No-one wanna work, chapter leventyseven

That’s fine and I certainly won’t challenge your experiences. But I think it relevant to note that your opinion on immigration and reduced wages is derived from anecdotes, not data. Most data-driven analyses come to a different conclusion.

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Here’s another tidbit I picked up tonight, at a pizza take out place.

A couple young guys came in to pick up their order, and asked the manager what the place paid.

The manager asked how old they are. The guy said 16. The manager said they would be paid $10.47/hr. Michigan minimum right now is $9.87 He said they would need to be older to be paid better, like the $14-$15 most places advertise. Well. That explains why so many fast food places around here have so many high school kids on staff, and are suddenly desperately short of staff when school starts in September. They must seek out under age kids, because they can get away with paying them less. I don’t know if it’s a sub-minimum “training wage” that some states enacted at the behest of the “JCs”, or the “JCs” exploiting the reduced work opportunities for underage kids, but the “JCs” certainly have an incentive to hire 16-17 year-olds, instead of adults.

Steve

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Btresist,

The data more than clearly states worker wages are down significantly in relative terms.

Immigrants work under the table and illegally. By inference and in the larger numbers of illegals we are not talking legal immigration. Your studies in fact have next to no data.

It turns out with more study on your topic of discovering in the 1980s that the world caught up and we were less efficient that is because we lowered taxes on the wealthy and lowered corporate taxes.

We took away the incentive to invest in R&D and to pay workers better. How? Because if it is going to the taxman anyway a company might as well use the funds first for paying people and R&D that is a write off. We took that incentive away by lowering taxes…then the world caught up.

They aren’t my studies and there is a lot of data on undocumented workers. An interesting one is from Georgia, titled: “The Wage Impact of Undocumented Workers: Evidence from Administrative Data”. The primary conclusion was:

…Using administrative, individual level, longitudinal data from the state of Georgia, this article finds that rising shares of undocumented workers results in higher earnings for documented workers, but by a small amountThe Wage Impact of Undocumented Workers: Evidence from Administrative Data on JSTOR

If one looks at all the studies to date the bottom line is that the impact on immigrants (legal or otherwise) on wages is minor (less than 1%) and can go in either direction, though most studies show no change.

Let’s see how true this statement is. First off, here is a graph of US corporate tax rates over time. From File:US effective corp tax rate 1947-2012.png - Wikimedia Commons
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Corporate tax rates have been generally declining since the 1950s and was actually increasing for much of the 1980s.

Meanwhile, you like demand-side economics. One major component in demand-side policy is government spending. Here is a chart showing government spending as a %age of GDP from Lessons From the Decades Long Upward March of Government Spending

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Government spending was rising during the 1980s, consistent with demand side policy. Neither of these seem consistent with your argument. Not saying you’re wrong, but the argument you are making isn’t very convincing so far.

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False across the board.

Employers in GA were reporting. How many of them were reporting on under the table employees? Very doubtful any of them admitted that to report in any study. Undocumented workers are generally under the table. Of course your report said wages were higher those were the few undocumented that were honestly paid for whatever reasons.

The increase in the 80s in corp taxes was short lived. Meaning the taxes were in decline again if from a temporary high.

The next claim about government spending as a the percentage of the GDP that is only true because supply side econ translated into decades of slow real GDP growth. So of course the ratio was getting worse.

Government spending is not simply a function of demand side econ. Please read more on public finance. There are inflationary factors year by year. There is the over reliance on military spending. There is the servicing of the debt. The debt is the biggest or second biggest component of the budget. The debt was caused by lower tax rates supply side economics.

So yes absolutely government spending went up during the supply side period because of supply side mismanagement of our economy.

Welfare is 6.5% of local, state, and federal budgets. If that is what you are referring to as demand side economics. Of that 6.5% 85% goes to seniors. The old claim is lets cut welfare. That claim is aimed at seniors. Ironic. The budget is not really dependent on 6.5% for welfare. The budget is dependent on higher taxes to be balanced.

Keynesian economics declares deficit spending to be okay, perfectly good. Right? That is what you are against! Right?

In the 1949 to 1980 the budget was often balanced and closer to balanced much of the time.

In the 1981 to 2020, supply side econ, the budget was rarely balanced and often way into the red.

How are you choosing things? How are you seeing things? How are you getting your information? When looking at the history of Keynesian econ?

Keynesian economics meant some years the budget could be in deficit and other years the budget could be in surplus. That is always lied about these days. Back to reality.

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I haven’t said I was against anything. I was just pointing out that you make a lot of statements that you seem unable to justify with anything other than anecdotes and emotion. As I’ve stated in other threads, I believe that demographics has a far greater impact on a nation’s economy than whatever Keynes or Friedman might suggest. From 1950-1980 the U.S. was surfing the baby boom wave with lots of young workers and consumers. Add to that the fact that most of the rest of the industrialized world was recovering from the devastation of WWII and it is not surprising the US economy was booming, with the slight hiccup of a Vietnam-induced stagflation.

But then the rest of the world caught up. Japan and Germany made better cars more efficiently. Asian nations had younger, faster growing workforces and so had much lower labor costs than the US. They could make stuff like steel and TVs cheaper. Americans loved cheaper cars, TVs, and steel. By the 1980s, GE and RCA products couldn’t compete with those from Sony and Phillips. When American corporations are being outcompeted, raising American corporate taxes may not be the smartest thing to do.

It is easy to balance a budget when the tax paying working population is large relative to elderly dependents who are using a lot of social services. As the nation ages with retirees increasing in number faster than the work force (as was happening from 1981 to the present) balancing the budget becomes much tougher. Basic math.

Frankly Keynes and Friedman are old news, both relics of a time when the goal of economists was to create an economy based on constant growth. A throwaway economy where stuff was designed for rapid turnover and obsolescence so consumers would buy more stuff. The human population has reached a size so large that continuing that philosophy will result in a rapidly deteriorating environment. The key word now is sustainability. The key question now is how do we increase wealth while decreasing the amount we use and throw away.

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Just want to get back to the main point of my argument. Because immigration, both legal and illegal, significantly impacts our demographics, I believe how we deal with the issue will determine the success of our economy.

The key economic Mega Trend of our generation is the aging of the industrial economies. IMO, no other factor comes close in impact. This has led to two contradictory movements occurring simultaneously. The first is a growing willingness of aging nations to accept immigrants out of economic necessity. Even insular nations like South Korea and Japan:

Over the past two decades, South Korea’s well-documented demographic challenges have driven a host of policy reforms to encourage more inbound immigration. How South Korean Demographics Are Affecting Immigration and Social Change - Demographics and the Future of South Korea - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Immigration has long been taboo in Japan as many prize ethnic homogeneity, but pressure has mounted to open up its borders due to an acute labour shortage given its dwindling and ageing population. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/major-shift-japan-looking-accept-more-foreigners-indefinitely-2021-11-18/

The second is a reactionary nationalist movement to preserve the cultural and social status quo by closing borders. How nations deal with this two-edged sword will go a long way toward determining the economic winners and losers over the next few decades.

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The basic math is the highest tax bracket paid a lot higher percentage. The corporate taxes were higher. If we do not collect taxes of course we have deficits. Not sure how you are missing that point. Not sure why you wont cede it.

We have the millennials now that are a larger group than the baby boomers. The group is all working age. Their productivity levels are high with modern technology. Their education levels are also high.

Back on point tax receipts are up without the immigrants in full numbers coming into the country. That does not mean I am against immigration. I want them hired paying taxes and permitted to work here. I do not want our employers using them to cut the average persons pay as competition for jobs. The country agrees with this. This is not a nationalistic movement. People want to see this done honestly.

BTW the illegals need this. They are coming here at great expense and great risks to their lives. They come here uninsured. They get poorer than minimum wage at times. Of course making this easier for them by making it an honest process matters. If it was an honest process just about everyone of them would sign on for permits.

Btresist,

Keep in mind we are fed what Reagan called for the first time from the oval office “misinformation” edit was it “disinformation” either way stop buying it. Much of what you are saying is along the lines of the revisionist history of how demand side economics works. For instance assuming the baby boom was the reason for the spending. In part that is true, but the higher tax rates were the reason the money was there and the budgets were often balanced into 1969.

The money was not really channeled into that much welfare spending but NASA, military spending and infrastructure along with a lot of R&D.

Keynesian economics is very misrepresented by the supply siders who wanted lower taxes on the rich at any cost. That included not paying illegal workers so the taxes did not have to be collected from the employers.

Yes there were illegals in the 1950s but not in the same numbers for all sorts or reasons. Much of that immigration was seasonal.

If barriers to immigration were taken down in favor of legally permitting the workers many of them prefer going back to the countries they came from, home is home. The barriers being hard to cross keep them here longer term.

It is the same prejudice that employs people for less than minimum wage or to under cut Americans’ pay in many cases that forces up the barriers. Lets get our act together and legalize with permitting these workers.

The ‘misinformation’ and revisionist histories are out of whack.

Peter Zeihan would agree with the above. That, and America’s unwillingness to continue to be the “world’s police force” (which impacts the safety of global naval commercial shipping). I believe he said South Korea’s birth rate is getting close to 1. Meaning 2 people make only 1 or so new person per generation. This is a recipe for population collapse. (The replacement rate, from what I understand, is close to 2.1 or 2.2, not 2.0, because some people will die before they can reproduce). China went through this with their one-child policy and is likewise in trouble.

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That’s beside the point. If undocumented immigrants being paid under the table suppresses wage rates in job categories in which such workers are prevalent, that will show up in the reported wage numbers for those categories. And it does. There is indeed some negative impact within those job categories. But the larger point (already made in previous posts is that the net impact of immigration on wages across all categories is pretty much zero, because increases in immigrants (whether documented or not) stimulate overall demand (locally, regionally, and nationally).
That said, concentrations of new immigrants can and do stress local public schools, but education of those kids is properly viewed as an investment, not merely an expense. State and federal policy should address it as such and assist impacted school districts.

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Hold on, woowwww, how does under the table work show up in any reporting? It is purposely hidden. What is your source? Illegals are also purposely hidden. It makes zero sense for the vast majority of it to show at all. Did you make that up? We are talking about people who are not even in the country as far as the government is concerned. There are only estimates. Partly from flying in and overstaying visas. But what anyone in this category is doing is only leaving us with estimates.

There is scrubbing tax documents by the IRS to figure out what is missing but that is not pinpointing much of where it is missing…for now…that will change.

I didn’t say that employers report under-the-table work. What I said is that if the prevalence of undoc workers is suppressing wages in, say, fast-food restaurants, then that will show up in the wage and employment trends for the other workers within that industry. Also, as I noted, research does indeed show some concentrated negative impacts. But because immigrants (of all kinds) also induce demand for goods/services, the net impact is pretty much a wash. The researchers understand the threats to valid inference that you and others raise, and they conduct their research to address such concerns. See, e.g.: https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2016/adrm/ces-wp-16-56.html and Immigration and the Wage Distribution in the United States | SpringerLink

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Somehow at the end of the day in 2019 42.4% of American workers made less than a living wage. Now that the work is not getting done on the lowest rungs and American citizens have often found better paying jobs the tax receipts are up. Makes me think the dynamics in play are far more important than any of the intentions of the researchers on this topic. The intentions being to see little negative impact when there is no upward mobility for 42.4% of American workers.

I’d go much further to state that when researchers predetermine an outcome they will succeed in proving it. If you are going to quote research understand its pitfalls are extreme. Reality for millions of American workers is much better now than in 2019. While it can be claimed that inflation has a major effect, changing jobs for better pay has an even greater effect for millions of American workers. If you want cheap labor we can all use those days are over.

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Leap1, I agree with everything you said. The research to which I linked shows that the net economic gains from immigration are not equitably distributed. The same holds true with respect to net gains arising from increased global trade. Automation is also an important factor, as you no doubt know. I view all this as reflecting disparities in political power (e.g., the demise of organized labor) more than as dry economic “facts.”

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And yet the poverty rate in 2019 was lower than it was in 1960 and 1970, decades that you say had lower immigration levels. For those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder, life is much better today than in the 1960s. It’s not even close. U.S. poverty rate fell to record low in 2019 but the coronavirus is reversing the gains - MarketWatch

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Curiously, this improvement for workers happens to coincide with a period (2019-2021) when immigration in terms of numbers and percent of population reached historic highs. Reality doesn’t seem to agree with your position that immigration is bad for American workers.

It’s okay to disagree with researchers, but impugning their character and competence just because they didn’t find what you wanted is a bit tacky.

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It also corresponds with unprecedented pandemic relief. The evidence supports the thesis that immigration is a net benefit to the economy, however this is a spurious correlation.

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The immigration crisis is in 2022. In 2020 and 2021 immigrants went home to take care of family. Many have stayed home. The difference is political disturbances in other South and Central American countries forcing people to flee.

I never impugned the character of researchers. If you were in the sciences you would know all sound research and determinations are made based upon the insights on researched I stated. It does not impugn anyone’s character. It states the very obvious.

Again I am actually for immigrants. I am pro permitted immigration. I am pro safe inexpensive immigration. You are supporting a backdoor system that risks their lives including the rape of young girls and costs them every penny.

I want the American business owners not using anyone at all. Being a user is disgusting.

I am pro American labor. I am pro a new build out of American factories. Industry. I am pro the millennials who know just how full of it we baby boomers are.

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I agree. I am addressing the proposition being made in this thread that immigration (legal and not) significantly depresses the wages of nonimmigrants, in effect making life worse for working Americans. My view, which I believe is based on the preponderance of available evidence, is that immigration generally has little to no direct effect on the wages of native-born workers and has an overall long term positive impact on the economy. For example, I think we can agree that the impact of immigration during the Covid years (whether positive or negative) on wages is dwarfed by the consequences of the stimulus and covid-relief packages.

If one looks at the data, the impact on native-born wages is sector dependent. What follows is just my impression of the research. In agriculture, immigration tends to depress wages while in hospitality and restaurants native-born workers benefit. This probably has to do with the importance of language skills in certain businesses. In any case, I think the data is pretty clear that at the levels of immigration historically experienced in America, its direct impact on native-born workers in general is barely detectable.

One important question that is difficult to address is what percent of the able-bodied native-born unemployed refuse to pick produce in the central CA summer, clean restaurant toilets and dishes, and put up roofs in the Arizona sun? We know that the undocumented are willing to do this work. Are the undocumented coming across the southern border really competing for the same jobs as Americans? I know we all have our opinions but the data is pretty sparse on this.

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You are clearly suggesting that those researchers who come up with data that conflicts with your world view are incapable of doing unbiased studies. I make a point of this because it is common these days to assert that any data that is inconvenient to one’s POV must be fake news. That is lazy thinking and I am sick of it.

Great. But one can be for all these things and still be an advocate of both supply-side and demand-side policies. Tax breaks/hikes, setting interest rates, government spending are just tools governments can use to manage the economy. They are like hammers, saws, and screwdrivers to a carpenter. The absurdity would be a carpenter who for ideological reasons will only use a hammer. The end result is a really ugly book case. That is pretty much what you are doing when you reject supply-side policies regardless of context.

Ideology sucks.

Nope. Your mischaracterizing my position is annoying. I believe that the reason we have so many undocumented/illegal immigrants is because our economy needs the workers. If either party was truly serious about about ending illegal immigration, they would advocate more harshly penalizing the employers of the undocumented. No governor or mayor does that because it would bring down their economy. In short, we need to recognize that all those illegal immigrants are an economic necessity. Once we accept this, we can reform our immigration and work permit systems to ensure they legally bring in the number of people our economy needs.

You asserting with little evidence that immigrants hurt American workers doesn’t help the cause.

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