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Why does your cost-benefit calculation not include the benefits to those foreign workers who are allowed to compete for jobs in the U.S.? The academic literatu
by dsinsky 11y ago
Why does your cost-benefit calculation not include the benefits to those foreign workers who are allowed to compete for jobs in the U.S.?
The academic literature* shows much, much larger productivity and income gains to those who migrate to richer countries than any negative effect to native workers. Even if an influx of immigrants depressed some existing Americans' wages by a small amount, that delta would only pale in comparison to how much better of the immigrants would be.
Do you oppose efforts to educate more American's as computer scientists? This too would "depress" the wages of existing computer scientists but you would (hopefully) find it abhorrent if someone used your "wage depression" logic to stop teaching CS in inner-city schools.
Unless you think that the lives of non-American's are not worth considering, these hugely positive impacts of immigration should be part of your calculation.
*
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~jkennan/research/OpenBorders.pdf?new http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~jkennan/research/OpenBorders.pdf?ne...
http://www.cgdev.org/files/1425376_file_Clemens_Economics_and_Emigration_FINAL.pdf http://www.cgdev.org/files/1425376_file_Clemens_Economics_an...
- ElComradio 11y agoWould you willingly train/mentor somebody if you knew the outcome would be that she would compete for your job personally, or that your wage would go down 20%? Frequently calls for equality are made by those who imagine their own situation could not possibly worsen; it's always some anonymous others who will pay.
- dsinsky 11y agoI agree it sucks for anyone to lose their job, but using that as an excuse for xenophobic policy is a non-sequitur. Do you honestly think there would have been a national uproar against Disney if they'd asked their employees to train other Americans? Try replacing "foreign H1B worker" with "person of another skin color" and see if your arguments don't sound abhorrent. If you think the later sounds racist, the former is xenophobic. >> it's always some anonymous others who will pay Couldn't agree more. In the case of immigration and labor policy, the anonymous others who pay are those that didn't have the good fortune to be born in this country.
- ElComradio 11y agoIt's more like replace "H1B worker" with "anybody". The idea is that tech workers are being asked to expand the labor pool and basically contribute to eroding their own value without realizing it. It doesn't matter the race gender or citizenship; by reducing the scope to individuals instead of anonymous groupings it becomes clear what is happening. It is probably noble to say that you would personally hand your own job over to somebody else. But of course it is never framed that way even though that is what is actually happening.