“The plural of anecdote is data.”
(allegedly said by the late George J. Stigler.)
Last Tuesday I drove up to San Jose State University to visit and have lunch with Professor Jeff Hummel. We normally go to the restaurant across the street, a restaurant called Pomegranate. But I noticed that the name had changed: it is now a Vietnamese restaurant. (It was very good, by the way.)
There’s a back story. The owner of the Pomegranate is an Iranian. He was fairly wealthy and owned a few restaurants. For some reason, he needed to renew his immigration permit regularly. But this time around, it was harder. He just said the hell with it, sold his restaurants, and moved to Canada. So we gained a Vietnamese restaurant but lost an entrepreneur.
This is just one anecdote. But this article, “United Gates of America: The Trump Administration’s Relentless Assault on Legal Immigration,” by Shikha Dalmia, July 5, 2018, suggests that it is likely one anecdote out of many.
UPDATE: The story is all wrong, as a commenter below points out. So some of the commenters were right in saying that the plural of anecdote is NOT data–not when the anecdotes are all wrong.
READER COMMENTS
john hare
Jul 8 2018 at 6:33am
I am not a fan of open borders. I am also very much not a fan of things like this that prevent highly productive people from being highly productive here. This country was in large part built by people that seized opportunities unavailable elsewhere, and often unnoticed even here prior to their arrival.
I happen to be a space fan. Elon Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, has advanced spaceflight in this country through his company SpaceX in the last decade such that the USA has captured a very high percentage of commercial flights as well as delivering many US government payloads.(satellites) Had he been prevented from working here, those commercial payloads would still be flying on Russian, Chinese, and European rockets. PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and a few other paradigm shifts would have either not happened, or would have advanced the wealth of another country.
I also have a problem with the focus on credentialism. Many of the highly productive taxpaying immigrants that I know have limited education.
Thaomas
Jul 8 2018 at 7:20am
My anecdotes are family histories. I have a nephew who came 30 years ago on a H1B and was able to become a citizen but who probably would not be able to come toady. I have another with a new PhD in Canada who would have gotten it here if visas were easier. I have a niece working with her husband as MDs in Spain who could have been doctors here if visas and licensing restrictions permitted.
Multiplied by millions these are huge economic and human losses. Elections have consequences. Sometimes it is important whether a party is “wrong” (and how wrong on the relevant margin) on trade and immigration or on minimum wages and health insurance.
EB
Jul 8 2018 at 11:11am
David, Stigler was wrong. Very wrong. We like to tell anecdotes because we can refer to one or two ill-defined dimensions of the story while intentionally or not ignoring others. Data attempt to measure well-defined dimensions.
Our anecdotes are at most 5-minute recollections of what we observed or heard. A serious analysis of anecdotes is likely to change our view of what happened. Any doubt about the limits of our senses and minds, watch again some Perry Mason’s episodes.
Mike W
Jul 8 2018 at 11:45am
The REASON article is a hodge-podge of different immigration issues…e.g., asylum seekers, family-based immigration, H-1Bs and entrepreneur visas…but, at its core, the article seems to be advocating an even more liberalized open-borders policy than what existed before Trump.
“We shouldn’t be making legal immigration harder than it already is.” And, “Low-skilled foreigners who don’t have blood relatives or spouses in America to sponsor them have no legal options to permanently live and work in the country.”
Not all economists agree: Tyler Cowen says, “I believe America should have open borders with any nation that has a more generous welfare state than we do.” I believe Milton Friedman thought similarly, that “completely open borders are incompatible with the welfare state.”
Thaomas
Jul 9 2018 at 7:26am
There is a big difference between thinking that we need (per capita gdp of existing residents would be improved by) more immigrants of x,y, or z characteristics and “open borders” with any country whatever the status of its social safety net. It is frustrating that proponents of the status quo or less immigration continually bring up “open borders.”
Mike W
Jul 9 2018 at 8:48am
OK, don’t call it “open borders”, call it more liberalized immigration of low-skill economic migrants from less developed countries. The question remains, are the costs of increasing their immigration greater than the benefits? Some knowledgeable sources say they are.
Hazel Meade
Jul 9 2018 at 11:40am
Why aren’t you proposing changes to make it harder for legal immigrants to get welfare benefits then? Why is the first resort to restricting immigration.
if you are worried about immgrants getting welfare, here’ a few suggestions:
Take the family sponsorship requirements seriously, and require the family sponsors to post a bond to cover the risk that the immigrants will collect welfare in the future.
Revoke legal immigrant visas for any immigrants that end up collecting welfare benefits.
Make naturalization contingent on being self-sufficient and paying taxes for a minimum number of years.
In short, there are possible ways to make the welfare system not an incentive to immigrate, but anti-immigration advocates don’t seem interested in exploring those ideas.
Mike W
Jul 9 2018 at 5:34pm
…but anti-immigration advocates don’t seem interested in exploring those ideas.
But, pro-immigration advocates are not proposing those ideas.
Regardless, in light of the current public angst about separating kids from families, how long would a two-tiered social service system last that denies services to kids merely because they are immigrants? What’s the likelihood of enforcement…especially in “sanctuary cities.”
And I’m not “worried about immigrants getting welfare”, I merely raised the point that other knowledgeable economists (Cowen and Friedman) seem to have reservations about the costs of allowing low-skilled/low-education immigration.
Thomas Sewell
Jul 12 2018 at 1:26am
+10, mostly out of vehement agreement.
99% of the purported “issues” with more legal immigration could be dealt with in this way.
I’m mystified as well why the officially pro-immigration forces in Congress don’t loudly push for the obvious legal solutions to the anti- crowd’s objections. At least them maybe we could make some progress. It’s almost like they prefer illegal immigration instead of more legal immigration, or prefer talking about it politically over doing something about it.
Frustrating…
P Burgos
Aug 2 2018 at 4:28pm
Tyler Cowen says, “I believe America should have open borders with any nation that has a more generous welfare state than we do.”
Interestingly, I recently read someone who was of the opinion that we essentially already do have open borders with nations that have more generous welfare states than we do (which are almost entirely in Europe). The claim was that the diversity visa lottery had so few applicants from European countries that almost anyone who applied from Europe would get a Visa. The only exception I think is with Great Britain, which isn’t a part of that lottery. Basically, it seems like very few people who live in developed countries in Europe are all that excited to move to the US.
Roy Kerns
Jul 8 2018 at 5:59pm
I don’t disagree with a point another made (in debate with me regarding free enterprise) that some employers of low income workers (in this case, Hispanic) steal by transferring costs (contra, eg, biblical injunctions against grazing one’s herd in a neighbor’s field). Instead, I disagree regarding the response. Instead of the suggested response (the employer should pay more), I think society (civil gov’t) can (and should, because it is, after all, theft): a) cease the subsidy, and b) demand restitution (by serious fines of significantly progressive magnitude leveled against any employer involved in the chain of command hiring illegal aliens).
Not only would such steps make the costs real and visible rather than hidden. Two further results would occur, both imho good. First, making the costs open rather than concealed does not change the costs. It simply means the employer could increase the sale price of now subsidized goods, that the employer could pass on the costs of higher wages for those jobs which some claim only the Hispanic illegals will take.
Second, a (if not the) major draw (jobs coupled with social subsidies) for illegal Hispanic immigrants would vanish. The disappearance of this one draw would almost by itself resolve the issue of illegal immigration. At no cost to the consumer. And with no cost of building a wall (which won’t work, but will simply transfer wealth to coyote’s doing the smuggling …wealth gained from illegals attempting to immigrate, some–many?–who get swindled and die).
The steps I propose will not happen. Instead: 1) employers will continue trying to keep that which puts other people’s money in their pockets (right wing politics) while 2) others will continue claiming gov’t must aid the poor by giving direct aid (left wing politics). Meanwhile, economists who should know better will not wish a pox on both houses, but will choose one or the other.
Mark Z
Jul 8 2018 at 8:40pm
Please explain how hiring cheaper labor is stealing? Who would the employer be stealing from?
Roy Kerns
Jul 8 2018 at 10:30pm
My error, Mark. I did not show how the “stealing” occurs. However, the mechanism accomplishing the transfer of costs from those who employ illegal immigrants to others is “newspaper knowledge”: not only does everybody know it, but even newspapers report it.
Hispanic labor is not actually cheap. The local paper of my present home town in Oklahoma once observed that about half the emergency room visits go to “free” services given Hispanics. The medical community does not serve as a deep pocketed source, but merely as a conduit; others pay the costs with inflated insurance premiums, higher priced medical services, etc. One can make similar observations about public education and can reach the exact same conclusion, except that the costs get passed on via taxation rather than via purchase of services. One could multiply examples. But the debate is not whether consumers actually pay more for the labor, only how they pay and how much more they pay.
Thaomas
Jul 9 2018 at 7:40am
Fair enough, a low skilled/low income immigrant initially receives some social services. [Public education looks more like an investment in future income/tax revenues than a current consumption benefit.] That is an argument against completely unrestricted immigration. It is not necessarily an augment for less immigration that we currently have.
Why can’t we as economists discuss these issues in terms of the marginal costs and benefits of immigration?
Jon Murphy
Jul 9 2018 at 8:38am
Roy-
Immigrants use of public services does not constitute stealing.
Hazel Meade
Jul 9 2018 at 11:42am
Here’s a suggestion:
If a legal immigrant shows up at the emergency room and doesn’t pay their bill, revolk their visa.
Problem solved.
Mark Z
Jul 8 2018 at 8:39pm
This anecdote suggests a problem with treating immigration as a national security concern: just because a country’s government has poor relations with the US doesn’t mean immigrants from that country are a disproportionate threat to Americans. Boat people from Vietnam were mostly quite pro-American, and didn’t amount to a Viet Cong fifth column. So treating immigrants in a manner reflective of our government’s relations with theirs is nonsensical.
Also, I second EB that Stigler’s quote is questionable. Anecdotes aren’t problematic data just because there aren’t enough of them, but also because those who assemble them do so with a confirmation bias, and because they are less credible than actual data because they are unverified and often unverifiable.
Arnold Layne
Jul 9 2018 at 6:12am
2 second on Google:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/27/immigration-visa-quagmire-forces-san-jose-cafe-owner-to-self-deport/
Anecdote vs. Data:
Khaled Al Tarkeet is the owner in question. He is going back to home country of Kuwait, not Canada. He is not Iranian. He owns 2 restaurants, not a few (=>3), only one of which is operational. Whether he’s wealthy is an open question. He owns a business in Kuwait that he says is successful. I’m middle eastern (from one of the travel ban countries to boot). I can tell you every middle eastern in the US says they’re wealthy.
If this were part of a data collection effort, someone would have hopefully made sure to check details, as the conclusions you derive from them can change.
As anecdote, this fits the “Travel Ban is Bad” narrative (Iran is part of bad list) and gets passed around. Trump Bad. Hurting People. #Resistance. This, luckily for us, is what gets it reported by the social justice warriors that fill our newsrooms.
Us losing out to Canada is also attractive as an element of the meme. When in doubt, Blame Canada. Why not throw that in?
He may or may not have been kicked out because of the new climate. The visa he was on was an L1 Visa (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa), “available to employees of an international company with offices in both the United States and abroad.” This is not for people to start little mom and pop shops, so the law was enforced, he saw the writing on the wall, and decided to leave before he was kicked out.
Is the anecdote still as strong with the facts added in?
Dealing with data is hard enough. Don’t muddy things up with confirmation-bias and anecdotes.
David Henderson
Jul 9 2018 at 2:11pm
Oops. Thank you.
By the way, it’s hard to see how you think I was blaming Canada. If anything, I was (mistakenly) congratulating Canada. If it didn’t come across–I thought it would have–I like the idea of immigration.
Arnold Layne
Jul 9 2018 at 5:58pm
Oh no. I wasn’t blaming you for the anecdote. It’s a good meme because it has all these elements that make it spreadable in today’s climate.
The Canada thing was clumsy. I threw in Blame Canada, for the South Park reference. It is more like the feeling that we’re losing out to Canada.
I also like immigration. I don’t like how it’s politicized to the point that even data (not to mention anecdotes) on immigration needs to be treated with caution and double checked.
Hazel Meade
Aug 1 2018 at 1:13pm
Still, why dont we allow people to come and start little mom and pop shops? Seems like small scale entrepreneurs should be welcome in America.
Chris
Jul 9 2018 at 12:46pm
That quote has a number of alleged sources including
Raymond Wolfinger, Roger Noll and Stigler with Wolfinger the likeliest source.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/12/25/data/
David Henderson
Jul 9 2018 at 2:14pm
Thanks, Chris. Great background!
Ralph Truman Byrns
Jul 10 2018 at 11:30am
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