Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Before I get into hot-water, I post this information because it seems plausible that illegal aliens from Latin America are more likely to go into jobs where there are already a large number of legal employees of Hispanic heritage.
Locally, construction trades are paying $15-to-$20 an hour and there is ample over-time if one has the stamina to work it.
The fields dominated by Hispanic women don't pay quite so well.
For the most part, the contention that Hispanics work marginal jobs and drag down wages seems shaky at best. My impression is they work jobs that are physically demanding and work their asses off. Not too many soy-boys wanting to lug buckets of "mud" around the job site or sand drywall.
My opinion and worth exactly what you paid for it.
Pretty much the only economic "law" that holds water is the law of supply and demand, and that is exactly the one you're ignoring.
ReplyDeleteLinks to data quantifying the sensitivity of $/Hr-per-100,000 illegal immigrants will be much appreciated. Especially if you can link to the original topic, "Systemic Racism".
DeleteThere is little data, probably because it is government policy to encourage the invasion of illegals, while covering it up.
DeleteThere are 30 to 60 million illegals. Removing 30+ million of the cheapest, least skilled, most price-elastic workers will push the labor supply curve significantly to the left, and steepen it a bit, too.
Not to mention landscaping... four friends I helped get jobs couldn’t hack it back around 2005 and quit after 2 weeks. The 50 year old Abelo out worked those guys...
ReplyDeleteMy experience tambien. I've known a guy since the 80's, whom I since have helped to get a green card, and that guy can flat outwork anybody, see-to-can't-see.
DeleteAt this time "Not too many soy-boys wanting to lug buckets of "mud" around the job site or sand drywall" is mostly true, it wasnt always so. Letting so many illegals into the country has caused that to be self fulfilling. For one thing, those jobs Used to be done by recent high school grads and blacks and other minorities of all ages. Cheap labor drives out the more expensive...supply and demand. An immigrant group comes in and will work for anything or next to nothing and wages drops. A good historic example would be the influx of Irish was so bad from the 1850s-1950s that for a time they were treated worse than Blacks. They took all the jobs at any pay. Too long ago?? Ok, back around 75, Meat Packing jobs typically paid $8 to as much $12 an hour or more at a time when Min Wage was about $2.35 . Good money, good union jobs. They busted the unions out and todays packing plants staffed mainly with immigrants pays....$9-$12 an hour. Yes, busting the Unions was part of that but so is the importation of cheap labor. Labor is always supply and demand. Many of the Skilled workers stay in their home countries. Many of the immigrants coming are unskilled. Also, many have different cultures and different ways of doing/looking at things. Immigrants from Asia will often do ANYTHING to start a business and get college degrees. REAL college degrees.....not Art Appreciation. Some other communities put less a push on higher education. They will indeed work their buts off but all physical labor rather than schooling.
ReplyDeleteWell said, J.G. We are harming our most vulnerable by importing competition for them.
DeleteIt is nothing short of evil to harm our own nation by importing strangers to replace them. We owe it to our own to help them along. We have no debt to any outsiders, and every illegal invader is an outsider.