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I am baffled. Immigration "tackles" inflation by driving down working-class wages. That benefits the upper-middle class. And also, driving up the rent and in

I am baffled. Immigration "tackles" inflation by driving down working-class wages. That benefits the upper-middle class. And also, driving up the rent and increasing traffic.

ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
I'm in agreement here. I really dont understand why people think immigrants help the middle class.
- unglaublich 5y ago
  Only people in upper class believe that more "low skilled" labor will help the middle and lower class. Take Jeff Bezos. He doesn't like to pay salaries to warehouse employees, but his employees will not give up the few dollars per hour that keep them from starving and homelessness. Now, we flood the "low skilled" labor market. What if there are twice as many workers available? Sure, someone will be willing to swap unemployment for a job with a somewhat lower salary? Now, instead of companies competing with each other for labor... we have workers competing with each other for jobs! That's fantastic news for the upper class! They will work for peanuts, because otherwise they'll starve and have to live in a car in a poor neighborhood... checkmate!
  - astrange 5y ago
    No such thing as competing for jobs necessarily, because you can’t run out of jobs as long as there’s demand. More people = more businesses = more demand. (If immigrants made you poorer then so would your neighbors having children, and the way to get richer would be killing your coworkers.) Thinking you can run out of jobs is an artifact of the US’s bad monetary/industrial policy from 2000-2020, but if you look around you’ll see that’s over. We’re in a full employment economy now.
    - diordiderot 5y ago
      > as long as there’s demand. So how could we generate more demand?
      - therealdrag0 5y ago
        The point is humans generate their own demand. We can new immigrant family in turn is buying all sorts of things.
        diordiderot 5y ago
        you generate demand by having money to pay for things
barry-cotter 5y ago
It has at most a small and transitory negative effect on a very small portion of the writing class. The average worker benefits. If we want to help the lowest paid we can reduce they’re taxes or subsidise their wages. https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour-market-effects-immigration/ https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour... > UK research suggests that immigration has a small impact on average wages of existing workers but more significant effects for certain groups: low-wage workers lose while medium and high-paid workers gain. The wage effects of immigration are likely to be greatest for resident workers who are immigrants themselves. Research does not find a significant impact of overall immigration on unemployment in the UK, but the evidence suggests that immigration from outside the EU could have a negative impact on the employment of UK-born workers, especially during an economic downturn. The impacts of immigration on the labour market depend on the skills of migrants, the skills of existing workers, and the characteristics of the host economy. This means that research evidence on the labour market effects of immigration is always specific to time and place. For both wages and employment, short run effects of immigration differ from long run effects: any declines in the wages and employment of UK-born workers in the short run can be offset by rising wages and employment in the long run.
- djbebs 5y ago
  The lowest paid already pay effectively no taxes and your suggestion is to have them pay less? Do you understand the incentives you're creating when you have only a small minority of productive people subsidize everyone else?
  - spupe 5y ago
    That's a bad way to see it. First of all, proportionally they pay quite a lot of taxes because all their money goes into consumption. Depending on where you live, VAT can be up to 25% for example. Also, they are subjected to payroll taxes and other things, so it's wrong to focus solely on income tax here. But more importantly, it absolutely makes sense to have the poorest be subsidized by the richest. That's what Europe does, and they are doing great. I would much rather be taxed highly in Europe and know that the money is making sure everyone around me has healthcare and a roof above their head than thinking that my productivity is some God-given ability that supersedes a compassionate and rational way to structure society.

I am baffled. Immigration "tackles" inflation by driving down working-class wages. That benefits the upper-middle class. And also, driving up the rent and increasing traffic.

ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago

I'm in agreement here. I really dont understand why people think immigrants help the middle class.

unglaublich 5y ago
Only people in upper class believe that more "low skilled" labor will help the middle and lower class. Take Jeff Bezos. He doesn't like to pay salaries to warehouse employees, but his employees will not give up the few dollars per hour that keep them from starving and homelessness. Now, we flood the "low skilled" labor market. What if there are twice as many workers available? Sure, someone will be willing to swap unemployment for a job with a somewhat lower salary? Now, instead of companies competing with each other for labor... we have workers competing with each other for jobs! That's fantastic news for the upper class! They will work for peanuts, because otherwise they'll starve and have to live in a car in a poor neighborhood... checkmate!
- astrange 5y ago
  No such thing as competing for jobs necessarily, because you can’t run out of jobs as long as there’s demand. More people = more businesses = more demand. (If immigrants made you poorer then so would your neighbors having children, and the way to get richer would be killing your coworkers.) Thinking you can run out of jobs is an artifact of the US’s bad monetary/industrial policy from 2000-2020, but if you look around you’ll see that’s over. We’re in a full employment economy now.
  - diordiderot 5y ago
    > as long as there’s demand. So how could we generate more demand?
    - therealdrag0 5y ago
      The point is humans generate their own demand. We can new immigrant family in turn is buying all sorts of things.
      - diordiderot 5y ago
        you generate demand by having money to pay for things

barry-cotter 5y ago

It has at most a small and transitory negative effect on a very small portion of the writing class. The average worker benefits. If we want to help the lowest paid we can reduce they’re taxes or subsidise their wages. https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour-market-effects-immigration/ https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour... > UK research suggests that immigration has a small impact on average wages of existing workers but more significant effects for certain groups: low-wage workers lose while medium and high-paid workers gain. The wage effects of immigration are likely to be greatest for resident workers who are immigrants themselves. Research does not find a significant impact of overall immigration on unemployment in the UK, but the evidence suggests that immigration from outside the EU could have a negative impact on the employment of UK-born workers, especially during an economic downturn. The impacts of immigration on the labour market depend on the skills of migrants, the skills of existing workers, and the characteristics of the host economy. This means that research evidence on the labour market effects of immigration is always specific to time and place. For both wages and employment, short run effects of immigration differ from long run effects: any declines in the wages and employment of UK-born workers in the short run can be offset by rising wages and employment in the long run.

djbebs 5y ago
The lowest paid already pay effectively no taxes and your suggestion is to have them pay less? Do you understand the incentives you're creating when you have only a small minority of productive people subsidize everyone else?
- spupe 5y ago
  That's a bad way to see it. First of all, proportionally they pay quite a lot of taxes because all their money goes into consumption. Depending on where you live, VAT can be up to 25% for example. Also, they are subjected to payroll taxes and other things, so it's wrong to focus solely on income tax here. But more importantly, it absolutely makes sense to have the poorest be subsidized by the richest. That's what Europe does, and they are doing great. I would much rather be taxed highly in Europe and know that the money is making sure everyone around me has healthcare and a roof above their head than thinking that my productivity is some God-given ability that supersedes a compassionate and rational way to structure society.