August 11, 2005
There's an interview with Victor Davis Hanson
here:
...If there were not a perennial supply of cheap labor, wages would rise, and would draw back workers to now despised seasonal jobs; something is terribly wrong when central California counties experience 15 percent unemployment and yet insist that without thousands of illegal aliens from Oaxaca crops won't be picked and houses not built. At some point, some genius is going to make the connection that illegal immigration may actually explain high unemployment by ensuring employers cheap labor that will not organize, can be paid in cash, and often requires little government deductions and expense...
Church leaders can step forward and talk honestly about the problem in terms of morality—is it so ethical to hire someone, pay him cash, break the law in doing so, and then expect the public to pick up the cost when such an employee is sick, hurt, laid off, or aged?
...There should be no more public tolerance for the racism of an organization like MECHA [a Spanish acronym for the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan] with its slogans like "a bronze state for a bronze people" or "everything for the race, nothing for those outside the race." Why in 2005 there is still a movement like La Raza ("the race") baffles the mind; would we stand one minute for a "Volk" movement of whites that could only be racist in defining people by how they look rather than what they do?
His latest column
"'Guest' workers or Helots?" makes a lot of sense too, except for the part about a one-time amnesty: there's no such thing.
Previously:
The liberal case against illegal immigration, Part 2
Posted to Immigration2005b at August 11, 2005 01:50 PM
Comments
"Get Chipped" - In Nov. 2004 Lonewacko sarcastically suggested that schoolchildren should have chip implants to monitor getting off the school bus and so on. It makes more sense for illegals who are repatriated to Mexico. A chip implant would make it easier to identify someone who enters this country a second time under an alias, and the element of corporal punishment might discourage some border-crossers. The chip could be inserted in a secure area where there is plenty of room and where it is not likely to be removed, such as the scrotum.
Posted by: dchamil at August 11, 2005 09:37 PM
This is great. Complaining about high unemployment levels. The unemployment rate has been steadily dropping for years since the last "recession" despite high immigration rates. To suggest that immigration is causing us to suffer via high unemployment is ridiculous.
Posted by: Ralph at August 12, 2005 03:36 AM
"ridiculous"
I've not seen any "anti-immigration fanatics" say, as part of their argument, that immigration causes "high unemployment". And as an arguement, this is not really strongly advanced here; for a particular locale, he hints it might be a way to explain high official unemployment nunbers.
However, it is plausible that it could, as hinted here. Regarding illegals, it could work like this: employers would prefer to hire illegals, who are vulnerable and so exploitable, 'under the table', as this would decrease their overall labor costs (this is true even discounting supply and demand), perhaps rather significantly. In this case, others, e.g. citizens and legal residents, would be among, and counted as, the unemployed, whereas illegals would not necessarily be counted as part of the general (employable) population. Hence unemployment would go up. This is probably part of the explanation of why the Central Valley in California has relatively high unemployment -- remember, employment in America is not some sort of philanthropic enterprise. For a refresher course on all of this, watch 'The Grapes of Wrath'.
Regarding legal immigrants, via supply and demand they could also cause increased unemployment among the native population, who may be squeezed out of jobs when the refuse to accept falling wages; whether this would result in higher unemployment numbers depends on several factors.
In any case, the employment/unemployment statistics put out by the government are not all that reliable:
"The unemployment rate has been steadily dropping for years..."
Recall the talk of a "jobless recovery" -- while all this immigration was happening, government statistics showed no or negative job growth, yet you claim the unemployment rate was dropping. How could that be? More employable workers, no or negative job growth, relatively steady or falling unemployment. It makes no sense -- the data is suspect.
Posted by: eh at August 12, 2005 08:55 AM
"the data is suspect"
Great response.
Posted by: Ralph at August 12, 2005 09:28 AM
The whole question of unemployment rates is more complex than the simple-minded may assume.
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050604_nd.htm
Payroll employment rose by only 78,000 in May 2005. That was less than half the gain predicted by economists, and the worst monthly showing since August 2003 when a miniscule 2,000 jobs were created.
Yet May’s job number was good enough to lower the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent from April’s 5.2 percent.
Sort of. Unemployment is calculated from a different set of figures—the Household Survey. According to that survey, 376,000 jobs were added in May—nearly 5 times the official payroll figure.
And the Household survey also shows that Hispanic workers, comprising 15 percent of the U.S. labor force, landed about half of those jobs.
As a result, the Hispanic unemployment rate declined by 0.4 points in May. White unemployment was unchanged. The Black rate declined by 0.3 points.
For years, the Payroll and Household Surveys have told different stories. From the start of the Bush Administration in January 2001 through May 2005, for example, payroll jobs have edged up by 893,000, to 133.3 million. The Household Survey, on the other hand, reports spectacular job growth throughout most of the period, with 3.7 million new jobs and total employment rising to 141.5 million.
Why such divergent results? Economists aren’t sure. Some have argued that new economy workers such as part-time consultants, eBay entrepreneurs, and even real estate agents—i.e., people who are not on company payrolls but self-employed—are tallied in the Household Survey but not in the Payroll Survey.
However, as I’ve argued on VDARE.COM before, there’s a neater, simpler explanation: illegal aliens.
Illegals don’t show up in the payroll numbers because employers have long feared (mistakenly, it appears) that the Feds will eventually enforce the law. We believe it is no coincidence that the gap between the two employment surveys—8 million jobs – so strikingly resembles the official estimated number of illegal immigrant workers.
Neither survey is politically incorrect enough to ask workers where they were born. But the Household Survey does record race and ethnicity. Since about 40 percent of all Hispanic workers—and an even larger share of new Hispanic workers—are immigrants, Hispanic employment is the best proxy we have for the month to month increases in the immigrant workforce.
MORE
Payroll employment rose by only 78,000 in May 2005. That was less than half the gain predicted by economists, and the worst monthly showing since August 2003 when a miniscule 2,000 jobs were created.
Yet May’s job number was good enough to lower the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent from April’s 5.2 percent.
Sort of. Unemployment is calculated from a different set of figures—the Household Survey. According to that survey, 376,000 jobs were added in May—nearly 5 times the official payroll figure.
And the Household survey also shows that Hispanic workers, comprising 15 percent of the U.S. labor force, landed about half of those jobs.
As a result, the Hispanic unemployment rate declined by 0.4 points in May. White unemployment was unchanged. The Black rate declined by 0.3 points.
For years, the Payroll and Household Surveys have told different stories. From the start of the Bush Administration in January 2001 through May 2005, for example, payroll jobs have edged up by 893,000, to 133.3 million. The Household Survey, on the other hand, reports spectacular job growth throughout most of the period, with 3.7 million new jobs and total employment rising to 141.5 million.
Why such divergent results? Economists aren’t sure. Some have argued that new economy workers such as part-time consultants, eBay entrepreneurs, and even real estate agents—i.e., people who are not on company payrolls but self-employed—are tallied in the Household Survey but not in the Payroll Survey.
However, as I’ve argued on VDARE.COM before, there’s a neater, simpler explanation: illegal aliens.
Illegals don’t show up in the payroll numbers because employers have long feared (mistakenly, it appears) that the Feds will eventually enforce the law. We believe it is no coincidence that the gap between the two employment surveys—8 million jobs – so strikingly resembles the official estimated number of illegal immigrant workers.
Neither survey is politically incorrect enough to ask workers where they were born. But the Household Survey does record race and ethnicity. Since about 40 percent of all Hispanic workers—and an even larger share of new Hispanic workers—are immigrants, Hispanic employment is the best proxy we have for the month to month increases in the immigrant workforce.
MORE
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/job_crunch.htm
(...)
Latino immigrants are getting jobs. In the process, however, they are displacing native-born Americans—and first and second generation Hispanics, many of whom are too discouraged to remain in the labor force.
As a result, the overall labor force participation rate for Hispanics fell in 2003 despite the increase in Hispanic employment.
When people leave the labor force they are no longer counted as unemployed. Had these labor force leavers been accounted for, overall Hispanic unemployment would double – to 14.3% from the official 7.1% rate reported for 2003-Q4. On this basis unemployment remained unchanged for Hispanics in the last six months of 2003 while declining for all other ethnic groups.
MORE
Posted by: perroazul del norte at August 12, 2005 10:02 AM
Sorry, pasted some of that material twice.
Posted by: perroazul del norte at August 12, 2005 10:08 AM
Labor force participation rates are more meaningful than the "unemployment rate". In addition to the reasons cited above there is also the fact that the government counts as employed those who work as little as one hour per week for pay. Below some information on declining rates of labor force participation which may be linked to high immigration levels.
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/002259.html
(...)
Among older black men, the same dramatic declines were noted over time, according to the report. While the employment rates of black men rise from their late teens through their mid 30s, high levels of joblessness prevail among these men into their late 20s (30 percent of 25 to 29 year old black men were jobless in 2003, for example), then rise sharply as they reach their mid-50s. One of the most disturbing findings was the high share of black males ages 20 to 64 that were jobless year-round. In 2002, one of every four black men in this age group – a full quarter of the entire population within this wide age range -- was idle all year-round, up from 20 percent in the peak labor market year of 2002.
...
The year-round idleness rate for black men varies by age, educational attainment, and geographic location. Idleness rates in 2002 ranged from a low of 18 percent for those ages 35 to 44 to a high of nearly 42 percent for those 55 to 64. Forty-four percent of black men with no high school diploma were idle year-round versus 26 percent of high school graduates and only 13 percent of those with a bachelor’s or higher degree.
Labor market participation rates are a better indicator than the much more widely publicised unemployment rates. Imagine a quarter of all the adult males you know sitting around and doing no legal job for a full year. What effects do you suppose this has on these people, their behavior, and their communities?
(...)
Andrew Sum is also lead author on another new report, "Foreign Immigration and the Labor Force of the U.S." (along with co-authors Ishwar Khatiwada and Sheila Palma) which takes a look at the trend of a growing immigrant labor force in the face of declining net native-born employment in some sectors of the economy.
The number of new immigrants who joined the labor force between 2000 and the first four months of 2004 was between 2.260 and 2.35 million representing 60 to 62 percent of labor force growth.
Between 2000 and April 2004, the total number of new foreign-born workers who were employed was 2.1 million. During that same period, employment of native-born workers and established foreign immigrants declined by 1.3 million, due to higher unemployment and reduced labor force participation.
...
Nearly 320,000 new immigrants garnered employment in the nation’s manufacturing industries at a time when total wage and salary employment in these industries nationwide declined by more than 2.7 million jobs.
This report makes a mockery of the argument that foreign laborers are needed to do work that noone else will do. The labor market participation rates of natives are declining as immigrants come in willing to take jobs at lower salaries.
It is not too hard to connect the dots to understand what is going on here. What advantage could possibly be gained for the nation as a whole by letting in a large number of low-skilled workers to drive down the wages and drive out of the labor market our existing native-born low-skilled workers?
Posted by: perroazul del norte at August 12, 2005 11:00 AM
Let's also not forget that the EMPLOYMENT rate for students is the lowest ever. Why? They are not being hired for summer jobs because the jobs are going to illegal immigrants. Yet they are not counted at all in the UNEMPLOYMENT figures. Why? As students they are not part of the regular work force. Also students who graduate with degrees in IT-related fields but who can't find a job in IT (too many H-1B's being hired) and so go to work selling PC's at ComputerWorld are considered employed. That they are making barely above minimum wage instead of a technician's salary doesn't register. Also many IT workers who were laid off to make room for H-1B's, as well as construction workers etc who were laid off to make room for cheap illegal immigrant laborers, are now working as independent consultants with zero benefits whenever and wherever they can find work. They don't get counted either just as free-lance writers don't get counted as unemployed.
Posted by: D Flinchum at August 12, 2005 11:55 AM
iam aguy my age 21iam so sad in my life i need like any world to be happy just moment all my life i saffer from my life i want die i havenot jop ihave not love i want leave my country please i want work any thing in america
thanks
Posted by: arafa at August 18, 2005 06:48 PM
