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> the Republican anti-immigrant platform because it seems to me there is significant brain drain from many countries to the U.S. and that contributes to our suc
by pton_xd 2y ago
> the Republican anti-immigrant platform because it seems to me there is significant brain drain from many countries to the U.S. and that contributes to our success.
Explain how unskilled illegal immigrants contribute to our success. I'm open minded but I've yet to hear anything convincing.
No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled workers.
- torpfactory 2y agoThere’s a very sizable number of low paying, dirty, dangerous, and/or boring jobs that we can’t find enough locals to do. Think farm hands, home care aides, meat processors, etc. Unskilled immigrants do those jobs because that’s what is available to them (I.e unskilled). If they weren’t doing those jobs, we’d have to pay significantly more for the goods and services that labor depends on. Immigrant labor is disinflationary or at least prevents or ameliorates it.
- zozbot234 2y agoThese jobs are low-paying because they're broadly unproductive. If some of them weren't doing these jobs, the wages paid for them at the margin would increase. We are vastly better off importing more skilled immigrants to high-income countries, compared to unskilled ones.
- lrem 2y agoHow can you call literally feeding the people “broadly unproductive”? It’s low margin, but you can’t have a society supporting your margins without someone doing the bottom jobs.
- petesergeant 2y agoLabour productivity has a specific meaning
- gertlex 2y agoEnlighten us, then? And does "broadly unproductive" have a specific meaning, too?
- s0rce 2y agoIf we didn't have lower wage workers doing farm work food would be way more expensive and less diverse. I'm not sure how you judge the productivity of the worker...
- energy123 2y agoThat's an economically illiterate comment. You're confusing scarcity of labor, which determines price, with the utility that that labor generates.
- stale2002 2y agoThis isn't the 1900s, dude. If supply for labor goes a bit down, wages will increase a bit, and then companies will be incentivized to replace these bad jobs with automation. Those jobs going away, and wages going up, is a good thing not a bad thing. As few people should be doing those bad jobs as possible, and for the ones that do them, they should be paid more.
- markdown 2y agoThey are skilled. Try taking the best and brightest out of Silicon Valley and put them on farms, orchards, and in construction, and see how well they do. This elitist attitude that low-paid workers are "unskilled" workers is bullshit and needs to go.
- zozbot234 2y agoYou're absolutely right that 'skilled' is merely a relative term and ultimately a social construct. But nonetheless, the fact remains that those skills are so much more abundant and are not soaked up by existing demand (which would drive wage increases at the margin).
- herewulf 2y agoAs a software engineer who has done plenty of home improvement, gardening, automotive repair, etc, I think the best and brightest would learn quickly. Now, let's take the average farmer, orchard worker, construction worker, and then chuck them into a software job. They wouldn't know where to start and wouldn't get anywhere without the same educational basics that 99% of developers have gone through. That's not elitist, it's just reality. So, there's a clear distinction to be made and it's not necessary to water down every word in the English language because we're afraid of hurting someone's feelings.
- MisterBastahrd 2y agoUh-huh. Let's see all those soft keyboard jockeys be efficient at hanging drywall and working on a roof all day long with no air conditioning in Texas or Arizona. They won't. They don't have what it takes.
- bavell 2y agoNot all of us "keyboard jockeys" grew up soft and sheltered in big cities. The dry heat of TX/AZ isn't that bad compared to the sweltering humidity of the southeast ;)
- 2y ago
- csomar 2y agoConstruction in a tight real estate market is broadly unproductive?
- dgfitz 2y ago[flagged]
- whimsicalism 2y agoif you don’t think lots of immigrants (and likely illegal immigrants) work as farm hands and at meat processor plants, you have clearly not spent much time in those industries https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-05-26/meatpacking-industry-immigrant-undocumented-workers https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2020-05-26/meatpacking-in... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/business/economy/immigration-california-farm-labor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/business/economy/immigrat...
- dgfitz 2y ago1.2% of the US population works on a farm. I imagine an order of magnitude less work at meat-packing plants.
- mixmastamyk 2y agoThey're not all unskilled. Well-paying construction jobs, which used to be a path to the middle class, have been gutted (in the western US at least).
- tonynator 2y ago[flagged]
- tstrimple 2y agoYou're exactly the sort of person who also maintains that burger flippers don't deserve a liveable wage and that there's no such thing as a liveable wage outside of what the market dictates. You'll turn around and scream about inflation due to "highly paid Americans" picking fruit, and demand that something must be done about such outrages. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tonynator 2y agoI fully support increased wages for menial jobs, as long as they're not going to illegals
- ironhaven 2y agoSo the illegal immigration issue is not important to you for its economics affects or changes to quality of life but just due to your fear of the other. Thank you for making your priorities more clear.
- stale2002 2y ago> for its economics affects or changes to quality of life The premise of the comment that you are responding to is that because of supply and demand, and because these people are desperate, it reducing the wages for those jobs and makes those bad jobs worse. Thats horrible and less people should be doing those bad jobs, and the wages should increase! Desperate immigrants doing those jobs is just people pushing off bad things to a vulnerable population, and the world would be better off if those jobs got automated away entirely.
- tonynator 2y ago
- sensanaty 2y agoThey're low paying because (often illegal) immigrants from other countries either A) are happy to put up with what is a luxurious salary for back home, but barely liveable locally Or B) don't have a choice once they're in, since they practically become indentured servants In the Netherlands, no dutchie wants to work construction for example, because immigrants from Eastern Europe often take under-the-table deals where they get paid drastically less than what a Dutchie would command, though still much higher than any job they'd get back home. The same happens everywhere. The answer is NOT to bring the country down by mass-importing low skilled workers, but by forcing these hugely profitable companies to actually invest in the country and its citizens by paying all employees as it should.
- systemtest 2y agoBoth Dutch natives and EU-migrants are to be paid minimum wage, however it is a common trick when hiring migrants to charge them a ridiculous amount of rent for very sub-par accommodation nearby the jobsite. For example €600/month for a bunk-bed in a room with eight others. That is a way many temp agencies earn extra from migrants.
- sensanaty 2y ago> Both Dutch natives and EU-migrants are to be paid minimum wage In theory, yes, but I know a decent number of my own countrymen (Serbians) that most definitely aren't legally employed in NL, but they're still working construction. It's vile, but it is what it is. (Not them, the companies are vile for what they're doing, the workers are simply surviving however they can)
- 15155 2y agoCould it be possible that this bunk bed is then made a required (verbal - nobody put it in writing, of course) condition of employment?
- systemtest 2y agoI don't know the contract details but these workers are picked up at the facility every day with an 8-person van and brought to the job site. Not only will it be very difficult to get a rental apartment for 2 months at less than €600/month, you also miss out on the transportation if you do. And these jobs are usually picking strawberries out in the rural sections or working for Amazon at some industrial estate that doesn't have public transit late at night.
- np- 2y agoI’m always deeply uncomfortable with this argument. It sounds like justification for a “slave” class to do undesirable jobs with no legal protections and sub minimum wage, just so Americans can save a few bucks at the supermarket. But at what moral cost? We can’t have it both ways—if they’re here working, then it needs to be at full American wage with full American regulation/oversight. But that itself defeats the purpose of hiring undocumented workers.
- mrsalt 2y agoWhy is it uncomfortable? It is the reality, and no one important wants to change it. There are plenty of immigrants working under the table. And there are plenty of employers willing to hire them. We do have it both ways.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoPart of what perpetuates this sort of thing is a general idea in society that one can’t do or learn something because that’s not possible for them. I’m of the opinion that if sufficiently motivated and with sufficient constraints removed, anyone can learn and do anything. The only difference between an engineer and someone breaking their back for work is that the engineer was probably coddled from birth into being told they can do anything including engineering. Not as a pipe dream but a clear path: take these classes, apply to this college, take this internship, take this job. Meanwhile the laborer was probably told all their life they don’t have what it takes, either explicitly or not, and that thinking held them back their entire life. Why try hard in school if I am “not smart”? Why try and go to college if I can’t pay for it? Why not just do what my neighbor or my uncle does that I know is possible? Many people need to be reminded that everything is possible if they aren’t dissuaded by unhelpful ideas or people.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago<< I’m of the opinion that if sufficiently motivated and with sufficient constraints removed, anyone can learn and do anything. Anyone can do anything if they believe enough.. It is a nice sentiment and I cling to it myself more often than not, because there is something soothing about it. The unfortunate reality, however, is that being forced onto thing for which I have no predisposition, is, uhh, counterproductive at best. In short, I disagree with pre-supposition that your position requires ( we are all amorphous blobs that can be molded into whatever with sufficient amount of force ). And that is before we get to the question of whether it is even worthwhile to teach a kid with down syndrome calculus? Not possible. Worthwhile. << Many people need to be reminded that everything is possible if they aren’t dissuaded by unhelpful ideas or people. No. People need to understand themselves. They need to experience their limits and then cater to their strengths and weaknesses accordingly. It is unhelpful to think that billions people on this planet are interchangeable cogs. We are not. I am extremely unlikely to ever be like Georgi Gerganov. I simply do not believe I have the brain capacity needed. It is fine to aspire, but I am not changing the world tomorrow.
- coding123 2y agoMeat processors. No wonder listeria incidents, salmonella and a bunch of other food born diseases are on the rise.
- rangestransform 2y agoI think it would be better to legitimize migrant labour for those types of jobs a la Singapore
- bart_spoon 2y agoIt’s shocking to me that the argument that consistently gets trotted out as to why we should accept illegal immigration is that they perform jobs too dangerous and poorly paid for non-illegal immigrants to do. Perhaps if there wasn’t a never ending stream of people so poor and powerless to take advantage of, these industries might be forced to pay livable wages or provide better protections. It’s insane that the supposedly progressive faction of American politics is arguing in favor of a system that amounts to a modern version of indentured servitude and systemic violation of labor rights, all for the sake of cheaper fruit and meat.
- whimsicalism 2y agolowering cost of labor expands our economy, agglomeration effects, etc.
- windowshopping 2y agoWhy would we be opposed to unskilled immigrants? The majority of the people who came here from Europe in the 1700s and 1800s were laborers, factory workers, farmers, and other simple occupations. Why are we pulling up the ladder behind them? Did you want to freeze the US as it was circa 1950? Things change man. The US isn't forever, anymore than Rome was. You gotta stop trying to fight the current and pretending that by preventing "unskilled immigration" you can maintain the US in some hypothetical idealized state completely specific to your imagination.
- gottorf 2y ago> The majority of the people who came here from Europe in the 1700s and 1800s were laborers, factory workers, farmers, and other simple occupations. Why are we pulling up the ladder behind them? The welfare state did not exist in that time, so the cost of absorbing immigration was confined to acculturation. Immigrants had to quickly start generating value or perish. The incentives are radically different now and the marginal cost to society of absorbing each additional immigrant is much higher. US government spending as a percentage of GDP remained low single digits until WW1; it is roughly 35% today. > You gotta stop trying to fight the current You must also remember that the natural state of everything is decay, and the natural state of mankind in particular is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". The current grinds everything down to sand. It is incumbent upon everyone to fight the current in the way that affords the greatest benefit to society.
- claytongulick 2y agoIt takes energy to fight entropy. I believe that the entropic state of human civilization is brutal authoritarianism. Fight the current, indeed. It's quite remarkable how effectively the citizens of the United States have managed to do that over the years. To resist the sweet, seductive lies of utopians who seek power. I hope we're able to continue.
- lifeisstillgood 2y agoThat’s insightful and terrifying at the same time
- petesergeant 2y ago> No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled workers I can assure you that’s not true, but we hear the most about illegal unskilled immigration because everyone agrees on that.
- hyperpape 2y ago> No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled workers. Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist in 2016, argued that the quantity of Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley undermined "civic society" https://web.archive.org/web/20161117164322/https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/16/13653490/steve-bannon-trump-presidency-chief-strategist-breitbart-tech-visa https://web.archive.org/web/20161117164322/https://www.theve.... There absolutely are a lot of people who want to restrict legal immigration. If you deny that, you're just pretending that you're not helping them out.
- ponector 2y ago> No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled workers. That is not true. If no one is opposing immigration of skilled workers then why getting a visa is a lottery?
- bart_spoon 2y agoIf they opposed skilled immigration, there wouldn’t be a lottery at all, there would be 0 visas allocated.
- ponector 2y agoTo continue your thought: if they really opposed illegal immigration, there wouldn't be illegal migrants at all.
- tfchtfgfc 2y ago[dead]
- zozbot234 2y ago> No one is opposed to the legal immigration of skilled workers. Is this why I keep reading "THEY TUKK ER JERBS!!!!!!" as a knock-down argument against H1-B and other legal visas here on HN?
- tonynator 2y agoWe don't want to become Canada.
- zozbot234 2y agoAre IT-sector workers even that low-paid in Canada anyway?
- tonynator 2y agoNo idea, but housing and jobs in many sectors are getting extremely scarce in Canada's cities due to their insane immigration policies aiming to bring in """skilled workers"""
- herewulf 2y agoThe government is also bringing in tons of unskilled workers and "students" who are curiously not enrolled anywhere and it absolutely shows.
- rangestransform 2y agoCompared to the US, yeah they’re quite low compared to CoL
- coding123 2y agoApparently they are pooping on the beaches there.
- gregors 2y agoAs an immigrant who works in tech, I think the H1-B issue in particular is a bit more nuanced. I think the feeling is that H1-B's are used inappropriately as a tool to leverage salaries lower. I don't actually know the stats on that. That being said, you do want immigrants working right? That's kinda the entire point.
- aegis4244 2y agoEconomists say every immigrant is a net economic positive to the nation. They eat,buy food clothing, cars. Every immigrant child is a net negative to the state,at least until they turn 18. But it isn't even. Net neg per kid of maybe 800 a year, positive of each adult of 1200-1600 are the numbers I've heard on freakonomics podcast. Their guests proposed solution was to have the feds pay the states per an immigrant child to offset who bears the costs. I don't think it's even a debatable position that each immigrant is a net economic positive, in the long term. Some political groups worrying about losing their culture is a completely different kettle of fish. https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-century/benefits-of-immigration-outweigh-costs https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-century/b...
- selfmodruntime 2y ago> Economists say every immigrant is a net economic positive to the nation This isn’t true in general and depends on the local economy and the immigrants country of origin. MENA migrants are a net loss for Germany, for example. Even if economists agree, the money these immigrants spend lands in the pockets of rich capitalists. The entire topic is far more nuanced than you make it out to be.
- zapperdulchen 2y agoDo you have some sources for your claim that MENA migrants are a net loss for Germany?
- selfmodruntime 2y agoYes. Here[1] [1]: https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/demografie-studie-einwanderung-loest-finanzierungsprobleme-des-sozialstaats-nicht/100005544.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/demografie-...
- tonynator 2y ago[flagged]
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- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- labrador 2y ago“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay Gould If you believe that quote as I do then unskilled laborers can have intelligent children. Making to the United States is quite a test of endurance, flexability and competance so people who pass that filter are quite likely to be intelligent
- hackinthebochs 2y agoHow many unskilled laborers do we need to accept to get one future Einstein? The ratio matters. >Making to the United States is quite a test of endurance, flexability and competance so people who pass that filter are quite likely to be intelligent I doubt this is true in cases where you can literally just walk across the border.
- labrador 2y agoI doubt you have many Mexican locals living next the the border literally walk across the border and then travel to the interior of the country. Most of them are from far away places and endure quite a challenging journey to get here. I live in San Jose in a neighborhood with many older Vietnamese boat people. Columbians have been moving in. There isn't an easy way to get from Columbia to Mexico by walking. Crossing the Darién Gap: Migrants Risk Death on the Journey to the U.S. https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-risk-death-journey-us https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-ris...
- hackinthebochs 2y agoYes, the trek is hard for many. But physically hard doesn't imply cognitively hard or selective for cognitive traits. These paths are well trodden and the difficulty is purely physical.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI don’t think anyone knows what factors lead to the next einstein or else we’d have nothing but einsteins coming out of the public school system.
- AnarchismIsCool 2y agoUnskilled labor isn't a thing. There are plenty of people who can go from zero skill to writing decent python in a weekend (literally better than I've seen on some production systems) if given the chance. The same goes for building houses or airplanes. In real life, shit just isn't that complicated if someone is willing to spend a couple hours teaching the basics.
- chaorace 2y agoMany are arguing the case for the net economic value of immigrant labor which I agree is a fairly compelling case. I'd like to offer an alternate avenue of attack, however: population trends. Without immigration, U.S. population growth would be well below replacement rate. This is a growing problem throughout the entire developed world with no fair answers -- increasingly, it looks as though the next several decades of geopolitical power will be defined by which countries can attract the immigrants necessary to maintain, at minimum, some population growth. I won't pretend that the U.S. is a race utopia. We hit just about every single branch on the way down, if I'm being honest... but most of the ethnostates currently competing for world-power status haven't even realized there's a tree that they need to be descending yet. We have a powerful edge in the coming geopolitical era as one of the most pluralistic, multicultural nations in human history. We have unmatched institutions and experience when it comes to integrating immigrants -- not to mention the incredible advantage of having a language & culture that is familiar to the majority of living humans. In my opinion, walking back from these advantages at such a critical turning point is probably not something that the country could survive in the long-term. We either embrace our identity as the world's melting pot or we wither away as hermits.
- kwere 2y ago>Without immigration, U.S. population growth would be well below replacement rate. This is a growing problem throughout the entire developed world with no fair answers We are living in a death cult(ure), we arent reproducing maybe for economic conditions as in most developed countries wages have compressed in real terms and people prefer to have less if none kids than to lower their lifestile below what they were born into, maybe is the anti-family culture that permeates society, seiing the nuclear family as a burden to personal fullment, woman independence, career obstacle, problem for the enviroment or the miriad of other factors. Importing migrants is just a band aid that moves the problems of our unhealthy society few years down the line, we need to focus on our dying societies.
- chaorace 2y agoAnd how would you say that these two solutions are incompatible? How does delaying the replacement rate issue with immigration prevent solving the core problem, or are you just advocating for accelerationism?
- onetimeusename 2y agoI am opposed to legal immigration of skilled workers. My reason is because it causes what Peter Turchin called elite overproduction. We have too many highly credentialed people who fight over who gets entrance to our top schools and who monopolize the highest ranked high schools. Immigrants have more social and income mobility than natives. I would argue that the professional class has become increasingly isolated and contemptuous of non-elite citizens as they continue to grow in size and monopolize elite positions. For example, our top schools seem to mostly be the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Those schools feed into the most elite business and government positions giving those people disproportionate power. The reasons for inviting them I think are a combination of disingenuous or outdated. The arguments about economic survival or humanitarian reasons just don't seem true to me anymore but that's a separate point.