Just whose labor are we protecting?
By Richard D. Lamm Labor Day has become a mindless holiday. It is a day off of work for most Americans, nothing more. But with 18 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, it should be a time to debate labor policy. Given the pressures of computers, automation, off-shoring and immigration, we don’t actually honor labor unless we debate labor policy. What policies are best for the American worker? Colorado’s two senators voted for an immigration bill that doubles the amount of yearly legal immigration. That directly contradicts the last two national commissions on immigration (the Barbara Jordan Commission in 1996 and the Father Theodore Hes-burgh Commission in 1981), which urged that we halve the number of legal immigrants and stop illegal immigration altogether. This is particularly important to Americans with limited skills. The Jordan Commission said “it is not in the national interest to admit unskilled workers” because “the U.S. economy is showing difficulty in absorbing disadvantaged workers.” That is truer today than it was when the report was issued. Yet a vast majority of our immigrants come because of whom they are related, to not for their skills. It’s not 1900 anymore, although it is 1900 thinking that drives much of our immigration policy. We are no longer an empty continent with free, empty land that needs workers of all kinds. We have a cash wage economy where the presence of low-skilled immigrants reduces wages of low-skilled Americans. Our need is for more jobs, not more bodies. Our Labor Day goal should be to get Americans to work, not to import a limitless supply of cheap labor from the Third World. Immigration transfers wealth. Immigration takes from U.S. workers and transfers that wealth to U.S. employers of immigrants. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that immigration costs American workers $402 billion annually in reduced wages and, not surprisingly, gives a similar gain to U.S. employers of immigrants. Any country should owe it first duty to its own poor. But politicians listen to the rich. Employers love immigrants because they provide subsidized labor and they work hard. But lower immigration causes a tight labor market and forces employers to seek out and train our own unemployed. This is more troublesome for employers than hiring cheap immigrants, but by doing so we help other Americans to move up the ladder of success. We are now going in the opposite direction. One of America’s dirty little secrets is the meteoric rise in American workers not in the labor force. In the year 2000, the United States had 40 million employment-age workers not in the labor force. As of July 2014, we have 92 million. America obviously has too many ways to avoid the world of work and too many ways for employers to avoid tapping into that vast reservoir of manpower. How long is this vast number of underutilized Americans going to stay quiet? What is the cost of carrying these potential workers to the taxpayers? Employ an unemployed American and you put someone to work and reduce taxpayer costs. Import an unskilled immigrant and it costs American taxpayers about $100,000 in social costs over their lifetime, even if the immigrant is working, according the National Academy of Sciences. Andrew Sum of Northeastern University found that between 2008 to 2010, 1.1 million new migrants entered the U.S. and landed jobs, even as U.S. household employment declined by 6.26 million over that same period. Isn’t there something wrong with that picture? We have room for some immigrants, but they should be selected for their skills and talents and what they can do for our economy. Highly skilled immigrants increase the productivity of their fellow workers with “human capital spillover.” But America, unlike other immigrant-receiving countries, (see chart) continues to minimize the number of immigrants we take for their skills and talents and gives a preference to “family reunification.” American capitalism and ingenuity has been a job-producing machine, but for the last decade we have been bringing in immigrants faster than our economy can produce jobs, thereby hurting American workers. The more people competing for existing jobs, the lower the wages. That should not be our goal this or any Labor Day. In 1994, Barbara Jordan said: “We disagree with those who would label efforts to control immigration as being inherently anti-immigrant. Rather, it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.” Richard D. Lamm is a former governor of Colorado and a professor at the University of Denver.
No wonder he is a PAST Governor!
Can't allow irrefutable economic reality biting us in the ass as the party pushes for amnesty for undocumented Democrats!
Just whose labor are we protecting?
By Richard D. Lamm
Labor Day has become a mindless holiday. It is a day off of work for most Americans, nothing more. But with 18 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, it should be a time to debate labor policy. Given the pressures of computers, automation, off-shoring and immigration, we don’t actually honor labor unless we debate labor policy. What policies are best for the American worker?
Colorado’s two senators voted for an immigration bill that doubles the amount of yearly legal immigration. That directly contradicts the last two national commissions on immigration (the Barbara Jordan Commission in 1996 and the Father Theodore Hes-burgh Commission in 1981), which urged that we halve the number of legal immigrants and stop illegal immigration altogether.
This is particularly important to Americans with limited skills. The Jordan Commission said “it is not in the national interest to admit unskilled workers” because “the U.S. economy is showing difficulty in absorbing disadvantaged workers.” That is truer today than it was when the report was issued. Yet a vast majority of our immigrants come because of whom they are related, to not for their skills.
It’s not 1900 anymore, although it is 1900 thinking that drives much of our immigration policy. We are no longer an empty continent with free, empty land that needs workers of all kinds. We have a cash wage economy where the presence of low-skilled immigrants reduces wages of low-skilled Americans. Our need is for more jobs, not more bodies. Our Labor Day goal should be to get Americans to work, not to import a limitless supply of cheap labor from the Third World.
Immigration transfers wealth. Immigration takes from U.S. workers and transfers that wealth to U.S. employers of immigrants. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that immigration costs American workers $402 billion annually in reduced wages and, not surprisingly, gives a similar gain to U.S. employers of immigrants.
Any country should owe it first duty to its own poor. But politicians listen to the rich. Employers love immigrants because they provide subsidized labor and they work hard. But lower immigration causes a tight labor market and forces employers to seek out and train our own unemployed. This is more troublesome for employers than hiring cheap immigrants, but by doing so we help other Americans to move up the ladder of success. We are now going in the opposite direction.
One of America’s dirty little secrets is the meteoric rise in American workers not in the labor force. In the year 2000, the United States had 40 million employment-age workers not in the labor force. As of July 2014, we have 92 million. America obviously has too many ways to avoid the world of work and too many ways for employers to avoid tapping into that vast reservoir of manpower.
How long is this vast number of underutilized Americans going to stay quiet? What is the cost of carrying these potential workers to the taxpayers? Employ an unemployed American and you put someone to work and reduce taxpayer costs. Import an unskilled immigrant and it costs American taxpayers about $100,000 in social costs over their lifetime, even if the immigrant is working, according the National Academy of Sciences.
Andrew Sum of Northeastern University found that between 2008 to 2010, 1.1 million new migrants entered the U.S. and landed jobs, even as U.S. household employment declined by 6.26 million over that same period. Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?
We have room for some immigrants, but they should be selected for their skills and talents and what they can do for our economy. Highly skilled immigrants increase the productivity of their fellow workers with “human capital spillover.” But America, unlike other immigrant-receiving countries, (see chart) continues to minimize the number of immigrants we take for their skills and talents and gives a preference to “family reunification.”
American capitalism and ingenuity has been a job-producing machine, but for the last decade we have been bringing in immigrants faster than our economy can produce jobs, thereby hurting American workers. The more people competing for existing jobs, the lower the wages. That should not be our goal this or any Labor Day.
In 1994, Barbara Jordan said: “We disagree with those who would label efforts to control immigration as being inherently anti-immigrant. Rather, it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.”
Richard D. Lamm is a former governor of Colorado and a professor at the University of Denver.
