Posted on 04/10/2006 6:45:04 PM PDT by B-Chan
Can We Please Stop Using This Argument?
People can rationally come to different conclusions on what should be done about the presence of millions of illegal aliens in the United States, but as that matter is debated, we should at least try to avoid some of the most obviously absurd arguments.
I therefore propose that we, as a nation, retire the "Illegal aliens take jobs Americans won't do/don't want" argument.
This is patent nonsense.
Anybody using this argument either has no grasp of economics or is being disingenuous due to the presence of an ulterior motive. (Them's yer two choices, so take yer pick, Mr. Bush.)
To see the absurdity of this argument, let's cast it in its starkest form: Food.
Before we do that, though, let me issue
THE BIG RED DISCLAIMER: The following treatment has nothing to do with ethnicity. It has to do with economics. In what follows I will talk about two groups of people--illegal aliens (whatever their ethnicity) and Americans (whatever their ethnicity). The fact that most (but by no means all) of the illegal aliens in this country are Latino in origin is irrelevant to the economic principles involved, as is the fact that many Americans are also of Latino origin. If you need to, swap the terms "America" and "Americans" for those of a random country somewhere else on the planet. The economic principles apply no matter where you are.
Now . . .
It is often noted that illegal aliens play a large role in the construction, landscaping, and domestic service industries, but nice buildings, nice landscapes, and nice domestic services are luxuries. Our most pressing survival-related need is for food, and so the "Jobs Americans won't do" argument can be cast most starkly if we look at the role of illegal aliens in the agricultural industry.
Suppose that all of the illegal aliens working in the agricultural industry decided to quit their jobs. What would happen to the U.S.?
Will we be seeing headlines in the New York Times like this one? . . .
Americans are not going to starve themselves to death because they "won't do" the job of harvesting the food.
Americans have been harvesting food ever since there have been Americans (otherwise they would have all starved long ago), so they are certainly capable of it.
Why, then, are so many illegal aliens taking the place of Americans in the agricultural industry?
Because they come from a different economic background and are willing to do the jobs for less.
The effect of illegal aliens in the agricultural industry is not that they do work that otherwise wouldn't get done. It's that they depress the wages in the agricultural industry to the point that such jobs are unattractive to Americans.
It's that whole supply-and-demand thing.
When you've got a greater supply of something than you have demand for it, the price will go down. If manufacturers make loads of DVD players and start to outstrip the demand for DVD players then the price of DVD players will go down as part of competition for customers.
Same thing happens in labor markets.
If the supply of agricultural workers outstrips the demand for agricultural workers then the wages attached to such jobs will go down as part of competition for employment. When the wages are depressed past a certain point, some of the workers will say, "Y'know, I could do better in a different industry" and they decide at that point that they "won't do" the agricultural jobs at the depressed wages being offered for those jobs.
But what happens if the labor pool shrinks? What happens if all the illegal aliens decide to quit?
When the supply of agricultural workers shrinks so that it no longer outstrips the demand for agricultural workers and employers start raising wages in order to attract the workers they need, and the work gets done.
Trust me, Americans are not going to starve themselves to death if they have no illegal aliens to harvest food.
What will happen instead is that the wages offered for such jobs will rise, Americans will start valuing such jobs more as a result (instead of looking down on them), and they will start doing them. The food will get harvested, and when it is sold to the public the added labor costs will be passed on to consumers in the form of a modest increase in food prices.
But there will be no massive wave of starvation in the U.S.
Something similar applies to the jobs in other industries that currently have high levels of involvement by illegal aliens. If the supply-and-demand situations of those industries were readjusted then Americans would be attracted to jobs in them as well, and the work would still get done. People might economize in some areas (e.g., taking care of the kids yourself instead of hiring an illegal alien to serve as a nanny), but we won't see headlines like:
That one's a non-starter, Mr. President.
***
P.S. BTW, Mr. President, do you realize how arrogant and insulting you are being when you use the "Jobs Americans won't do" argument?
This argument can be parsed one of two ways: (1) "Such jobs are beneath us as Americans, so we need to import foreigners to do these lowly tasks for us" or (2) "I preside over a nation of such hopelessly spoiled brats that we need to just cave in to their juvenile refusal to do such jobs."
The first is arrogant and insulting to people from other countries. The second is arrogant and insulting to Americans.
Since it can be parsed both ways, the argument is arrogant and insulting no matter what your nationality.
According to the BLS, that 5% does not inclued handicaps and infirm, those incarcerated, nor does it include those voluntarily unemployed (housewives, retirees, et c.,. Explanations of the various measures of unemployment can be found at the BLS website.
The actual number of adults over the age of 16 not currently employed in America is 81.1 million (that number does include the infirm, the incarcerated, skid-row junkies, the disabled, home-makers, retirees).
"So just strictly on ECONOMICS, not who is right or who is wrong, where do we get the replacement workers to fill the Illegals jobs after they are deported?"
Maybe we'll find that some of these jobs aren't needed. Maybe we'll find that the shortage of workers will create the incentive to find a better way to do some things. Maybe we'll find that increasing the number of legal immigrants is a good idea. Maybe the birth rate will increase because of the better opportunities available.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612798/posts#6
"Are Undocumented Immigrants Taking Jobs from Blacks?"
Philadelphia Tribune beat you to it. Not by much, though ;)
Sorry Jay, you are "My ideas are perfect everyone else is wrong" Freeper on this one. Your arguement is based on assumptions you accept. Fine, that doesn't make them facts, they are simply one side's "data". Good for you that you believe them.
Too bad they are far too one sided to be considered serious scholarship.
How is this for an argument?
Everybody knows it, but somehow we never see it on TV or in print.
Liberals want to legitimize immigrants of any stripe because they see them as potential votes.
Poor people (immigrants usually qualify as poor) can't afford things because they have no money and so they vote for politicians who promise them free stuff.
Illegal immigrants represent a great voting block prize for socialists, communists, fascists, and big government types because liberals can keep them poor and forever on the Democrat plantation.
Democrats resist tooth and nail any notion that voters should be able to identify themselves legally when voting , and that the voters should be proficient in the English language.
Why don't we wear out that argument for a while?
I'll be damned!
"Let's punish the criminal employers of Illegals."
It is more efficient to have the feds stop the illegal at the border than to ask every employer to stop every illegal at the workplace.
Illegal immigration is a set aside and affirmative action for illegal Mexicans to flood our country. There are millions upon millions of Europeans, Blacks and Asians who would come here legally, but they have no say in the matter, they will be punished because of the illegal Mexican border jumpers getting preference.
Why, because illegal Mexicans are in your face and the Quislings in our government are selling out America hoping for a Hispanic block vote payoff down the road.
Ever heard of the ketchup industry? They were going to go out of business because the Bracero program was ended in 1964. It was too expensive to pick tomatos with anything but illegals. Oddly, tomatos are much cheaper than they were in the 60's and my how many new varieties we have.
With a few hours work by congress, we could enact laws that would allow us to bring in 11,000,000 replacement, registered workers in 11 weeks. Give them a registration card and tell them they have one month to report to a Post Office with an address.
One mill a week across and 30days to stay. After that, anyone employing an alien without the picture card will be fined 100,000 bux. Any alien not having a card would be transported to the border and sent back.
Did you visit the BLS website, MNJ? It explains in very clear terms who is, and is not, included in the numbers.
"And of course the Mother paid SS and Medicare taxes on the illegal's wages. /S"
Well, the illegal was an independant contractor and therefore responsible for her own taxes. the Mother had no liability!
I agree with you. I was just taking the position to it's natural conclusion. One person on these forums was saying if we enforce the laws against illegals, we would create a "proto-police state". He was for amnesty of course.
No, we can't deport all of the illegals..AT ONE TIME.
But we can put a big crimp in the illegal alien problem over time if, every time one is stopped by police or otherwise discovered, we deport them immediately.
I suppose the humane thing to do would be to give them one week to get their belongings and make immediate arraingments to vamoose back to their home country.
But I still haven't worked out in my head how we would keep them from running and hiding again if we simply used the 'honor system' for that one week grace period.
Still, like it's been said before, once those 12-20 million illegal aliens saw their amigo's getting detained in cuffs, they would realize that the USA is SERIOUS about deportation, and would do the right thing and head home on their own valition.
Only the gang-banger hoodsters or parents with young-uns would be holding on.
When all of you got out of college, was your first stop in the unemployment office?
During college when you wanted a job, did you go to the unemployment office? Or did you look in the classifieds for a job in the mall or restaurant (or walk to the mall and leave your resume)?
Only a select number of people register as unemployed.
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