Low skilled workers in the US don’t produce manufactured goods that get into international trade. They mow lawns, replace roofs, clean houses, pick strawberries, wash dishes, …
If Americans want those services, they will pay enough to get US born workers to do them. If Americans don’t want to pay enough to hire US born workers, they won’t get the services. I don’t have an inalienable right to live a comfortable life on the backs of people earn vastly less than I do.
As part of the bargain, US governments spend less money on means-tested gov’t benefits. More people support themselves based on wages instead of wages plus government programs. I think they would like that. Fewer people are net drags on gov’t finances.
I don’t see the problem here.
I don’t believe your contention that immigrants naturally live in places that US born workers would refuse to live.
The US will never work that way because it is far too individualistic and capitalistic.
That is a core strength (it attracts the most driven immigrants) but its also a weakness (the natives at the bottom as you define them will never rise above those immigrants which does create economic problems. But that is not an “immigration” problem, that is a “locals perform poorly” problem)
Countries like Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland have structures similar to what you are describing: they restrict immigration and keep taxes high so that the people at the lower end get higher wages and benefits.
There is zero chance that the US will raise taxes to the extent that is needed if they start restricting immigration.
That kind of “utopia” is just not realistic in the US
Re: competitiveness
American companies compete with companies abroad. If you raise prices too much for goods and services internally, you will risk being under-priced by imports from abroad.
This could be imports from Canada, EU, Brazil etc. There are many options.
Thats the limiting factor when I say “competitiveness”.
Migrant farm work is seasonal in the US. It is definitely worse than being a custodian, but it’s not remotely comparable to say just pay farmworkers a higher rate than a custodian to get US applicants. Migrants go to an area during harvest, pick/pack/can, and when the harvest is complete they move on to the next place or go back home. It is a temporary arrangement without benefits, often in extremely poor working conditions.
I don’t think the statue of liberty poem implies a generous welfare state. It implies ample opportunity for immigrants to achieve success through hard work.
It certainly does not. But it’s a source of pride all the same. Hence the emotional attachment. Which I’m simply saying is incompatible with increasing social programs. Libs need to address that.
Just as the conservatives have to explain what to do about the bottom quintile of the wealth measure. Cuz having them homeless and in desperate need is not a solution. Maybe explains why rural folks are much less interested in that problem…except for the opioid addiction thing.
I don’t see how concentrating immigration on high skilled workers would raise taxes. If anything, it would lower taxes.
I don’t know how to debate what is politically popular. Clearly, current policy is what current politics gives us. I’m talking about changing policy and that is always unpopular with someone who has clout.
Which goods and services are you talking about? The US does not export manufactured goods that have a significant amount of low skilled labor. That ship sailed long ago.
If food gets too expensive in the US, you will see imports from abroad.
That goes for any food. Beef, chicken, eggs etc
There are limits to how much you can raise wages at the bottom end (due to having less low skilled immigration that creates a labour shortage) before a company either shuts down its operations, or changes its supply lines towards imports.
The arbiter of all of this is the US consumer, who has consistently shown that they are simply not willing to pay substantially higher prices for food products.
Re:higher skilled immigration lowering taxes?
You seriously think that the ever growing number of lower skilled, largely uneducated population of the US is magically going to shrink?
Skilled immigrants (who are large positive net taxpayers) will never make up for the taxes needed to keep subsidising the ever growing population of the US natives that are materially unproductive (who are also a huge drain on the US taxpayer)
I seriously think that if we continue to import low skilled immigrants, the total number of low skilled workers in the US will be higher than if we didn’t admit those workers.
If we don’t admit those immigrants, wages will be higher for US born workers. I think that is a Good Thing, I like to see people living more on earned wages and less on gov’t gifts. In addition to the increased net income, the improvement in self image, and the belief that the system “works for me”, that will lower gov’t spending and lower taxes (or reduce borrowing). Looks like lots of wins.
So first wages go up. Then the prices of things that involve a lot of unskilled labor go up. Some fraction of those could be replaced by imports, most of them can’t (because they are locally produced services). Imports involve time and expense for transportation. We import clothes from Bangledesh because they are durable, we’re not going to import tomatoes. Maybe the trade is that all US born low skilled workers get higher wages, and some Mexican workers stay in Mexico to work in vegetable fields instead of coming to the US to work in vegetable fields. That looks good to me, the US isn’t burdened with increasing numbers of low skilled workers and Mexico has a more stable economy.
ISTR that it takes very little in the way of indicated wage increase to shift agricultural production abroad, assuming adequate international supply, etc.
Some of the commercial farms in my immediate area have either gone fallow or are being converted to warehouse/distribution facilities in part because lack of a reliable supply of labor have made the ag businesses so unpredictable as to be a poor continued investment.
The same arguments have been made time and time again about “local wages” increasing if immigrants are restricted from coming.
Good case study is the UK and Brexit.
They blocked immigrants from coming to pick fruits from farms.
Wages went up. Then up again as the farms got desperate.
And guess what? Nobody “local” bothered. They didnt because they would:
First have to move to the farm or factory in question
The work itself is very hard labour
They were terrible at it*
The immigrants that used to do the work went from farm to farm over the entire season, and they became highly proficient at doing the work. You cannot replace that expertise with a local in the space of one or two years. The locals that tried all gave up within a few weeks.
So the locals use the immigrants more like an “excuse” for not actually doing any work.
And now we have the worst of both worlds:
Farms are closing because they cannot pick the fruits and sell them for revenue
The locals don’t do the jobs (but still get subsidised by the taxpayer)
The immigrants are not coming so there is a loss of tax revenue to boot
The exact same thing would happen in the US if they tried this. I am sure of it.
Based on what I read, Ontario farms tried raising wages and they still can’t get people to work on farms. But this is precisely the problem that we have right now in Canada. People don’t want to do essential jobs that are “difficult”, so we bring in immigrants that are happy to take these jobs and then we pretend like we’re good people for doing so. The free market works for some people but when it favors working class people doing unskilled difficult labor then people start freaking out.
Exactly. If businesses want to hire hard working foreigners who will work for low wages then they should hire them in their own country and then import goods. This would significantly reduce global poverty. Look at what happened in China. Poverty has gone down significantly in China after the country made it possible for US business to shift production to China.
How do you address the issue the US has had for decades where the low skilled US born workers are not willing to move to where the jobs are? You can’t move the produce farms from California, and the welfare recipient in West Virginia has a long way to go to get to where the job might be.
I’m not sure that Canadian farms are offering competitive wages for low skilled labour. Mining, the oil industry and transport pay substantially more with the potential for year round employment. If minimum wage is $15-$18/hr, the farms were offering maybe $20-$22. You can make over $100k a year in the oil fields. With tips these days, many fast food workers are probably getting $20-$25. It’s not crazy hard to make $30/hr if you’re a competent worker who shows up consistently and on time. Why make $22/hr at a temporary job when you have plenty of better options elsewhere?
Canada can get people to go and work in the Arctic in winter, but they get paid well to do it.
Farm work has lousy pay under difficult conditions. People who are legally entitled to work in the U.S. can easily find alternative work that has similar compensation, but better working conditions, or better compensation, and still better working conditions. It’s not so much that locals are lazy as the locals have better options available to them. If you require people to move to the work, there are competitive or better paying options closer to home.
0 skill does not mean 0 work. I think it’s obvious that TP is assuming that the employer expects to get some value from these employees beyond just showing up (although in some cases not a lot more).
“0 skill” is probably a slight misnomer too. It takes some slight amount of skill and initiative and common sense and physical stamina to run a dishwasher at a restaurant or be a DOT flagger or any number of other jobs we classify as “unskilled”.
What Indy is suggesting has already been implemented in Canada. For a long time, the Canadian immigration policy was to admit skilled workers only. Median hourly wage in Canada is $28 while it’s $18 in United States. Of course the cost of living is higher in Canada and the unemployment is higher, but I think it’s generally much better to work in Canada as a non-college grad. The culture in the United States is different. People seem more concerned about the possibility of making a lot of money whereas Canadians are less ambitious and rather just get paid a fair wage without the expectation of making it big. Different mindset.
Yep. I try to use “low skill”. I don’t think I need to draw a line, but if I had to I’d say “Jobs that require no formal post-secondary education. That you can learn on the job in week or so just by shadowing somebody. Maybe you get better at it with time for the next month or two or three.”
When we are discussing immigrants, language becomes an issue. Working the counter at McDs requires English communication in most neighborhoods. Picking strawberries may not.