No, it is emphatically not standard economics that increasing the working population will impoverish existing workers. But it is doctinaire Malthus.
Malthusian economics predicts that increasing the population will reduce the wage level, that a huge population boom will be accompanied by a huge standard of living fall, and that the wage levels of all countries will converge over time to the level of subsistence. All are directly falsified by actual history. And marginal utility economics explains why.
Wages are set by productivity, not the number of people in the world.
Also, the number of people in the world does not change when one of them crosses a border. Workers in Mexico supply labor just as workers in Arizona do, and capital can move to utilize that labor in either case.
Actual output is what determines the standard of living. Anything that raises it, is economically beneficial not economically harmful. Changes in the utilization of resources that increase overall productivity, enrich those directly concerned, without picking the pocket or breaking the leg of anyone else on earth.
The fact that neither you nor the original article writer understand and of this, is exactly why I called it economically ignorant. You are not the only one. Half the world doesn't understand the point, and still believes Malthus's errors on the subject.
There are excellent arguments against amnesty and against illegal immigration. When instead we get arguments against immigration of any kind, they deserve to lose. Legal immigration (sustainable rates, with assimilation, etc, etc) is not economically harmful to people here. It is so beneficial it has been is the single largest cause of our actual prosperity.
It is politically stupid to try to insist on the point, as well. Not only do you change a position that deserves to win (opposing illegality, lack of control, etc) into one that deserves to lose, you also jettison half your political allies, who will not follow you over that cliff.
I had a brilliant and long response yesterday that got deleted before I posted when my computer browser crashed ... on Media Matters website.
You are arguing against multiple strawmen here:
1) “When instead we get arguments against immigration of any kind,”
Strawman alert! That’s not the argument.
2) “Malthusian economics predicts that increasing the population will reduce the wage level”
That’s *not* the claim being made to argue that making 12 million illegal immigrants legal is wrong and will cost taxpayer’s an arm and a leg.
It’s not that any given person is bad.
The claims are that *these* specific immigrants will have a huge fiscal cost to US taxpayers:
http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/SR14.cfm
The reason is that the illegal immigrants are far *less* education, have lower skill levels and are much poorer than
Americans:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/SR9.cfm
As a result we are importing poverting and inviting a huge added cost and expansion to the welfare state.
I have no problem with legal immigration per se.
I have a problem with legalization of 12 million people we did not decide to allow to legally immigrate, both the process and result will be bad for America.