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> These illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans. Eh, this argument gets trotted out a lot, but it isn't exactly clear-cut. The economy isn't a zero-s

> These illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans. Eh, this argument gets trotted out a lot, but it isn't exactly clear-cut. The economy isn't a zero-sum game. Sure, illegal immigrants do show up and undercut some jobs. Some percentage of people will find themselves working at a lower wage, or lose their job and need to find a new one. But plenty of other people will find their business increased, higher wages, more profit, etc. All these immigrants require services and commodities too, and have to buy them from somewhere. They need to buy groceries, get hair-cuts, purchase mattresses, buy cars. Illegal or not, they contribute to the economy too. Planet Money did a good piece on the cuban migrations to Miami in the 80's. It was the perfect microcosm to study the phenomenon: many immigrants, contained geographical region, etc. http://www.npr.org/2015/10/01/444912593/when-cuban-migrants-flooded-miami-what-did-it-do-to-the-local-economy http://www.npr.org/2015/10/01/444912593/when-cuban-migrants-... Money quote at the top of the episode: SMITH: So 80,000 refugees came to Miami, and there was no effect on the economy? CARD: You couldn't detect any strong evidence of an effect one way or the other. SMITH: No effect, not on wages, not on unemployment rates. Card says this is because there is not a fixed number of jobs in an economy. When a bunch of new people come, yes, they get jobs. But they also start buying stuff, getting haircuts, going to the grocery store, which means you need more barbers and more grocers. That creates more jobs.

jklinger410 10y ago
>zero-sum game This meme is making it's rounds these days. >Sure, illegal immigrants do show up and undercut some jobs. Some percentage of people will find themselves working at a lower wage, or lose their job and need to find a new one. Right? No big deal! >But plenty of other people will find their business increased 2/2 = 1 >have to buy them from somewhere Was money created at some point? They took or undercut a job, and are spending money that...the other employee who they undercut or took their job from would have also spent...? I'm sorry if I'm dense...either I'm missing some fundamental pieces of your argument or there isn't much logic to it.
- davidw 10y ago
  > I'm missing some fundamental pieces of your argument Yes: economics. We're more prosperous than we were 100 years ago, with far more people.
  - jklinger410 10y ago
    So we have 1,000 jobs filled by 1,000 people and they all have paychecks. We add an extra 1,000 people so we have 2,000 people and 1,000 jobs. 1,000 of those people are unemployed and have no money. Somehow this benefits our economy because those 1,000 unemployed people without jobs are going to buy things. Sorry I don't understand "economics."
    - davidw 10y ago
      > Sorry I don't understand "economics." I would suggest reading this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game#Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game#Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy Paul Graham also has a good article: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html There are number of good books on the subject. Tim Harford has some pretty approachable books that are aimed at a general audience. Perhaps others have further suggestions. As a consideration to others, strongly arguing something you have little understanding of lowers the signal to noise ratio of this site, and might be avoided.
    - polyfractal 10y ago
      The number of jobs wouldn't remain static. The number of jobs would naturally increase to support the increased density of people. Also, some (hopefully large) fraction of the newly unemployed will find employment elsewhere. Few people get fired from their only job and they say "welp, guess I'm unemployed for life". Also, 1000 of those jobs are presumably lost because the new workers are willing to work at a lower rate. That leads to two situations: - The product/service they are creating will be cheaper (e.g. cheaper commodities out of China, cheaper fruit harvesting by migrant workers, etc). The average person spends less of their paycheck on these purchases, which means they obtain more value for less money. Or purchase more things using the same amount of money as before. - The owner of the business pockets more profit by employing cheaper labor but keeping prices the same. This segues into the idea of "trickle down" or "supply side" economy, where the owner employs more people, expands business, invests more capital etc because they are now spending less on salaries. Not saying I agree with this analysis, but it's at least one viewpoint :)
soVeryTired 10y ago
Going by the GP's logic, the massive influx of women into the workforce in the 60's - 90's should have been a disaster.
- davidw 10y ago
  Let's hope they don't figure out what having more than 2 children per couple might do to the economy according to their zero sum logic...
davidverhasselt 10y ago
The research on the so-called "Mariel boatlift" in the 80's was done back in 1990 and has since been disputed: > Most recently this has centred on a dispute between two economists, David Card at the University of California, Berkeley, and George Borjas, at Harvard University, over the effect of an unexpected surge in Cuban migrants to Miami in 1980 (the so-called “Mariel boatlift”). In 1990 Mr Card found this influx had no effect on the wages of low-skilled workers in Miami; Mr Borjas has now revisited the analysis, and claims that wages of high-school dropouts in fact fell substantially. Source: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21705699-who-are-main-economic-losers-low-skilled-immigration-wage-war http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21705699-who-are...
- polyfractal 10y ago
  Interesting! I'll give this a read-through tonight, thanks for the link :)
  - davidverhasselt 10y ago
    Yep, no problem! I also thought it quite interesting which is why I remembered this specific tidbit.
davidf18 10y ago
It is clear that illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans. Ask carpenters and bricklayers who have been replaced by illegal immigrants because they don't have state licenses for their jobs as opposed to plumbers and electricians who do. If a trade is not protected by licensure, then it is quite possible it will be replaced by illegal immigrants.

jklinger410 10y ago

>zero-sum game This meme is making it's rounds these days. >Sure, illegal immigrants do show up and undercut some jobs. Some percentage of people will find themselves working at a lower wage, or lose their job and need to find a new one. Right? No big deal! >But plenty of other people will find their business increased 2/2 = 1 >have to buy them from somewhere Was money created at some point? They took or undercut a job, and are spending money that...the other employee who they undercut or took their job from would have also spent...? I'm sorry if I'm dense...either I'm missing some fundamental pieces of your argument or there isn't much logic to it.

davidw 10y ago
> I'm missing some fundamental pieces of your argument Yes: economics. We're more prosperous than we were 100 years ago, with far more people.
- jklinger410 10y ago
  So we have 1,000 jobs filled by 1,000 people and they all have paychecks. We add an extra 1,000 people so we have 2,000 people and 1,000 jobs. 1,000 of those people are unemployed and have no money. Somehow this benefits our economy because those 1,000 unemployed people without jobs are going to buy things. Sorry I don't understand "economics."
  - davidw 10y ago
    > Sorry I don't understand "economics." I would suggest reading this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game#Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game#Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy Paul Graham also has a good article: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html There are number of good books on the subject. Tim Harford has some pretty approachable books that are aimed at a general audience. Perhaps others have further suggestions. As a consideration to others, strongly arguing something you have little understanding of lowers the signal to noise ratio of this site, and might be avoided.
  - polyfractal 10y ago
    The number of jobs wouldn't remain static. The number of jobs would naturally increase to support the increased density of people. Also, some (hopefully large) fraction of the newly unemployed will find employment elsewhere. Few people get fired from their only job and they say "welp, guess I'm unemployed for life". Also, 1000 of those jobs are presumably lost because the new workers are willing to work at a lower rate. That leads to two situations: - The product/service they are creating will be cheaper (e.g. cheaper commodities out of China, cheaper fruit harvesting by migrant workers, etc). The average person spends less of their paycheck on these purchases, which means they obtain more value for less money. Or purchase more things using the same amount of money as before. - The owner of the business pockets more profit by employing cheaper labor but keeping prices the same. This segues into the idea of "trickle down" or "supply side" economy, where the owner employs more people, expands business, invests more capital etc because they are now spending less on salaries. Not saying I agree with this analysis, but it's at least one viewpoint :)

soVeryTired 10y ago

Going by the GP's logic, the massive influx of women into the workforce in the 60's - 90's should have been a disaster.

davidw 10y ago
Let's hope they don't figure out what having more than 2 children per couple might do to the economy according to their zero sum logic...

davidverhasselt 10y ago

The research on the so-called "Mariel boatlift" in the 80's was done back in 1990 and has since been disputed: > Most recently this has centred on a dispute between two economists, David Card at the University of California, Berkeley, and George Borjas, at Harvard University, over the effect of an unexpected surge in Cuban migrants to Miami in 1980 (the so-called “Mariel boatlift”). In 1990 Mr Card found this influx had no effect on the wages of low-skilled workers in Miami; Mr Borjas has now revisited the analysis, and claims that wages of high-school dropouts in fact fell substantially. Source: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21705699-who-are-main-economic-losers-low-skilled-immigration-wage-war http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21705699-who-are...

polyfractal 10y ago
Interesting! I'll give this a read-through tonight, thanks for the link :)
- davidverhasselt 10y ago
  Yep, no problem! I also thought it quite interesting which is why I remembered this specific tidbit.

davidf18 10y ago

It is clear that illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans. Ask carpenters and bricklayers who have been replaced by illegal immigrants because they don't have state licenses for their jobs as opposed to plumbers and electricians who do. If a trade is not protected by licensure, then it is quite possible it will be replaced by illegal immigrants.