Increased Immigration Into The United States Is Good
…
Transcript below from video: https://youtu.be/4XQXiCLzyAw
People who move internationally are very often seeking economic opportunity.
In 1889, a geographer named Georg Ravenstein wrote in his Laws of Migration, “Bad or oppressive laws, heavy taxation, an unattractive climate, uncongenial social surroundings, and even compulsion.
But none of these currents can compare in volume with that which arises from the desire inherent in most men to better themselves in material respects.”
…
Ravenstein was writing during the Great Atlantic Migration, which began in the 1840s as huge numbers of Europeans relocated to the Americas.
Between 1880 and 1910 alone, ABOUT 17 million Europeans arrived in the United States.
The 19th century also saw a smaller, but still significant, number of Asian immigrants arrive in the US, mostly settling on the West Coast.
Many of them came to join in the Gold Rush or the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
…
In many ways all this immigration was a result of technological advances.
Improved transportation like steamships reduced the cost and difficulty of migrating across the Atlantic.
And the rapidly growing industries of the United States needed workers to keep producing.
This influx of immigrants, while good for the industrial economy of the US, eventually ran into resistance.
Beginning in the late 19th century, a series of laws were passed to restrict immigration.
By the 1930s, European immigration was severely curtailed.
Asian immigration was banned outright.
Many of these laws remained in effect until the 1960s, when new laws helped precipitate another wave of immigration.
…
The overwhelming majority of economists agree immigration is a good thing for national economies.
Many studies indicate increased immigration is associated with overall increases in GDP and productivity.
However, opponents of immigration point to some of the costs that can come along with immigration.
They point to data indicating immigrants with low skills are likely to remain poor.
Some of those economic disadvantages can be passed to their children.
The immigrants use a lot of social services, cause drops in wage levels, and contribute to inequality by shifting money from labor to capital.
…
These arguments don’t look at the net effects of immigration.
Harvard economist George Borjas wrote about a family of economic models he called the Immigration Surplus.
These show population growth via immigration increases the demand for goods, which in the long run lead to more hiring and higher wages.
This can come at the cost of people who are already working, as inexpensive immigrant labor can drive down wages.
But most economists point to this as a short-term effect.
The overall growth in the economy will eventually push wages up.
So the economic benefits of immigration exceed the costs.
…
Studies indicate this holds true, even in cases of extreme immigration events.
Labor markets quickly adapt to inflows of new workers.
One study looked at the effects of the Mariel boatlift on the labor market in Miami.
In 1980, nearly 100,000 Cuban migrants arrived in South Florida, and around 60,000 of them settled in Miami.
Despite this massive influx of labor supply, the study found the Mariel immigration didn’t drive down wages of native workers and didn’t cause widespread unemployment.
The immigrants were quickly absorbed into the workforce with negligible bad effects on other workers.
…
Although Americans already here benefit from immigration greatly in the longer run, new immigrants benefit greatly immediately.
Irish workers who came to the US in the 1870s could double their wages.
Guatemalans who immigrated to the US in the 1990s, were able to increase their incomes six-fold.
Economist John Kennan has estimated if immigration restrictions were eliminated worldwide:
-the world’s labor supply would double
-there’d be significant economic growth
-workers from developing countries could see their wages jump from $8,900 to more than $19,000
…
Borjas’ Immigration Surplus findings do draw a distinction between high and low skill workers.
It notes the arrival of larger numbers of high skill workers is associated with a larger immigration surplus.
The model also indicates if immigrant flows are too weighted toward unskilled workers, the immigrant surplus will be smaller, and the growth that comes along with immigration can be slowed.
But, the surplus even with unskilled immigrants still exists.
…
Encouraging the immigration of high-skill workers has other benefits as well. Studies indicate high-skill immigrants are innovators.
One such study found foreign-born entrepreneurs register about 25% of new patents in the US.
Another study found a 1998 doubling of the quota for H1-B visas, which enable employers to more easily hire high-skill foreign workers, led to an average 15% revenue increase for companies that participated.
…
One subtext to this high-skill versus low-skill conversation here in the United States is how immigrants actually get or got into the country.
It centers on the differences between immigrants who arrive in the U.S. via official channels, and those that enter the country without going through the legal documentation process.
So, what do we do with 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already here?
…
In 2014, the federal government deported 369,000 immigrants, 9 times as many as were expelled in 1994.
From an economic standpoint, kicking people out might not make the most sense.
In fact, a wide range of studies find extending legal status to undocumented immigrants would be a net positive.
Proponents say newly documented workers would gain labor protections, and would be free to pursue work that better matches their skill-set.
As a result, on average, some economists estimate these workers wages could rise up to 15%.
When workers get paid more, they buy more stuff.
That increased demand leads to more production, which leads to more hiring.
…
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected in 2007 immigration reform would bring undocumented workers into the tax base, and that growth in revenue would offset costs by a ratio of two to one.
Many partisan organizations agree on this point as well.
The liberal think tank, Center for American Progress, estimated giving undocumented workers legal status could create more than 200,000 additional jobs per year.
Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, wrote legalizing undocumented workers would, “free millions of those now working to move to where their work is most productive for themselves and the national economy.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation wrote in 2006, “Whether low-skilled or high-skilled, immigrants boost national output, enhance specialization, and provide a net economic benefit.”
…
Researchers have modeled the economic effects of three different possible policy responses to undocumented immigrants in the U.S.:
- full deportation,
-full legalization
-full legalization with added border control.
They found:
-full deportation would decrease GDP by 0.61%
-legalization with more border enforcement would increase GDP by 0.17%
-full legalization would increase GDP by 0.53%
So, if the debate over immigration were solely about economics, there wouldn’t be much of a debate.
Many immigration opponents argue expanding immigration is a security risk,
relaxed border enforcement can lead to more illegal items, like drugs, being smuggled into the country
There’s also a strong sentiment people shouldn’t be rewarded with citizenship for breaking the law.
…
The United States has the world’s largest total immigrant population, 41 million.
Sentiment in the U.S. about immigrants is changing.
A 2015 study from the Pew Research Center found about half of U.S. adults say immigrants strengthen the economy.
Compared to 40% who say they are a burden.
Pew also discovered young people hold a more positive view of the contributions of immigrants to the country than older generations.
Which means it’s likely, pro-immigrant sentiments will keep on growing.
… …
(own comment)
Personally believe immigration into the U.S. from anywhere is good, people in countries with free markets and rule of law produce more than they consume.
The more we expand free markets and strengthen rule of law in the U.S. the higher the business profits, wealth, and income levels.
The countries where illegal immigrants pour in from do not have free markets and rule of law, so they consume more than they produce and the country remains poor.
Ideally people outside the U.S. would stay in their own countries and fight to make them more like the U.S., even become part of the U.S., then they wouldn’t have to come here because they’d already be here.
And ideally and most importantly in the U.S. pro-free markets and rule of law Real Republican HATtrs must defeat and disempower anti-Democrats, powering U.S.-perfection and expansion.
The U.S. must simultaneously institute free trade and movement of assets including people, as if target countries were one of our states, and go after countries zat don’t by supporting, invigorating and empowering their HATtrs.
People everywhere All have the same abilities and have (or should have) access to the same information.
There be only one reason people anywhere live poorly: the local 47.5% negative misery-lovers and zeir revered 5% quark misery-providing shapeless-form mafias dominate.
We as U.S. HATtrs must not protect nor reject Americanism but rather project tHAT.
We must help those countries’ 47.5% positive-happy lovers ascend and take over, pulling to our side the wanting-to-survive shapeless-forms, transforming into or replaced by New-norm HATtrs politicians.
It be always the fault of the positives who have not dared but rather have given in, bowed down, and not fought to take back ground and turn-turn-turn round squares.
(Byrds song Eight Miles [dies] High)
Comments
Post a Comment