http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/23/report-illegal-immigrants-co...
This is one reply to the above article that I responded to in particular.
Posted by GOD
"... AND THE GAINS...
1) LOWER WAITING TIMES AT HOSPITALS, CLINICS, ETC.
2) LESS FOR CAR INSURANCE FOR INSURED MOTORISTS.
3) LESS FOR HEALTH INSURANCE.
4) LESS FOR CITY INFRASTRUCTURE.
5) LESS MONEY NEEDED FOR WELFARE AND CITY, STATE, AND GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS.
6) MORE JOBS FOR AMERICANS."
I'd like to see some data to back that up. And as far as the under the table pay thing goes: American's don't get paid under the table? When I was first in college, my friend's Dad had a construction company and paid me to help him out on jobs. I got $10/hr UNDER THE TABLE. I paid no taxes on that.
As far as the article goes, they said it helps Nevada, not the country as a whole. Being that we don't pay state income taxes, the only thing that we're missing is Medicare payments, tax-wise. Illegal immigrants won't be getting social security. The Medicare thing is an issue, which is why I'm for a consumption based tax system.
Illegal labor does help NV's economy. I work retail in Reno/Sparks and I get lots of undocumented workers coming to buy computers and TV's and the like. They usually buy stuff here, and send it back to Mexico. The more contractors save on labor, the more they have. They don't have to cover these people for workers comp if something happens. It's more money in contractor's pockets.
The problem lies within our tax system. We could have lots of new revenue if we had the Fair Tax. But either way, Illegal immigrants are good for America as a whole. If you were a businessperson, wouldn't you hire illegal labor? I would. I outsource my website and software creation to India, because financially it makes more sense. So instead of complaining about it, do something other than snipe about how they're taking your jobs.
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There is no question that illegal aliens make the economy bigger. When you add millions of workers to the economy they obviously consume quite a lot. That was essentially the gist of the entire study. But that does not necessarily mean that the economy is better or richer or more fair.
Businesses love a larger economy because as people consume more, their businesses grow. The government like a larger economy because there is more to tax. These two groups are clearly winners.
But there are losers too. The poorest Americans are among the biggest losers. Wages in the job categories where they work are depressed and there are less opportunities available as they compete with illegals for the same jobs. And the middle class suffers because low earning illegals contribute less to the treasury then they consume and the middleclass gets stuck with a large share of the difference.
Perhaps the worst losers are the American children who are forced to share schools with large numbers of English as Second Language Students. These ESL students consume a disproportionate share of educational resources and American children are short-changed. These children who are short-changed are disproportionately the children of the poor because they are the ones who are forced to share their communities with the illegal immigrants while wealthier Americans flee to safer neighborhoods and send their kids to the better public schools or private schools. Without a decent education the poor kids grow up to be poor adults.
The poor people and their children who are hurt the worst by illegal immigration are disproportionately minorites, recent legal immigrants and most particularly blacks. The government's habit of turning a blind eye to illegal immigration and tolerating blatent abuse of our employment and tax laws by businesses is arguably a racist policy. It keeps the poor people poor and it almost seems to be deliberate.
Essentially illegal immigration has the effect of transferring wealth from the poor and the middleclass to the rich. It is a giant cheap labor subsidy to the richest Americans paid for by the poorest Americans. They pocket fat profits while the rest of Americans get lower wages and higher taxes.
If your only concern is the size of the economy, and the profits of businesses and the amount of taxes collected by government then I suppose that you would conclude that illegal immigration was good.
If you are concerned about a fair economy with a prosperous middleclass and with poor people earning a living wage and having abundant opportunities to climb out of poverty into a growing middleclass then illegal immigration is a disaster.
Immigration is the conrerstone for the united States. When the Irish immigrated, they would have been illegal if the United States didn't have EXTREMELY lax immigration policies. They just showed up on the shores and were granted citizenship. Now you can't tell Irish from English. Mexicans are no different, except that we make it MUCH harder to just come into the United States.
People are scared of change and when anything goes wrong, people blame immigrants and minorities. I know absolutely no one who has lost a job to an illegal immigrant. I live in Reno, a huge construction worker population with lots of immigrants, and I used to live in Richmond, Bay Area, CA and I had a lot of friends who worked construction. I never heard any of them complain about illegal immigrants taking their jobs.
Even if an American Citizen makes money, it's transfering money form the poor to the rich. It doesn't matter whose working that job, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. If it wasn't Immigrants driving down wages, it would be Citizens who are driving down wages, because someone will always do it cheaper.
America is about the chance for change and a better life, and we want to deprive people of that? It's xenophobic nonsense. People aren't happy and so they blame the immigrants, as it has always worked in the United States and anywhere for that matter. People in France blame their problems on Arab immigrants, when the reason France is not doing good is its socialist policies.
And, I don't know if you've noticed, but the Middle Class has been declining not as a result of illegal immigration, as it has been declining for decades. The reason for the shrinking middle class is the loss of domestic manufacturing jobs.
And yes, the size of the economy is important, if you haven't noticed. I mean, we had great employment during the Clinton administration and blue-collar and middle-class people spoke highly of him, because the overall economy was good. Clinton did nothing to curb illegal immigration.
When times are bad, immigrants get blamed, legal or otherwise. It's the foundation of America. People come here for a better life and are hated, until the 2nd or 3rd generation fully assimilated to American culture.
Even if an American Citizen makes money, it's transfering money form the poor to the rich. It doesn't matter whose working that job, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. If it wasn't Immigrants driving down wages, it would be Citizens who are driving down wages, because someone will always do it cheaper.
Apparently you don't subscribe to the laws of supply and demand?
When you massively increase the supply of unskilled labor, the wages for unskilled labor go down, Unskilled Americans suffer lower wages and the wealthy Americans who hire them get a cheap labor subsidy at their expense.
Lately there have been several busts of illegal immigrants in the meat packing industry. In the 1980's labor in these plants was unionized and workers were earning in the neighborhood of $18 per hour (in 1980 dollars). These were solid blue collar middleclass jobs. The owners of meat packing companies have used cheap illegal labor to bust the unions and drive wages down. Meat packing workers now earn around $11 per hour in 2008 dollars which are worth a lot less than 1980 dollars. These are now poverty jobs. Meat packing is highly profitable for their employers and the consumers are not seeing lower food prices as a result of the blatent criminal activity on the parts of these companies.
The same thing has happened in the construction industry. Construction jobs were the entry level middleclass jobs but they have been transformed by illegal aliens into poverty jobs. Prices have fallen since the bubble burst but I did not notice any of these construction companies passing on the benefits of cheap labor earlier this decade. They just pocketed the fat profits which resulted from their illegal behavior and stuck the middleclass with the tax tab for the social costs that come with the mass importation of poverty stricken people
Contrary to your assertion, people were plenty angry about illegal aliens in the 1990's. Most of the illegals were concentrated in California in those days and the people of California by popular referendum passed Proposition 187 which denied lots of benefits to the illegals. It was struck down by the liberal 9'th Circuit Court but that does not mean people were not mad as hell. Anger about illegal immigration is not as closely tied to the economy as you represent. Most of the 2000's have been economic good times with historically low levels of unemployment, rising housing prices and a decent stock market. But twice, before the current housing bubble burst and the economy appeared to be in trouble, the American people caused Congress to backdown from their plans to pass amnesty. It turns out we were mad as hell BEFORE the economy went south.
America is indeed partly about immigration and a chance for a better life. We have the most generous LEGAL immigration policy in the world and admit about 1 million LEGAL immigrants annually which is more than ALL other countries in the world combined.
But America is also about the rule of law and the American people deserve to have the laws passed by their duly elected Congress enforced. Just because we enforce our immigration laws does not mean we are any less a beacon of hope and a chance for our better life. But America will only remain a beacon of hope of we honor our tradition of enforcing our laws. Illegal aliens should be subject to the penalty for their crime which is deportation. If we need more people to fuel our economy then there are plenty of DESERVING people around the world who have RESPECTED our laws and our LEGAL immigration process and we can accelerate the rate at which we admit them. Personally, I think we should take care to not damage the interests of our own poor before we get too crazy about importing more poverty.