4 ms·

I think we’re in agreement on our points? Periods of mass external migration into the US also depress wages and make jobs tougher to compete for, which also hi

I think we’re in agreement on our points? Periods of mass external migration into the US also depress wages and make jobs tougher to compete for, which also hinders moving. The next phase of internal migration has begun / will begin soon but won’t be significant or peak for another 30 years.

pulisse 8y ago
> Periods of mass external migration into the US also depress wages Empirically, this is not the case, at least in the long term[1]: > Empirical research in recent decades suggests that [...] when measured over a period of more than 10 years, the impact of immigration on the wages of natives overall is very small. (This is from a 2017 overview. The next few pages starting after the linked passage summarize the currently known evidence, if you're interested.) [1] https://www.nap.edu/read/23550/chapter/9#267 https://www.nap.edu/read/23550/chapter/9#267
- patrickg_zill 8y ago
  George Borjas has pointed out that: Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinto...
  - barrkel 8y ago
    Don't forget that some industries can't exist if there aren't enough workers. Density of human capital is sometimes a prerequisite to a sustainable business. For example, silicon valley would be much smaller and the net value of companies much lower if not for the global inflow of talent. Even if the average wage was reduced (and I doubt it, I think it's only likely for commodity labour, scale enables specialization which pays more) the total wage is much higher. You also need to look at the displacement effect - what happened to jobs with other sets of skills that now have fewer workers.
    - drpgq 8y ago
      Would that necessarily be true? There would be a Google equivalent and a Facebook equivalent.
  - pulisse 8y ago
    Borjas's results consistently lie at the furthest extreme of existing studies. You can see this in the survey I linked. If I claim that the aggregate of research doesn't show a long-term effect of immigration on wages, it's not a rebuttal to cite a subset of data from one tail of the distribution. Less abstractly, Borjas's methods are viewed as suspect by other economists working in this area. See, e.g, this review[1]. [1] http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/card-peri-jel-april-6-2016.pdf http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/card-peri-jel-april-6-2...
- Bucephalus355 8y ago
  This is such a disgusting neoliberalism lie I’m unsure how to react. There is nothing in the world to suggest that MORE workers would RAISE wages. I’m not saying it doesn’t add benefits, American tech companies built a lot of cool stuff with cheap H1-B but it does LOWER salaries.
joe_the_user 8y ago
I don't agree that a period of mass migration is on the horizon at all. There are serious material roadblocks to any such thing. You can't just point to a historical wave and ignore material factors. There's no indications that high rent, barriers to easily finding jobs and so-forth are going to go away any time soon.

pulisse 8y ago

> Periods of mass external migration into the US also depress wages Empirically, this is not the case, at least in the long term[1]: > Empirical research in recent decades suggests that [...] when measured over a period of more than 10 years, the impact of immigration on the wages of natives overall is very small. (This is from a 2017 overview. The next few pages starting after the linked passage summarize the currently known evidence, if you're interested.) [1] https://www.nap.edu/read/23550/chapter/9#267 https://www.nap.edu/read/23550/chapter/9#267

patrickg_zill 8y ago
George Borjas has pointed out that: Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinto...
- barrkel 8y ago
  Don't forget that some industries can't exist if there aren't enough workers. Density of human capital is sometimes a prerequisite to a sustainable business. For example, silicon valley would be much smaller and the net value of companies much lower if not for the global inflow of talent. Even if the average wage was reduced (and I doubt it, I think it's only likely for commodity labour, scale enables specialization which pays more) the total wage is much higher. You also need to look at the displacement effect - what happened to jobs with other sets of skills that now have fewer workers.
  - drpgq 8y ago
    Would that necessarily be true? There would be a Google equivalent and a Facebook equivalent.
- pulisse 8y ago
  Borjas's results consistently lie at the furthest extreme of existing studies. You can see this in the survey I linked. If I claim that the aggregate of research doesn't show a long-term effect of immigration on wages, it's not a rebuttal to cite a subset of data from one tail of the distribution. Less abstractly, Borjas's methods are viewed as suspect by other economists working in this area. See, e.g, this review[1]. [1] http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/card-peri-jel-april-6-2016.pdf http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/card-peri-jel-april-6-2...
Bucephalus355 8y ago
This is such a disgusting neoliberalism lie I’m unsure how to react. There is nothing in the world to suggest that MORE workers would RAISE wages. I’m not saying it doesn’t add benefits, American tech companies built a lot of cool stuff with cheap H1-B but it does LOWER salaries.

joe_the_user 8y ago

I don't agree that a period of mass migration is on the horizon at all. There are serious material roadblocks to any such thing. You can't just point to a historical wave and ignore material factors. There's no indications that high rent, barriers to easily finding jobs and so-forth are going to go away any time soon.