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"at most a very minor effect on wages" strikes me as deeply implausible. The US has added tens of millions of immigrants in the past few decades. Many of them a

"at most a very minor effect on wages" strikes me as deeply implausible. The US has added tens of millions of immigrants in the past few decades. Many of them are willing to work for conditions and wages that native workers aren't willing to put up with. How could that do anything but depress wages? Nearly 90% of farm workers are immigrants[1]. That has, at most, "a minor effect on wages"? I'm extremely skeptical of that. 1 - https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/about-farmworker-justice/who-we-serve/ https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/about-farmworker-justice/w...

eru 5y ago
If there were less migrants, natives wouldn't have cushy farmworker jobs. That wouldn't be profitable. By and large, there would simply be fewer farmworker jobs: Farmers would switch to less labour intensive crops, eg wheat instead of fruit, and make slightly less money. Migrant's basically 'create' their own farmworker jobs. Those jobs wouldn't exist without them. Researchers have looked at the effect of migration on wages. Just ask your favourite search engine for 'migration and wages' (or similar terms), and see many papers. Eg https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration-reduce-wages https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration... or https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/th... or https://wol.iza.org/articles/do-immigrant-workers-depress-the-wages-of-native-workers/long https://wol.iza.org/articles/do-immigrant-workers-depress-th... or https://www.oecd.org/els/42365109.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/42365109.pdf (just to give the top results I get from Google). Basically, the papers say that the effect is probably zero, or at most very small. So something you could relatively easily compensate existing workers (or voters) for, by laying a fee or tax on the migrants.

eru 5y ago

If there were less migrants, natives wouldn't have cushy farmworker jobs. That wouldn't be profitable. By and large, there would simply be fewer farmworker jobs: Farmers would switch to less labour intensive crops, eg wheat instead of fruit, and make slightly less money. Migrant's basically 'create' their own farmworker jobs. Those jobs wouldn't exist without them. Researchers have looked at the effect of migration on wages. Just ask your favourite search engine for 'migration and wages' (or similar terms), and see many papers. Eg https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration-reduce-wages https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration... or https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/th... or https://wol.iza.org/articles/do-immigrant-workers-depress-the-wages-of-native-workers/long https://wol.iza.org/articles/do-immigrant-workers-depress-th... or https://www.oecd.org/els/42365109.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/42365109.pdf (just to give the top results I get from Google). Basically, the papers say that the effect is probably zero, or at most very small. So something you could relatively easily compensate existing workers (or voters) for, by laying a fee or tax on the migrants.