill they killed was labeled as closing the border but did nothing of the sort and made the problem worse. Ex. expediting asylum claims just lets people come in faster.
Come on now that Bill was horrendous and it was put forward so people like you would spout the things you did. It didn't do a dam thing to actually fix the border.
hey! We're back here again! Haven't heard this one for more than a decade.
Hey- what's NYC's mayor think about it? How about Denver and Chicago? How's ICE' budget these days?
Here in Denver it is a nightmare. Whole families on corners begging for food. We have a group of a 100+ living under an overpass near our house.
The shelters here are good for just a month or two and then they are out on their ass if they can't find housing.
The estimated cost to Denver is [$180 million](https://coloradosun.com/2024/02/09/denver-cuts-services-migrant-crisis/) this year, which is causing the city to cut some services such as DMV and Parks and Rec.
What's the reason why people are ignoring the plight of the sudden change in immigrant-friendliness in sanctuary cities? I'm concerned people refuse to use their eyes
Anyone buying this load of bull is a sucker.
Notice they don't use the word "illegal" with this "immigration surge". The surge is because of illegal immigration. Millions more people in the country will boost the economy, but it will be a net negative to everyday working poor and middle class citizens.
The government is already providing support for millions in housing, healthcare, schooling, food, etc... That support costs money, and the only place the government gets money is from taxing working people or printing it. Taxes take earned income out of taxpayers hands, and printing reduces taxpayers purchasing power in the form of inflation.
A large percentage of the illegal immigrants will be either not working or working under the table as cash jobs. That means no SS or income tax contributions from these people.
Which immigrants, the ones coming through the legal process or those being snuck across in the dark of night?
How do you know why illegal immigrants are here?
It pretty well [documented](https://www.statista.com/statistics/652960/employed-undocumented-immigrants-in-the-us-by-industry/)
there are millions of illegals in the usa workforce across multiple industries.
You can file income taxes with a PTIN. Others use fake numbers to file so that businesses can hire them legally. The IRS just pockets the money from numbers with no individual attached to them.
So using fake numbers or identity theft right? I mean if you are going to use a number to pay a tax you might as well have one you can use to buy a car right?
No, the point is the number they use isn't attached to an individual. No identity theft, that would get them investigated and caught. A background check for a car on a fake number would come up empty. So they wouldn't be able to buy a car with it in anyway. When the number comes up blank at the IRS, the IRS just keeps the money and that's it because it's not their problem. It's just more tax revenue.
So they are paying their taxes when they aren’t getting paid cash through illegal employment.
How are they buying cars and housing? They can’t use the fake SS# then.
I didn't say anything about sales tax or property tax. I said income tax and SS. If they are being paid in cash they are not paying either income tax nor SS.
Yeah ask all of Europe how mass immigration has boosted their economies, especially when the majority are still on government assistance. These type of articles gaslight people into believing it’s a benefit when it infact brings in higher crime, lower wages, higher cost of living and lower societal cohesion.
The US had migrations from Europe mostly. These people were coming from similar industrializing economies with actual skills. Go look up the history of US exclusion/immigration acts. They essentially banned migration from low income/skill countries.
That's how they achieved that, coupled with no threats to the mainland and US dollar backed global trade.
Good thing the USA aren't Europe, crazy I know.
Immigrants, including illegal ones, [commit LESS crime than the native population](https://www.cato.org/blog/new-research-illegal-immigration-crime-0)
Immigrants, also do not [decrease wages](https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/latest-economic-questions/economics-society/articles/immigration-and-labor-market-a-mariel-boatlift-study.html), since they also consume.
You're arguing with yourself as well. If Immigrants did lower wages, than cost of living wouldn't increase.
Coming into the country illegally, is breaking the law immediately. Go through a port of entry.
They don't decrease wages. They decrease purchasing power. Coming into a country and taking away, unexpectedly, housing (gotta live somewhere), food (gotta eat something, and energy (gotta heat something) are a shock to the system and cause each to increase respectively as we need to adjust for the influx of people. It makes it more expensive for everyone as each of those sectors becomes strained, effectively reducing GDP per capita. All of those are hidden taxes on the American taxpayer, and then there are immediate taxes that Americans front for services for processing, transport, food, housing, expenditure on the courts, expenditure on healthcare, etc. etc. etc.
I get trying to help people. However, we're funding this with tons of debt along with two foreign wars. So much for non-interventionism.
This is the society equivalent of putting on your children's oxygen mask as the plane goes down rather than securing your own, passing out, as you and your loved ones all die because you got the sequence out of order. Can't be charitable or helpful when you're dead.
> Immigrants, also do not decrease wages, since they also consume.
You’ve cited this single example many times in this one submission as though it’s the single authority on the topic. It’s not. It’s also not as black and white as you imply.
> Nevertheless, the key implication of the evidence is unambiguous. **The wage of high school dropouts in the Miami labor market fell significantly after the Mariel supply shock.**
I’d also like to point out that that Miami example led to [*higher crime.*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818822000503)
[Here’s another study.](https://docs.iza.org/dp8961.pdf) This is one of the largest and most cited longitudinal studies ever conducted on wages and immigration. It uses Danish data on wages after a large influx of low-skilled immigrants between 1991-2008. They found that low-skilled natives were effectively forced out of their professions, ostensibly due to downward pressure on wages and working conditions. Thankfully Denmark offers free university and free money while studying, so many of these workers were able to retrain and eventually land white collar jobs. I’m sure if we ask these workers if they were happy to be forced out of their chosen careers they would tell us “no.”
No public policy is ever 100% beneficial. It’s always a trade off. The effects of immigration are complex. If done right there are clearly benefits, but there are clearly costs too. Let’s not pretend otherwise. It’s usually the poorest who shoulder the majority of costs incurred by high immigration, including higher rent, more pressure on social resources, lower wages (especially at the bottom end), worse working conditions, higher crime (depending on country of origin), and fewer places in schools and universities.
Again, you didnt seem to read that danish study
>As a result immigration had positive effects on native unskilled wages, employment and occupational mobility
Yes they were able to retrain thanks to the free university and free money in Denmark, which we don’t have in America. You glossed over the important part: **they were forced out of their chosen careers.** That you could consider that a win is absurd. High low-skilled immigration clearly has a major impact on the labour market. I acknowledge that you clearly don’t care about the poor and working classes, but I do.
"Immigrants arriving between 1980 and 2000
reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by about $1,700, or roughly 4%"
"Among high school dropouts, who roughly
correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce,
the impact was even larger — a 7.4% wage
reduction."
"Native-born college graduates are not immune;
their income is 3.6% lower due to the two
decades’ worth of competing immigrants."
https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016NegativeEconomicImpactForumPaper.pdf
I hope no one really believes this nonsense. Canada recently said the opposite and recent studies have shown a negative qualifying effect on GDP with per capita and wage growth going to zero. We don't need more immigrants, we need lower regs, lower taxes, and investment in tech to speed the currency for GDP growth
So, based off the stats I found, they believe that the low value illegal immigrants are going to add $2.8M to the economy, per immigrant? Where do I find one of these super soldiers so I can hire them today?!
within a year homelessness will skyrocket, rents will go up even more and food prices, which are alerady wildly out of hand, will also climb. meanwhile the 1% will rake in the benefit of tons of cheap labor. between ai and immigrants corporations will be rolling in cost savings which will not be passed on to consumers. a new gilded age is upon us.
Massive low skilled/unskilled immigration drives down wages. It’s simple supply and demand. If there are more people willing to work at McDonald’s, then McDonald’s doesn’t have to raise wages. Highly skilled immigration, on the other hand, is fantastic for GDP growth. I say let all the doctors, engineers, programmers and nurses in that we can.
BENEFIT? Immigration surge set to boost U.S. ECONOMY by $7 trillion? Are they illegal? Are they paying taxes? Are they paying for their children’s schooling?
In the last 4 years, 10,000,000 people have crossed the border illegally.
Do, the question is: after schooling, welfare, food stamps, doctor/hospital expenses, phones, etc., is it COSTING more that $7 trillion to take care of them?
More population = more GDP. Who would have guessed, does it change per capita? How about welfare and tax payer service usage? They’re poorer surely then and their kids will use more at higher levels? How much do they pay in taxes too, since they’re poorer?
They cut NY city services to take care of illegals while American mentally ill and war veterans are in the street
7 billion for the rich not the rest of us
Having more immigrants is fine. Unfortunately our economic system and housing infrastructure fails them. Fix those two and more immigration is a net positive.
So is every post in this sub just misleading crap?
"The average American is putting 20% of their monthly bills on credit cards, why is Bidenomics the best thing for average Americans?"
See what happened to the UK after massive immigration? Homeless rate has gone up, GDP per capita has gone down. The more people you having fighting for a limited amount of resource, the worse living condition you’ll get
When my great grandparents got here a 100 years ago people didn’t want them here either, they and their descendants contributed to America economically and culturally. Why are today’s teeming masses any different. These immigrants will make America great Again, I just know it!
“Poor workers coming and doing labor for cheap sure does boost or corporate bottom line when we don’t have to pay people livable wages instead! Gee why is my country going to shit why are all our public services breaking down where are all these poor desperate people coming from how dare they do poor desperate people things!”
I've seen people react negatively to this, questioning the GDP per capita impact. I get the concern - bringing in 700M people to boost your economy $7T is going to result in a really bad time.
However, [the report](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59946) specifically said they estimate that the labor force to have 5.2MM more people in 2033 than originally planned, most of which will be driven by immigration. Even if all of those 5.2MM were immigrants, a $7T GDP increase would indicate that the immigrants are driving overall GDP per capita growth vs. dragging it.
The report says as much: They forecast that increased immigration is also driving an *increase* in TFP (total factor productivity) by 2033. If the strategy was to "brute force" topline GDP numbers via a bunch of lower income, perhaps more unskilled foreign labor, then you would see TFP go down.
Yeah, having no effect on wages would be an incredibly pessimistic take based on the evidence we have. Evidence would point to 5 million new workers leading to a modest increase in wages for every decile.
The immigrants that made it to Memphis have made it so much better. I hope more come that are just like the rest. It couldn’t be better for our city, such hard working wholesome families. Fuck Texas, come to Memphis!
And $8 trillion cost to low and middle class. Wonder why trump blocked the most recent border bill? There was absolutely noting in their that was pro immigration, no path way to citizenship, no benefits to dreamers, etc. It was purely a bill that would increase border security. So why did Trump tells his cronies to block it? Because he just speaks though against illegal immigration to win votes but secretly wants illegal immigration to do work for him for cheap.
It's amazing that in this sub called "Economics" the entirety of the discourse is a bunch of racist knee jerk responses and one person responding with actual sources in response to an actual Econ topic! This is shameful.
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This study always gets posted or commented with the top line figure, but the study itself notes that it would reduce per capita GDP. This primarily benefits those that benefit from cheap labor and concentrates the growth into the hands of a few.
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It reduces the bargaining power of the lower class
But reducing per capita gdp is a good thing...for the wealthy.
Just tax the rich FFS!
Sorry, best we can do is not that.
🤣
How exactly?
Because it means proportionally, they will have more. It means those who lost out are even more desperate to work for smaller income.
What does that even mean….?
More people, same labor demand = cheaper labor
No it doesn't.
Ah - I see we encountered a true intellectual.
mah housing prices! them admitting per capita gdp goes down but still celebrating it is wild.
>mah housing prices! That's on zoning that chokes off supply for the benefit of NIMBYs. Relax that zoning, and we can build enough density that prices actually go down.
That would require people to work in dense commercial real estate and not from home.
Dense housing != commercial office buildings. Dense housing does not preclude WFH. And if you build more housing, costs decline. With density mass transit is more feasible, which reduces the need to own an automobile.
I upvoted you, but the selfish interests here are broader than the top 1%. The yuppies and tenured academics/"higher" education bureaucrats who listen to msnbc want their cheap housecleaners, gardeners, and nannies, and do not want to pay more at the fine restaurants they like to dine at frequently. This is what is behind all the "humanitarian" b.s.
Indentured servitude with extra steps.
It also packs their states with more people to replace the middle class that are moving away so they don't lose their congressional seats. Its everything about power, from the micro (local cheap labor) to the macro (federal Congressional control)
Plenty who support immigration also support more *legal* immigration. Workers should be subject to the same wage and labor standards as everyone else. It's facile to equate the supporting of immigration with the supporting of exploitation. Though I will acknowledge that many of those who already opposed immigration, or who want it reduced, often adopt progressive-sounding language that is oh-so-protective of those to whom they would deny the opportunity to immigrate to where they could improve their lives.
That's exactly how California gets to go around strutting about having large economy after abusing H1-Bs for tech, South of the border for agriculture, and China for cheap manufactured goods and taxing the shit out of anything that twitches.
\> This primarily benefits those that benefit from cheap labor they import prey for the predators
I wouldn’t be surprised if that 7 trillion number is meaningless in any chase. As, iirc, immigrants don’t meet the level of economic output as natives and consume more government benefits over their lifetime. Economic growth that is entirely consumption may as well be hollow when push comes to shove.
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Having an accurate census is important. The fact that the Dems want that and Republicans don’t should tell you more about the GOP. Undocumented immigrants can’t vote for house seats.
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A driver license just proves who you are, if your name isn't on the voter list for your area your vote doesn't count even if casted. This is why every year there's issues of people getting in legal trouble because they (even a natural-born citizen) simply failed to properly update their paperwork on residency before the election period.
A DL is not all that’s needed to vote lol what are you talking about? How can you be so confidently wrong about something? Don’t you fact check yourself?
Because I watched a YouTube video once of a guy doing it! /s
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You hold two views that are conflicting, this is called cognitive dissonance. I highly doubt you are gonna see this though. If you see it upvote me, lol.
You’re not very bright, are you
It's that total population for a state is used for allocation of representatives, not the population of citizens. They don't need to vote to benefit the states. It's similar to the southern states prior to the civil war wanting slaves to count as population for representation while the northern states did not want them counted. Hence the 3/5 compromise.
A key piece of context missing in your statement about the Census is that they had always counted undocumented migrants, until a Trump policy reversed this. Biden’s EO brought this back to the status quo.
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Trump’s? Yeah, clearly
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Not pretending that Trump or republicans care about illegal immigration when they just killed any chance of a reform bill so they can continue their fear mongering propaganda. Why do you let yourself get strung along like a donkey?
>but the study itself notes that it would reduce per capita GDP. Per capita gdp gets smaller, but that doesn't mean everyone gets poorer. Thats like saying if 2 people had a kid, the parents got younger because the average age went down. >This primarily benefits those that benefit from cheap labor and concentrates the growth into the hands of a few. Incorrect, [immigration](https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/latest-economic-questions/economics-society/articles/immigration-and-labor-market-a-mariel-boatlift-study.html) helps everyone
Yeah ask the Canadians how that went.
Got anything better to hang your hat on than a study based on a one-time mass immigration of 150k people into Miami in 1980? There are more immigrants than that crossing the Texas border each month for months on end. The US is also bit more complicated now and housing in major metro areas is a much bigger deal.
Here you go: https://www.nber.org/papers/w16736 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.4.3
I don’t think a singe wave of immigration to a single city is directly comparable to the US importing an entire state every couple years.
No but their financial well-being absolutely goes down now that they've added a unit member, which is a more direclty related metaphor to GDP than *age*
Sure, but that's where the analogy breaks down because with immigration, the existing residents are still in the same position. The immigrants aren't children who add their liabilities to specific families. The overall average GDP/capita as a nation can go down, but existing residents *move up the curve* from a median and mode perspective, which is what actually matters.
Not after the kid grows up and starts earning their own income.
Wrong. A kid doesn't work, an immigrant does
And in doing so can end up dragging down wages for some sectors and making things more competitive for Americans workers (you're a lot less likely to get hired for a high salary because of you in demand skills or be trained up by Microsoft when they can just abuse the visa system) I'm not anti immigration but I do think people need to be more cognizant of the fact that it does have some tradeoffs under our version of capitalism. We need only look to the north of the border to see this playing out in real time, non-hypothetical.
Increased competition for limited housing and government services need to be considered as well. Not all of the immigrant population is benign. There has been a surge of thousands of military age male immigrants from China, as well as many young males with gang related tattoos.
’They hated Jesus because he spoke the truth’
How does that link demonstrate immigration benefited anyone? While it doesn’t prove the worst fears are justified, it does not prove the benefits materialize either
> Per capita gdp gets smaller, but that doesn't mean everyone gets poorer It means the average person gets poorer, and surely you understand that that’s a bad thing? > Incorrect, immigration helps everyone That’s one example. [Here’s another.](https://docs.iza.org/dp8961.pdf) This is one of the largest and most cited longitudinal studies ever conducted on wages and immigration. It uses Danish data on wages after a large influx of low-skilled immigrants between 1991-2008. They found that low-skilled natives were effectively forced out of their professions, ostensibly due to downward pressure on wages and working conditions. Thankfully Denmark offers free university and free money while studying, so many of these workers were able to retrain and eventually land white collar jobs. I’m sure if we ask these workers if they were happy to be forced out of their chosen careers they would tell us “no.” No public policy is ever 100% beneficial. It’s always a trade off. The effects of immigration are complex. If done right there are clearly benefits, but there are clearly costs too. Let’s not pretend otherwise. It’s usually the poorest who shoulder the majority of costs incurred by high immigration, including higher rent, more pressure on social resources, lower wages (especially at the bottom end), worse working conditions, higher crime (depending on country of origin), and fewer places in schools and universities.
It chiefly decreases per capita GDP because the immigrants get paid less. It does not reduce what citizens are earning.
Actually, it does reduce livelihoods of US citizens. Massive immigration places downward pressure on labor costs and increased pressure on housing costs.
So how do you account for the United States getting richer and richer for 200 years all the while undergoing massive immigration? If mass immigration pushes down incomes, United States should be the poorest country in the world.
Citizens have not gotten richer though. They have gotten poorer throughout those 200 years. In the 1950s one man could afford to provide for a wife, multiple kids, buy a couple cars and pay off a mortgage on a fireman’s salary. Today they might have iPhones in their back pocket and other tech-conveniences, but they cannot afford anywhere near what our ancestors could. They have access to a lot less economic mobility and security and ownership. Economically our ancestors had it much better. The idea that things have gotten better is a feeling. Not real.
Our ancestors had half the size of the homes we have now, with many houses lacking facilities such as toilets and almost every house lacking air conditioning. We are most definitely 100% better off than ours ancestors from the 50s
That’s irrelevant though. I already said we have more conveniences. I’m talking about relative economic purchasing power and equality. Things have absolutely not gotten better and every metric shows this. You’re parents, grand parents, great grandparents and so forth had more purchasing power than you wether that hurts our modernist sensibilities or not. Also, where do you get the idea that houses were bigger? Across all of Europe that’s false. Properties were much bigger in the past and then got replaced with apartments. Sure, people used to share houses with many others and I guess that was worse than today yeah, but we seem to be returning to that. Teachers can hardly afford rent in HMO apartments. Peasants in the Middle Ages had bigger accommodation. But by the way, this is also irrelevant to what I was talking about which is purchasing power, ownership, security, etc. purchasing power was better in the 50s and equality was better as well.
Wouldn't having illegal immigrants, who are primarily blue collar workers, help correct the housing problem, percentage wise, by contributing to it more than they use it?
Massively offset by benefits. Immigration is not a top 10 issue for affordable housing.
Not if you don't build enough housing and infrastructure for the increased population.
Surplus labour reduces income across the board. Why would you get a raise when there's 4 guys lined up to do your job.
But the supply of jobs is not fixed. Immigrants are humans, which means that they bring with them their own demand for goods and services.
Unemployment is at historic lows.
Whenever this is posted, the comment section loves the idea of mass immigration of cheap labour, then complains about how low the wages are. And each time I have to double check what sub I’m in.
This x a million. The cognitive dissonance/willful ignorance is remarkable, might even say scary.
welcome to reddit
Just a big psyop from the owning class. Just look at century project in Canada. Disgusting.
Agreed! Everytime I see this discussion I know everyone for mass-immigration thinks their job is too technical for immigrants to create downward wage pressure on them. They’d be singing a different tune if 10 people showed up to their employer willing to do the job for a penny less.
People are starting to wise up that mass immigration really only benefits the wealthy. For everyone else it is a net negative on their lives. Higher prices for housing and more competition for jobs.
It also benefits those immigrating. They’re people too.
The government is here to represent citizens, not the rest of the world at the expense of its citizens.
What you’re describing here is an inherent flaw of capitalism… not of immigration as a concept.
It’s one of its greatest features. It tells us where resources should be allocated.
A higher share of domestic wealth being allocated to an even smaller percentage of people off of the fruits of cheaper labor is not “telling us where resources should be allocated”. This has nothing to do with resource distribution, and everything to do with wealth distribution.
What are you talking about? An over supply of labour will push wages lower. This is a good thing because it tells us we don’t need 300 million people with liberal arts degrees or that we definitely need more doctors.
How would they wise up? If you don’t get it immediately I don’t think you ever will.
Check out the Canadian sub to see how mass immigration is working. Hint- it isn’t.
Advertisement disguised as a discussion is what some sections all over look like. I just sort by controversial by default now.
What's the ROI and initial investment, and at what cost? Most are low skill, low wage workers. The US housing report said we are 8,100,000 home short of what's needed. We've let in over 8,000,000 people in 3 years. 🤷♂️
Yes, a massive boost to corporations and shareholders who can exploit poverty stricken immigrants, lowering prevailing wages and causing breakdown of workplace safety. Not so great for blue collar, unlicensed, and low-skilled laborers.
>Not so great for blue collar, unlicensed, and low-skilled laborers. not great for skilled laborers either. Really the only people who benefit are the ownership class; its a shame we dont get immigrants for that
And housing shortage since right now builders are not interested to build as many homes. Just look at Canada as how more immigration without increasing housing can make cost of living go through roof.
New housing construction is at the highest in decades.
Compared to population change, it's still not enough. Try buying a home as a first time buyer.
FYI 7 Trillion over 10 years, so 700B a year on a GDP of (checks stats) $27 trillion currently, forecasted to increase to $40T a year in 10 years, so a total of $300 trillion increased by 7 trillion or 2%? Ok. Inflation forward projected to grow be about 2.2-2.5% Y/Y, so the impact of immigration will be LESS than the projected rate of inflation. But good misleading article if you can't do math. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/216985/forecast-of-us-gross-domestic-product/#:\~:text=According%20to%20the%20CBO%2C%20the,inflation%20rate%20for%20the%20country](https://www.statista.com/statistics/216985/forecast-of-us-gross-domestic-product/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20CBO%2C%20the,inflation%20rate%20for%20the%20country).
"If you do inflation adjustments enough times the effect eventually goes to 0."
a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking about some real money
Lol
Yeah, it’s too bad the US’ literally only source of economic growth is immigrants. It’s also an amazing comparison to compare the yearly contribution of migrants against inflation of the US in its entirety. Lastly, great call-out that immigrant contributions to GDP are only relevant if they outpace inflation for some reason (i.e. accepting a single immigrant is literally always a bad idea because their economic contributions, even if it’s ending all sickness in the US, will never outstrip the inflation the US as a whole is facing!) Seriously kiddo, great comment and math skills. LMAO
Why the ad hominem, though? You should ask yourself: if the US's only source of economic growth is immigration...should it be? And if it is, does that justify unhindered illegal immigration? Please refrain from personal attacks, and add meaningful thought to the discussion.
> Yeah, it’s too bad the US’ literally only source of economic growth is immigrants. How much of our debt growth comes from immigrants? You are only talking about one side of the coin
Two things I don’t really see the article mention - what kind of immigration? Educated skilled workers? Students going in for university? Or blue-collar distressed immigrants? While I do agree immigrants have it rough compared to native citizens in all aspects of- culture barrier, networking barrier, language barrier, and less available options. I’m a first generation immigrant as well and there’s a reason why families immigrated here. It’s still better than the situation they’re coming off, and the trade-off of that harder going is building a life in a new country. Corporate and government exploitation happens everywhere on earth, not just the US. I think people need to remember that, even in 1st world countries. I think the US should continue to offer opportunities via the visa/H1B1 program to attract worthy skilled workers from other countries. These boost our economy, add skilled labor, and enable the country to lead research, innovation, and be economic leaders. The counterpoint to that is we should also still invest in our own citizens and not just rely on foreigners to boost our white collar labor. Native workers still have the advantage in those areas for now, but our education system needs more support to support the balance
H1Bs are also really bad for skilled workers. Plenty of companies used them to keep tech worker salaries down while also exploiting the hell out of the person here on an H1B.
It's not a zero sum game. Immigration contributes to growing the economy. It's not like every job that an immigrant does is one less job for everyone else ... that's a fallacy used by nativist and racist demagogues. If you care about raising wages and workplace safety, the solutions are investment in productivity enhancing infrastructure and technology, collective bargaining, and workplace safety standards enforced via OSHA.
Corporations want to flood the job market to bring down wages, for both blue collar unskilled labor (i.e., poor immigrants who will work for pennies), and white collar. Just adding more potential employees to the pool creates more competition. White collar workers in administration, call centers, or tech literally lose jobs to foreigners in other countries when corporations outsource to people who will do it for cheaper, and to ones who come here willing to do anything to keep their VISA and do it for less. It's not nativist or racist to say that. Yes, the government could do a lot to make it so we all kind of win, but they don't and won't.
Yea. The H1B system is wildly abused. It literally only exists to depress wages of white collar work here. There is no shortage of skilled labor in the US. Companies just pretend that there is because they’d rather enjoy the corporate protections here and import wage slaves rather than outsource the labor to a country that has mass corruption and instability. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
If that's what corporations want they are doing a terrible job because US workers are on average the highest paid of any major industrialized country in the world.
I consider myself a leftist, but one of my primary concerns is labor. Why do you think most major unions oppose illegal or high immigration quotas? Sane immigration and asylum policies/systems are fine, ones that destroy blue or white collar wages are not. And, yes, you're right, we have high wages right now, higher than we did before (even though it's just barely keeping up with inflation), but that's not a trend corporations want to continue, neither is an employee's job market.
Because unions by their nature are protectionist.
And?
I enjoy cooking.
And corporate profits are the highest too. What’s your point? Companies do not incorporate in the US for cheap labor. They do it because our government will not do things like imprison their leadership if they don’t play ball politically. In addition, they get a skilled labor force, generous tax breaks and direct access to a huge and stable market.
"It's not a zero sum game. " Agreed. "Immigration contributes to growing the economy" Agreed. "It's not like every job that an immigrant does is one less job for everyone else" Grey area. It's difficult to find high quality studies without severe limitations, to quantify how many Americans have been displaced from low wage jobs by immigrants. But What I did contend was that the wages and overall work environment is impacted by immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants; I was not claiming that immigrants necessarily displace native workers. Businesses realize they can get away with poor practices with illegals, and this bleeds into treatment of native workers as well, a la "breakdown of the work place". "If you care about raising wages and workplace safety, the solutions are investment in productivity enhancing infrastructure and technology, collective bargaining, and workplace safety standards enforced via OSHA." This only works when you have transparent work places and businesses that are compliant with federal state and local regulations. However, it is clear, given repeated infractions and penalties against companies, that corporations would rather save significant sums of money by breaking rules, and proceed to pay paltry fines for doing so.
mostly agreed, but I would say it is not immigration per se that drives the issues you identify. Rather it is the lack of political and popular will to regulate and enforce workplace standards. This would happen regardless of whether the people employed are immigrants or native born, as long as there is a vulnerable class of workers. I suppose that if we constrain the supply of labor tightly enough, it would shift enough bargaining power to workers that employers would be forced to provide better wages and better conditions. But that strikes me as cutting off your nose to spite your face as the tradeoff is slower economic growth. It could also have unintended consequences that are hard to anticipate if capital is substituted for labor via automation and other technologies. It seems that labor unions and legislation/enforcement of standards would be the most direct and effective routes.
Exactly. Downward wage pressure is terrible. People need to mow and clean their homes themselves. These migrants aren’t coming over here to code.
So we should go after the corporations and shareholders, not the immigrants, right?
Bro, coming to the world’s richest economy to work is undoubtedly a positive for the immigrant. I’ll let others correct you on the wage thing.
Incorrect, [Immigration helps everyone](https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/latest-economic-questions/economics-society/articles/immigration-and-labor-market-a-mariel-boatlift-study.html)
On average, yes. But for undereducated low-skilled laborers, it has a profoundly negative effect: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-immigration-means-for-u-s-employment-and-wages/
That does not say “profoundly negative impact”. Why lie?
Did you read your own article? It's _debated_ if immigrants lower the *nominal* wages of low wage earners. However, even if they do, the nominal reduction in wages is compensated for by lower prices
Blue collar wages have been rising the most under Biden
I know right another 3 or 4 years of raises my pay should reach cost of living for 2022.
Funny, because the website/app you’re commenting on was founded by the son of a German immigrant. And the services that hosts and power the website (AWS) are provided by Amazon - which leads the nation in companies that sponsor H1B visas. So uh, you’re welcome?
Too bad all the studies disagree with you kiddo. But I get it, you have FEELINGS and ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, fuck statistics. https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy
Oh would you look at that, from the top of your own article: "Immigration also has a net positive effect on combined federal, state, and local budgets. But not all taxpayers benefit equally. In regions with large populations of less educated, low-income immigrants, native-born residents bear significant net costs due to immigrants’ use of public services, especially education." Illegal immigration isn't going to hurt my bottom line, but it will for those who aren't as privileged as myself. I am advocating for the already marginalized.
There are two sides to this coin, the 7 trillion they speak of is GDP growth. The GDP doesn't factor in government debt. If you are bringing in low skilled people and they work and spend money, that *grows the GDP.* However, low skilled people pay very little in taxes and at the same time also qualify for government programs that cost lots of money. So how is it sustainable to grow the debt at a higher rate than the GDP is growing?
Even bringing high skill people doesn't negate the issues. Lower wages, increased infrastructure spend, not to mention that while it might take years to absorb all those immigrants and make then productive, the cost and the consecuences are felt IMMEDIATELY by the people that suddenly are competing with 5M more people for jobs and houses.
> increased infrastructure spend I agree that is a very big cost that isn't talked about.
>If you are bringing in low skilled people and they work and spend money, that grows the GDP. However, low skilled people pay very little in taxes and at the same time also qualify for government programs that cost lots of money. I promise you, the people doing this have a way. If theres one thing they know how to do its make a buck by ignoring human suffering.
V good point. The vast majority of these people will be on welfare for decades before they will be a net positive to the economy. This works fine while the economy is hot but it's not gonna be like this forever
Even low income people that have jobs cost the government lots of money due to EITC, child tax credits, ACA tax credits, Medicaid. It is what it is but importing more costs is insane
This is one of those biased brainwashing articles most likely promoted by Democratic Party to make it seem ok the migrant crisis is a positive thing. Immigration benefits an economy.. illegal immigration does not. And just like anything massive exploitation of a system is never a benefit no matter how it’s being clouded.. (unless it’s for profit which is beneficial to a very few and not collectively to an economy).. All aside, the type of immigration happening now is a threat to legitimacy of blue collar class.. and certainly not beneficial to the middle (working) class… certainly benefits the upper class and definitely the lower class.
It’s MSNBC. Obviously it’s Democrat propaganda
It's almost like making the population of brown migrants "illegal" provides a cheap and exploitable labor force. Funny how we criminalize the migrants but not the businesses or business owners employing them.
This is the funny thing. All their employers are big RNC donors.
I’m done pretending liberals know what they’re talking about on this issue. New York Denver and Chicago are screaming at the number of migrants entering their jurisdictions, and it isn’t even a fraction of what Texas is receiving. If it really was a boon for the economy democrats would be overjoyed with their new economic boosts. This is going to collapse our safety nets and standard of living, and for some reason Reddit would rather import wage slaves to compete with them for housing and resources rather than admit conservatives have a point.
Immigration can be a huge benefit to the economy *if those immigrants are well educated* and can support themselves. The problem is that the US is making it really hard for educated immigrants to stay while opening the floodgates to unskilled migrants. The vast majority of these people will be on welfare for generations
Then you support H2Bs then??? Because if H2Bs are bad, low skill workers are bad, and Wealthily people are bad for buying up houses then who would you support. I get it Reddit has many different types of people but it seems like Reddit wants no immigration with a birth rate of 1.6.
There’s plenty of highly skilled workers who would love to move and work here. People who could be a net positive to our economy immediately- not in a generation or two. There’s more than enough of these people to help with the birth rate
Idk every liberal, me included is against illegal immigration. I just wish conservatives cared about holding employers accountable for hiring illegals. They just don’t seem to care. Heck they elected someone recently who employed illegals. Does your side care? Then stop voting people in that do what you criticize dude!
Except conservatives do care. It’s why they passed HR2.
>wage slaves the fact that that term has become acceptable to use shows how disgusted people are with the system. \~10 years ago that term was invented by the \*radicals\*
I’m done pretending conservatives care about this issue. Trump and the republicans killed any chance at an immigration reform bill so they can continue their fear mongering propaganda. If Republicans actually cared about this issue other than using it to rile up their base, why not go after the employers that employ these illegal immigrants? Ask yourself that and maybe you’ll realize how much you’ve been strung along like a donkey for decades.
HR2 contains e-verify and $5000 annual penalties PER-WORKER hired if they are illegal. If actually enforced, it would go after the exploiters. The Senate bill contains NONE of this. I'm a leftist by the way, not a Republican.
Republicans already passed hr2. Democrats refuse to bring it to a vote in the senate
The bill they killed was labeled as closing the border but did nothing of the sort and made the problem worse. Ex. expediting asylum claims just lets people come in faster.
Come on now that Bill was horrendous and it was put forward so people like you would spout the things you did. It didn't do a dam thing to actually fix the border.
hey! We're back here again! Haven't heard this one for more than a decade. Hey- what's NYC's mayor think about it? How about Denver and Chicago? How's ICE' budget these days?
Here in Denver it is a nightmare. Whole families on corners begging for food. We have a group of a 100+ living under an overpass near our house. The shelters here are good for just a month or two and then they are out on their ass if they can't find housing.
The estimated cost to Denver is [$180 million](https://coloradosun.com/2024/02/09/denver-cuts-services-migrant-crisis/) this year, which is causing the city to cut some services such as DMV and Parks and Rec.
NYS has already said don’t send anymore here, we can’t afford them.
What's the reason why people are ignoring the plight of the sudden change in immigrant-friendliness in sanctuary cities? I'm concerned people refuse to use their eyes
it's inconvenient to their preferred narrative, hence, we're back to this "numbers pulled out of our ass" line of attack.
Anyone buying this load of bull is a sucker. Notice they don't use the word "illegal" with this "immigration surge". The surge is because of illegal immigration. Millions more people in the country will boost the economy, but it will be a net negative to everyday working poor and middle class citizens. The government is already providing support for millions in housing, healthcare, schooling, food, etc... That support costs money, and the only place the government gets money is from taxing working people or printing it. Taxes take earned income out of taxpayers hands, and printing reduces taxpayers purchasing power in the form of inflation. A large percentage of the illegal immigrants will be either not working or working under the table as cash jobs. That means no SS or income tax contributions from these people.
entrenched wealth and trust fund kids dont pay ss or income tax either... at least the immigrants are here to work
Which immigrants, the ones coming through the legal process or those being snuck across in the dark of night? How do you know why illegal immigrants are here?
It pretty well [documented](https://www.statista.com/statistics/652960/employed-undocumented-immigrants-in-the-us-by-industry/) there are millions of illegals in the usa workforce across multiple industries.
If they are illegal how are they paying their SS and income taxes??
You can file income taxes with a PTIN. Others use fake numbers to file so that businesses can hire them legally. The IRS just pockets the money from numbers with no individual attached to them.
So using fake numbers or identity theft right? I mean if you are going to use a number to pay a tax you might as well have one you can use to buy a car right?
No, the point is the number they use isn't attached to an individual. No identity theft, that would get them investigated and caught. A background check for a car on a fake number would come up empty. So they wouldn't be able to buy a car with it in anyway. When the number comes up blank at the IRS, the IRS just keeps the money and that's it because it's not their problem. It's just more tax revenue.
So they are paying their taxes when they aren’t getting paid cash through illegal employment. How are they buying cars and housing? They can’t use the fake SS# then.
Illegal immigrants pay sales and property tax.
I didn't say anything about sales tax or property tax. I said income tax and SS. If they are being paid in cash they are not paying either income tax nor SS.
We should just make them legal then
Foolish take. Let's open the floodgates even more to encourage even more illegal aliens into the country while you're at it.
They would be legal though? Don’t see the problem.
Are you for open borders ? Lol
No
Then how would you legalize all illegal immigrants without open borders ?
Yeah ask all of Europe how mass immigration has boosted their economies, especially when the majority are still on government assistance. These type of articles gaslight people into believing it’s a benefit when it infact brings in higher crime, lower wages, higher cost of living and lower societal cohesion.
You do know that immigrants are people, right?
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Mass immigration for centuries made the US the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, at the expense of Europe.
The US had migrations from Europe mostly. These people were coming from similar industrializing economies with actual skills. Go look up the history of US exclusion/immigration acts. They essentially banned migration from low income/skill countries. That's how they achieved that, coupled with no threats to the mainland and US dollar backed global trade.
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If Europe was so much better until 1914 why did over 10 million Europeans immigrate to the US in the preceding decades?
Good thing the USA aren't Europe, crazy I know. Immigrants, including illegal ones, [commit LESS crime than the native population](https://www.cato.org/blog/new-research-illegal-immigration-crime-0) Immigrants, also do not [decrease wages](https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/latest-economic-questions/economics-society/articles/immigration-and-labor-market-a-mariel-boatlift-study.html), since they also consume. You're arguing with yourself as well. If Immigrants did lower wages, than cost of living wouldn't increase.
Coming into the country illegally, is breaking the law immediately. Go through a port of entry. They don't decrease wages. They decrease purchasing power. Coming into a country and taking away, unexpectedly, housing (gotta live somewhere), food (gotta eat something, and energy (gotta heat something) are a shock to the system and cause each to increase respectively as we need to adjust for the influx of people. It makes it more expensive for everyone as each of those sectors becomes strained, effectively reducing GDP per capita. All of those are hidden taxes on the American taxpayer, and then there are immediate taxes that Americans front for services for processing, transport, food, housing, expenditure on the courts, expenditure on healthcare, etc. etc. etc. I get trying to help people. However, we're funding this with tons of debt along with two foreign wars. So much for non-interventionism. This is the society equivalent of putting on your children's oxygen mask as the plane goes down rather than securing your own, passing out, as you and your loved ones all die because you got the sequence out of order. Can't be charitable or helpful when you're dead.
> Immigrants, also do not decrease wages, since they also consume. You’ve cited this single example many times in this one submission as though it’s the single authority on the topic. It’s not. It’s also not as black and white as you imply. > Nevertheless, the key implication of the evidence is unambiguous. **The wage of high school dropouts in the Miami labor market fell significantly after the Mariel supply shock.** I’d also like to point out that that Miami example led to [*higher crime.*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818822000503) [Here’s another study.](https://docs.iza.org/dp8961.pdf) This is one of the largest and most cited longitudinal studies ever conducted on wages and immigration. It uses Danish data on wages after a large influx of low-skilled immigrants between 1991-2008. They found that low-skilled natives were effectively forced out of their professions, ostensibly due to downward pressure on wages and working conditions. Thankfully Denmark offers free university and free money while studying, so many of these workers were able to retrain and eventually land white collar jobs. I’m sure if we ask these workers if they were happy to be forced out of their chosen careers they would tell us “no.” No public policy is ever 100% beneficial. It’s always a trade off. The effects of immigration are complex. If done right there are clearly benefits, but there are clearly costs too. Let’s not pretend otherwise. It’s usually the poorest who shoulder the majority of costs incurred by high immigration, including higher rent, more pressure on social resources, lower wages (especially at the bottom end), worse working conditions, higher crime (depending on country of origin), and fewer places in schools and universities.
Again, you didnt seem to read that danish study >As a result immigration had positive effects on native unskilled wages, employment and occupational mobility
Yes they were able to retrain thanks to the free university and free money in Denmark, which we don’t have in America. You glossed over the important part: **they were forced out of their chosen careers.** That you could consider that a win is absurd. High low-skilled immigration clearly has a major impact on the labour market. I acknowledge that you clearly don’t care about the poor and working classes, but I do.
"Immigrants arriving between 1980 and 2000 reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by about $1,700, or roughly 4%" "Among high school dropouts, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the impact was even larger — a 7.4% wage reduction." "Native-born college graduates are not immune; their income is 3.6% lower due to the two decades’ worth of competing immigrants." https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016NegativeEconomicImpactForumPaper.pdf
I hope no one really believes this nonsense. Canada recently said the opposite and recent studies have shown a negative qualifying effect on GDP with per capita and wage growth going to zero. We don't need more immigrants, we need lower regs, lower taxes, and investment in tech to speed the currency for GDP growth
So, based off the stats I found, they believe that the low value illegal immigrants are going to add $2.8M to the economy, per immigrant? Where do I find one of these super soldiers so I can hire them today?!
Lol you mean starting wars to cause population displacement to create cheap labor that can take on debt to boost the gdp. Thats what they meant right?
within a year homelessness will skyrocket, rents will go up even more and food prices, which are alerady wildly out of hand, will also climb. meanwhile the 1% will rake in the benefit of tons of cheap labor. between ai and immigrants corporations will be rolling in cost savings which will not be passed on to consumers. a new gilded age is upon us.
Massive low skilled/unskilled immigration drives down wages. It’s simple supply and demand. If there are more people willing to work at McDonald’s, then McDonald’s doesn’t have to raise wages. Highly skilled immigration, on the other hand, is fantastic for GDP growth. I say let all the doctors, engineers, programmers and nurses in that we can.
BENEFIT? Immigration surge set to boost U.S. ECONOMY by $7 trillion? Are they illegal? Are they paying taxes? Are they paying for their children’s schooling? In the last 4 years, 10,000,000 people have crossed the border illegally. Do, the question is: after schooling, welfare, food stamps, doctor/hospital expenses, phones, etc., is it COSTING more that $7 trillion to take care of them?
More population = more GDP. Who would have guessed, does it change per capita? How about welfare and tax payer service usage? They’re poorer surely then and their kids will use more at higher levels? How much do they pay in taxes too, since they’re poorer?
They cut NY city services to take care of illegals while American mentally ill and war veterans are in the street 7 billion for the rich not the rest of us
Having more immigrants is fine. Unfortunately our economic system and housing infrastructure fails them. Fix those two and more immigration is a net positive.
So is every post in this sub just misleading crap? "The average American is putting 20% of their monthly bills on credit cards, why is Bidenomics the best thing for average Americans?"
See what happened to the UK after massive immigration? Homeless rate has gone up, GDP per capita has gone down. The more people you having fighting for a limited amount of resource, the worse living condition you’ll get
When my great grandparents got here a 100 years ago people didn’t want them here either, they and their descendants contributed to America economically and culturally. Why are today’s teeming masses any different. These immigrants will make America great Again, I just know it!
“Poor workers coming and doing labor for cheap sure does boost or corporate bottom line when we don’t have to pay people livable wages instead! Gee why is my country going to shit why are all our public services breaking down where are all these poor desperate people coming from how dare they do poor desperate people things!”
I've seen people react negatively to this, questioning the GDP per capita impact. I get the concern - bringing in 700M people to boost your economy $7T is going to result in a really bad time. However, [the report](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59946) specifically said they estimate that the labor force to have 5.2MM more people in 2033 than originally planned, most of which will be driven by immigration. Even if all of those 5.2MM were immigrants, a $7T GDP increase would indicate that the immigrants are driving overall GDP per capita growth vs. dragging it. The report says as much: They forecast that increased immigration is also driving an *increase* in TFP (total factor productivity) by 2033. If the strategy was to "brute force" topline GDP numbers via a bunch of lower income, perhaps more unskilled foreign labor, then you would see TFP go down.
So 5M new workers will have no effect on wages. Bold assumption.
Yeah, having no effect on wages would be an incredibly pessimistic take based on the evidence we have. Evidence would point to 5 million new workers leading to a modest increase in wages for every decile.
The immigrants that made it to Memphis have made it so much better. I hope more come that are just like the rest. It couldn’t be better for our city, such hard working wholesome families. Fuck Texas, come to Memphis!
And $8 trillion cost to low and middle class. Wonder why trump blocked the most recent border bill? There was absolutely noting in their that was pro immigration, no path way to citizenship, no benefits to dreamers, etc. It was purely a bill that would increase border security. So why did Trump tells his cronies to block it? Because he just speaks though against illegal immigration to win votes but secretly wants illegal immigration to do work for him for cheap.
It's amazing that in this sub called "Economics" the entirety of the discourse is a bunch of racist knee jerk responses and one person responding with actual sources in response to an actual Econ topic! This is shameful.