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If immigrants are unskilled the productivity per capita decreases which lowers effective wealth, this is a minor effect compared to a housing policy that assume

If immigrants are unskilled the productivity per capita decreases which lowers effective wealth, this is a minor effect compared to a housing policy that assumes no immigration and ends up screwing the young and increasing the wealth of the elderly.

worstspotgain 2y ago
That's not how productivity works. In fact it's the other way around for the native born: to make X widgets it takes 1 CEO, 1000 middle managers, 10000 white-collar workers and 30000 blue-collar workers. If you bring in 30000 new immigrant blue-collar workers, you allow 11001 native workers to move up the ladder. As for housing, it's screwed because of land-use policies that intentionally strangle supply to artificially inflate property values, such as suppressive zoning. If there was less demand the cartel would just restrict supply further.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  I should have mentioned the productivity accounting for entitlements. Assuming little to no entitlements, your analysis makes sense.
  - worstspotgain 2y ago
    The Cato paper linked above measured the net per-capita fiscal impact on the government. The receipts/outlays ratio for 2018 is 1.427 for immigrants and 0.757 for 3rd-generation natives.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  People who advocate for enforcing current, on-the-books laws on immigration are dog-whistle racists, but advocating for an underclass of laborers without regard to their ability to function effectively in society (due to the legal status) is somehow not racist? Legal or not, this is the "homo economicus" view of humanity. Working-class Americans don't suddenly become CEOs, Middle managers, and white-collar professionals because we import more working class. If that was the case, the Rust Belt and Appalachia would be booming. What actually happens is that the price of working-class labor decreases (due to more supply) and the higher classes make more money off the under-classes, leading to increased wealth inequality. Which is exactly what we've observed for the last 40-years.
  - worstspotgain 2y ago
    The only reason you would claim they can't "function effectively due to legal status" is that they don't have the status. But they actually do function anyway, and it follows they would function even better with status. Duh. They happen to enter at the least-educated, often unskilled level. This necessarily pushes everyone else up. A CFO that strives to be CEO but couldn't cut it yesterday does today, a director becomes CFO, and so on. This is not rocket science, especially for HN. When you deliberately fail to appreciate direct logical consequences like this, your unbridled disdain for them is showing through. The same is true when you dismiss the countless economic studies that have proven that the overall benefits of immigration exceed the costs to a narrow segment of the labor market. There are very few natives interested in cleaning bathrooms and picking vegetables. They haven't given up on their dream bathroom-cleaning jobs - quite the contrary. They have been able to pursue better jobs because there were immigrants willing to clean bathrooms. Those immigrants created demand for all other products. The table becomes bigger, and everyone scoots over. Again, not rocket science. Something visceral gets activated about this issue, which is why it's ripe for populist con-men to ride it, logic and reason be damned.
    - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
      You've made a toy model of human economic activity and while I have no doubt you are internally consistent about the rules in your model, that model has no bearing on how human society and economic activity actually work. e.g. In real life, 1 blue collar worker does not get promoted to a white collar job for every 1000 blue collar workers that enter the labor pool after them.
      - worstspotgain 2y ago
        In real life, that's actually how the dust settles. The implications of how the economy operates are not on written on a "log of promotions" anywhere. Rather, the system of wages and prices adjusts as needed until people are employed consistently with production functions. If the functions imply we don't need 1100 middle managers, people change jobs and make different education decisions until there are ~1000. There are attritions and transaction costs in the short term, but they cancel out in the medium run. I understand this is inconveniently at odds with your visceral disdain for immigrants, but that's how the law of large numbers shakes out.
CuriousCosmic 2y ago
If immigrants are unskilled and there isn't work for them to do (which is not the case), then the solution is to train them into skilled labor we need. Ignoring xenophobia based justifications against immigration, the only reason why the right wing has a major push against immigration is because unskilled illegal immigrant labor is better for businesses than unskilled legal immigrant labor. Illegal immigrants can be paid below minimum wage and without proper tax or benefits contributions (forcing the immigrant to bare the company's tax cost if they want to actually be squared away with the IRS). Illegal immigrants also don't know their rights and/or are afraid of reporting issues to the DOL or OSHA out of fear of deportation (despite deportation protections for whistleblower immigrants). Illegal immigrants are also less likely to unionize because if they "make trouble" the company can just threaten to report them to ICE. All in all illegal immigration is an exploitative relationship that overwhelmingly benefits the people and companies that most aggressively rally against it. If you eliminate this exploitative arrangement and provide an easy safe path for immigrants to engage with the labor market, most of this lowering of effective wealth that occurs for workers goes away. > this is a minor effect compared to a housing policy that assumes no immigration Given that unskilled immigrant labor is predominantly seasonal migrant labor, this really isn't as much of an issue as you'd assume. And the solution to this is again opening up the legal immigration path and adjusting policy decisions to reflect that. Overwhelmingly the costs associated with immigration are costs associated with illegal immigration and they are predominantly self-inflicted in an attempt to optimize profits for the capital owning class.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Thanks for the response, I would add that Canada has found that not planning for housing for mass migration has affected their housing market (which increases wealth of the elderly and decreases wealth of the youth): https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7080376 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7080376
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  I've read your comment a couple times and can't make sense of it, so please let me know if I've arrived at an interpretation that doesn't represent your intent... I agree that illegal immigration is highly exploitative. I disagree that it most benefits the people who are most vocally against it. Since you just assert this without presenting your logic, I reject it on similar grounds. You also conflate seasonal labor with housing. Seasonal laborers need a place to live all year around, not just when/where they're employed. The rest is just word salad solutions "adjust policy decisions to reflect that..." and "optimizing for the capital owning class".

worstspotgain 2y ago

That's not how productivity works. In fact it's the other way around for the native born: to make X widgets it takes 1 CEO, 1000 middle managers, 10000 white-collar workers and 30000 blue-collar workers. If you bring in 30000 new immigrant blue-collar workers, you allow 11001 native workers to move up the ladder. As for housing, it's screwed because of land-use policies that intentionally strangle supply to artificially inflate property values, such as suppressive zoning. If there was less demand the cartel would just restrict supply further.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
I should have mentioned the productivity accounting for entitlements. Assuming little to no entitlements, your analysis makes sense.
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  The Cato paper linked above measured the net per-capita fiscal impact on the government. The receipts/outlays ratio for 2018 is 1.427 for immigrants and 0.757 for 3rd-generation natives.
ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
People who advocate for enforcing current, on-the-books laws on immigration are dog-whistle racists, but advocating for an underclass of laborers without regard to their ability to function effectively in society (due to the legal status) is somehow not racist? Legal or not, this is the "homo economicus" view of humanity. Working-class Americans don't suddenly become CEOs, Middle managers, and white-collar professionals because we import more working class. If that was the case, the Rust Belt and Appalachia would be booming. What actually happens is that the price of working-class labor decreases (due to more supply) and the higher classes make more money off the under-classes, leading to increased wealth inequality. Which is exactly what we've observed for the last 40-years.
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  The only reason you would claim they can't "function effectively due to legal status" is that they don't have the status. But they actually do function anyway, and it follows they would function even better with status. Duh. They happen to enter at the least-educated, often unskilled level. This necessarily pushes everyone else up. A CFO that strives to be CEO but couldn't cut it yesterday does today, a director becomes CFO, and so on. This is not rocket science, especially for HN. When you deliberately fail to appreciate direct logical consequences like this, your unbridled disdain for them is showing through. The same is true when you dismiss the countless economic studies that have proven that the overall benefits of immigration exceed the costs to a narrow segment of the labor market. There are very few natives interested in cleaning bathrooms and picking vegetables. They haven't given up on their dream bathroom-cleaning jobs - quite the contrary. They have been able to pursue better jobs because there were immigrants willing to clean bathrooms. Those immigrants created demand for all other products. The table becomes bigger, and everyone scoots over. Again, not rocket science. Something visceral gets activated about this issue, which is why it's ripe for populist con-men to ride it, logic and reason be damned.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
    You've made a toy model of human economic activity and while I have no doubt you are internally consistent about the rules in your model, that model has no bearing on how human society and economic activity actually work. e.g. In real life, 1 blue collar worker does not get promoted to a white collar job for every 1000 blue collar workers that enter the labor pool after them.
    - worstspotgain 2y ago
      In real life, that's actually how the dust settles. The implications of how the economy operates are not on written on a "log of promotions" anywhere. Rather, the system of wages and prices adjusts as needed until people are employed consistently with production functions. If the functions imply we don't need 1100 middle managers, people change jobs and make different education decisions until there are ~1000. There are attritions and transaction costs in the short term, but they cancel out in the medium run. I understand this is inconveniently at odds with your visceral disdain for immigrants, but that's how the law of large numbers shakes out.

CuriousCosmic 2y ago

If immigrants are unskilled and there isn't work for them to do (which is not the case), then the solution is to train them into skilled labor we need. Ignoring xenophobia based justifications against immigration, the only reason why the right wing has a major push against immigration is because unskilled illegal immigrant labor is better for businesses than unskilled legal immigrant labor. Illegal immigrants can be paid below minimum wage and without proper tax or benefits contributions (forcing the immigrant to bare the company's tax cost if they want to actually be squared away with the IRS). Illegal immigrants also don't know their rights and/or are afraid of reporting issues to the DOL or OSHA out of fear of deportation (despite deportation protections for whistleblower immigrants). Illegal immigrants are also less likely to unionize because if they "make trouble" the company can just threaten to report them to ICE. All in all illegal immigration is an exploitative relationship that overwhelmingly benefits the people and companies that most aggressively rally against it. If you eliminate this exploitative arrangement and provide an easy safe path for immigrants to engage with the labor market, most of this lowering of effective wealth that occurs for workers goes away. > this is a minor effect compared to a housing policy that assumes no immigration Given that unskilled immigrant labor is predominantly seasonal migrant labor, this really isn't as much of an issue as you'd assume. And the solution to this is again opening up the legal immigration path and adjusting policy decisions to reflect that. Overwhelmingly the costs associated with immigration are costs associated with illegal immigration and they are predominantly self-inflicted in an attempt to optimize profits for the capital owning class.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
Thanks for the response, I would add that Canada has found that not planning for housing for mass migration has affected their housing market (which increases wealth of the elderly and decreases wealth of the youth): https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7080376 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7080376
ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
I've read your comment a couple times and can't make sense of it, so please let me know if I've arrived at an interpretation that doesn't represent your intent... I agree that illegal immigration is highly exploitative. I disagree that it most benefits the people who are most vocally against it. Since you just assert this without presenting your logic, I reject it on similar grounds. You also conflate seasonal labor with housing. Seasonal laborers need a place to live all year around, not just when/where they're employed. The rest is just word salad solutions "adjust policy decisions to reflect that..." and "optimizing for the capital owning class".