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>Trump has been working to stop illegal immigration as well as stemming H1-B Visa abuse. A result is that there are "labor shortages" resulting in a rising wage

>Trump has been working to stop illegal immigration as well as stemming H1-B Visa abuse. A result is that there are "labor shortages" resulting in a rising wage rate. Sorry, but what evidence do you have that anything Trump has done has produced this result? Or even that this is the result of stemming immigration and not, say, steadily increasing demand in the economy? In regards to the illegal immigration, other than the small bump due to people fleeing violence associated with Honduras, illegal immigration has been at a multi-decade low. Trump talks about it a lot, but this was already a substantially smaller contributor to labor markets when he came into office. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has been dropping quite steadily over the past decade - it didn't adjust dramatically as a result of some Trump-related policy. This is entirely the result of the end of the Great Recession, which kicked up unemployment by a huge percentage around the world. It's now basically recovered to its pre-recession levels. A decade of GDP growth is also bringing aggregate demand where it used to be. These systemic factors seem much more likely to me to be responsible for this tight labor market than any kind of fiddling with immigration policy, whose effects would take years to feel if they could even produce this kind of change.

davidf18 7y ago
> "but what evidence do you have that anything Trump has done..." Naturally, difficult to demonstrate causality and certainly some of the tightening of labor comes from economic growth, but Trump has been careful to do away with H1-B Visa abuse, looking into having firms offer salaries above US rates. Trump is also increasing enforcement of raiding firms for illegal alien employment. Trump is getting rid of the H4 Visa program which Obama invented instead of passing it through Congress which helped spouses of H1-B workers to take jobs intended for Americans or others who have a legal right to work here. I think that number alone is 100,000. Trump has reestablished a program that helps employers to check if workers are using fraudulent or stolen SSNs that Obama had stopped. Obama stopped the program apparently so to make it easier for firms to hire illegal aliens. > "illegal immigration has been at a multi-decade low." I'm not certain that that is true, I've been reading that the border is being rushed (in NYTimes). But you're discussing the are of illegal immigrants coming into the country and not discussing the very large number of illegal immigrants already living here. By enforcing laws that keep illegal aliens from working here, Trump is helping to tighten the labor market leading to increased wages for the working class. In 1970 there was about 5% of the US population that were immigrants and that number has progressively grown to 14%. Had the immigration rate remained stable at the 1970 levels there undoubtedly would be far higher wages for the working class. I'm not against immigrants, but against illegal aliens. Probably restoring immigration to 1970 levels or a bit higher would restore some stability in long-term working class employment and wages. As for unemployment rates, these rates are notoriously underreporting and don't report certain categories and geographical locations which are suffering from unemployment and underemployment. For example, GM is laying off 14,000 workers. Will they quickly be able to find jobs with comparable compensation? That would be an interesting study and I'm guessing the answer is no.

davidf18 7y ago

> "but what evidence do you have that anything Trump has done..." Naturally, difficult to demonstrate causality and certainly some of the tightening of labor comes from economic growth, but Trump has been careful to do away with H1-B Visa abuse, looking into having firms offer salaries above US rates. Trump is also increasing enforcement of raiding firms for illegal alien employment. Trump is getting rid of the H4 Visa program which Obama invented instead of passing it through Congress which helped spouses of H1-B workers to take jobs intended for Americans or others who have a legal right to work here. I think that number alone is 100,000. Trump has reestablished a program that helps employers to check if workers are using fraudulent or stolen SSNs that Obama had stopped. Obama stopped the program apparently so to make it easier for firms to hire illegal aliens. > "illegal immigration has been at a multi-decade low." I'm not certain that that is true, I've been reading that the border is being rushed (in NYTimes). But you're discussing the are of illegal immigrants coming into the country and not discussing the very large number of illegal immigrants already living here. By enforcing laws that keep illegal aliens from working here, Trump is helping to tighten the labor market leading to increased wages for the working class. In 1970 there was about 5% of the US population that were immigrants and that number has progressively grown to 14%. Had the immigration rate remained stable at the 1970 levels there undoubtedly would be far higher wages for the working class. I'm not against immigrants, but against illegal aliens. Probably restoring immigration to 1970 levels or a bit higher would restore some stability in long-term working class employment and wages. As for unemployment rates, these rates are notoriously underreporting and don't report certain categories and geographical locations which are suffering from unemployment and underemployment. For example, GM is laying off 14,000 workers. Will they quickly be able to find jobs with comparable compensation? That would be an interesting study and I'm guessing the answer is no.