In recent years, I’ve seen many conservatives argue against illegal immigration, warning darkly of our society being polluted by “rapists and murderers”, despite the fact that immigrants have a lower crime rate than native born Americans.
They also seem to worry about the fact that immigrants come from different cultures. This has always struck me as odd, because one of American’s most distinctive features is that for hundreds of years there have been lots of whites, blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans living in this area. There is no single America culture to destroy. If there were, it would have already been destroyed when millions of eastern and southern Europeans joined our mostly northern European population in the late 1800s.
Another concern is that immigrants will be less productive, and will become a burden on our welfare system. That has not happened in the past, but who knows about the future?
Thus I was very surprised to learn that Republicans now oppose legal immigration precisely because they fear the immigrants will be just like us. They fear that the new immigrants will be productive, hard-working members of society, and thus take away our jobs. Here’s the National Review:
In particular, Republicans are pointing at a provision in the House bill that for ten years would exempt certain immigrants, along with their spouses and children, from numerical limits on “family-sponsored preference” and “employer-based” green cards, as established in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Earlier this month, the Republican Study Committee cited the provision as one of the 42 worst parts of the reconciliation bill, because it would create a “hidden pipeline” that would allow employers to flood middle-class careers with foreign workers.
In his letter to Sanders, Hagerty wrote that “no corporate lobby has more consistently and vociferously lobbied for these uncapped foreign worker programs than the technology giants in Silicon Valley.”
I recall a time when Republicans championed dynamic economic change and ridiculed tired old socialist “lump of labor” theories.
I really miss the 20th century.
READER COMMENTS
David Henderson
Oct 26 2021 at 2:04pm
Good post.
A propos of this, I hadn’t watched Fox News Channel in the evening for many weeks and just on a lark, I decided to tune in to my favorite of the three, Laura Ingraham. And this has NOTHING to do with the fact that she interviewed me twice. 🙂
I lasted about 3 minutes as I heard Hagerty, a U.S. Senator from Tennessee complain, about this provision. I said to my wife, “Oh, my God, there’s something in the bill I like.”
MarkLouis
Oct 26 2021 at 2:53pm
Agree this is confusing. I’ve always thought the most sensible political deal is more legal immigration in exchange for stronger measures to curtail illegal immigration. The fact that we can’t arrive at a solution along those lines tells me just how broken DC is.
nobody.really
Oct 26 2021 at 3:14pm
I expect the heads of political parties oppose immigration when their voters oppose immigration (or perhaps I should say, when they perceive that the party could attract more voters by opposing immigration). I expect that more voters identify as workers than employers. And I expect that workers are more likely to perceive immigrants as posing competition for their jobs than as creating more demand for their services.
For better or worse, the current economy will vindicate this point of view in the US. The federal government has taken conspicuous measures to clamp down on immigration—and the labor market has tightened, leading to increasing wages and benefits.
Ideally, we’d give workers some reason to think that a) facilitating immigration would improve GDP, and b) existing workers would derive some kind of proportionate benefit from increasing GDP. Given the unprecedented degree of wealth inequality, however, workers have little cause to believe b)—and so they perceive their self-interest is in opposing immigration. They see this as their one lever for securing a bigger slice of the pie.
If employers see it in their self-interest of facilitate more immigration, they may have to take steps to persuade people that existing workers will get a fair share of the resulting benefits (where “fair” is, admittedly, a contested term).
Last Xmas I received the t-shirt displaying a product review for the year 2020: one out of five stars, with the comment “Very bad; would not recommend.“
Scott Sumner
Oct 27 2021 at 12:25pm
I doubt whether immigration has much impact on wages.
nobody.really
Oct 27 2021 at 3:56pm
Yeah; you may not have seen my post below elaborating on that point.
Nevertheless, I expect many people will draw the opposite conclusion: We’ve made a conspicuous display of opposing immigration, and now the labor market is tighter. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
HaraldF
Oct 28 2021 at 5:29am
In your first two sentences you could replace immigration with most other issues, and that is how most politicians make decisions.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Oct 30 2021 at 7:38am
If we were intentional about attracting and retaining high-skill immigrants the benefits ought to be large and widespread enough to persuade those for whom immigration is a wage-competition issue.
bb
Oct 26 2021 at 3:56pm
Scott,
Beyond all of the very good points you make, I would add that if they can’t compete at work with someone who isn’t a native speaker and wasn’t raised with our norms, that’s embarrassing. Those are two big advantages in the workplace.
john hare
Oct 26 2021 at 6:18pm
That is a very important point. The two that worked for me for 16 years mad well above national average, had their houses paid for and investment property. Not bad for a couple of elementary school drop outs. We helped them set up their own company and now subcontract work to them. With a little luck and continued hard work, they could be millionaires by 60.
This in a county with a lot of people making horrible wages if working at all. And they blame the companies, or the immigrants.
bb
Oct 27 2021 at 8:37pm
John,
I’ve had similar experiences at the other end of the pay spectrum with highly skilled IT workers. I’ve probably hired or contracted close to 200 of them over the years to work alongside my native born staff with similar skills. Almost all of them have been exceptional and they have gotten only better over the years. However, the native born folks have a big advantage because they work better with the customers. In a way it’s not fair, but the customers prefer to work with people who don’t have a language barrier, and even when English isn’t an issue it’s easier to build bonds when you have common culture and experience. If anything, the H1B folks have created more opportunities for the native born people to move into leadership roles. That’s how I got my first management position 20 years ago. And it is actually hard to find Americans who just want to code – yes, it’s hard to find Americans who will take these $120/hr jobs. Most want to code for a few years and then evolve to work with the customer or take on leadership roles. For me it’s always been win-win for everyone.
And anecdotally, the immigrant staff have sent lots of money to their home countries and some have gone home and started businesses. It’s been good for everyone.
Ahmed Fares
Oct 26 2021 at 4:53pm
re: Schrödinger’s immigrant
UKIP warns of Schrödinger’s immigrant who ‘lazes around on benefits whilst simultaneously stealing your job’
nobody.really
Oct 26 2021 at 4:59pm
That’s brilliant!
Matthias
Oct 26 2021 at 7:37pm
It’s funny, but not quite as absurd as it sounds:
If you accuse migrants of taking benefits and working for money under the table without paying taxes, it can sort-of make sense.
(Though most of the good jobs that middle class people want, are in the formal economy anyway, and unlikely to be ‘stolen’ by immigrants in the shadow economy.)
Frank
Oct 26 2021 at 5:31pm
Unskilled immigrants lower unskilled workers’ wages in the short run anywhere, and in the long run in a large country.
Everybody is rationally following their self interest.
Matthias
Oct 26 2021 at 7:38pm
Do you have evidence for this claim?
Frank
Oct 26 2021 at 7:51pm
You mean an increased supply of unskilled labor will not lower the real wage of unskilled labor?
Mike Hammock
Oct 26 2021 at 9:28pm
Not if the unskilled workers are primarily consuming goods produced by unskilled labor, no.
The Mariel Boatlift is usually thought to be a good example of a massive influx of mostly unskilled labor had little to no detectable effect on the wages of low-skill workers.
Frank
Oct 26 2021 at 9:56pm
The locality is small. It trades freely with the rest of the US. One would not expect a limited number of unskilled immigrants affect the wages in a single locality.
It doesn’t generalize to lots of immigrants.
nobody.really
Oct 27 2021 at 1:38am
Public Radio’s This American Life did a two-hour broadcast called “Our Town” (Part I, Part II) which analyzed the consequences of immigration on Albertville, AL (and more generally Marshall County, AL), from 1980 to 2010-ish. There barely was any immigration until 1990, but then it jumped until the town was 28% Hispanic by 2010. What were the results?
Consequences for wages and employment statistics for high-school dropouts (relative to a control group): basically no difference.
Consequences for wages and employment statistics for high school graduates: basically no difference.
Consequences for wages and employment statistics in the slaughtering plant where the Hispanic immigrants tended to work: basically no difference.
Tax receipts: Increased. Even undocumented aliens pay income taxes, property taxes (if they own property or via rent), sales taxes, income taxes, Social Security/FICA taxes (even if they’ll never qualify for Social Security benefits), etc.
Schooling costs: On average a Hispanic household has 0.75 more kids than an Anglo household, which arguably resulted in the average household in Albertville paying an additional $272/yr in school-related taxes.
High school graduation rates: Anglos 92%; Hispanics 95%.
Food Stamps/SNAP costs: With the arrival of Hispanic immigrants, Marshall County’s SNAP usage doubled, from 8% to 16%. But in the rest of Alabama, SNAP usage increased from 11% to 26%. In short, immigrants stimulate the local economy in rural America—while the rest of rural America is dying.
Ok, but what about EVERYTHING—all federal/state/local taxes paid, offset by the cost of all federal/state/local benefits received, for an individual, and the individual’s kids, and the individual’s grandkids, over a period of 75 years? The National Academy of Sciences conducted such an analysis. Bottom line: If you don’t graduate from high school, you probably will not generate sufficient tax revenues to offset your costs. If you do, you’ll probably break even. If you have even a little college, you’ll probably generate more tax revenues than costs. And many undocumented immigrants do not have high school educations….
…HOWEVER, undocumented immigrants receive vastly less government services (e.g., Social Security and Medicare) than native born US citizens. So an undocumented immigrant without a high school education will probably cost society a net $21,000 over 75 years. Meanwhile a native born citizen without a high school education will probably cost society a net $200,000+ over 75 yrs.
For what it’s worth….
Scott Sumner
Oct 27 2021 at 12:26pm
“Unskilled immigrants lower unskilled workers’ wages”
The post was about skilled immigration.
Frank
Oct 27 2021 at 12:59pm
Skilled immigrants lower skilled workers wages. 🙂
Scott Sumner
Oct 28 2021 at 12:29pm
We have both skilled and unskilled immigration, which doesn’t lower either group’s wages.
Frank
Oct 28 2021 at 7:50pm
Capital-labor ratio falls. All wages fall. 🙂
Floccina
Oct 28 2021 at 11:42am
It may be true that low skill immigrants reduce low skill USAers income but the effect is small and IMHO the are benefits to the poor also.
For example:
So I think more Hispanic immigrants around probably significantly reduce the chances of low income USA natives being victims of crime.
I started thinking about that after hearing stories from my friend would lived in the cheapest/worst housing in my city (Gainesville FL).
joe
Oct 27 2021 at 8:00am
You write: “They also seem to worry about the fact that immigrants come from different cultures.” I doubt this is limited to conservatives. “Culture” includes lots of things, like food, arts, religious beliefs – but also social conventions (like marriage) and respect for law and authority. I know parisiens who are far from conservative but are finding it difficult to accept the changes to their own culture.
You then write: “…Republicans now oppose legal immigration.” But the NR article seems to refer to a proposed, somewhat-hidden expansion of the definition of “legal immigration.” I don’t know any conservatives (or Republicans) who oppose legal immigration. But I don’t see any harm in questioning whether changes to our “legal immigration” system should be jammed into this bill.
Scott Sumner
Oct 27 2021 at 12:28pm
Republicans are claiming that bringing in highly skilled legal immigrants will steal jobs from Americans. The complaint is not just procedural.
joe
Oct 28 2021 at 7:17am
OK, but you wrote that “…Republicans now oppose legal immigration,” which is painting with a pretty broad brush. I think that the GOP (and its constituency) supports legal immigration and is in favor of open and public debate over the specific levels and the implementation. I think that almost all citizens of all developed countries feel this way. As ever, there may be a few political actors (in all parties) that wish to grandstand and stir trouble by arguing about the noise. There may also be some news outlets and internet pundits who do likewise, that’s how they get paid. But almost all Americans (Republican, Democrat, other) support legal immigration.
Scott Sumner
Oct 28 2021 at 12:31pm
I won’t comment on GOP voters (it depends how you word questions), but GOP officials in the executive and legislative branches actively try to reduce legal immigration in all sorts of ways. That cannot be denied.
joe
Oct 30 2021 at 6:29am
Last try, I promise. 🙂 Yes, I agree, some percentage of elected officials try to reduce legal immigration some of the time. Do you think that legal immigration quotas should only ever go up? That they can never have gotten too high and should never be cut? That implies that you think there should be no limits on legal immigration in any country under any circumstances. Most people I know think there should be limits and that it should be openly and publicly debated and subject to more public debate and change (if circumstances change). You really think that legal immigration limits are a non-issue for the people and are driven by kooky politicians who don’t understand economics? Please visit Europe and talk to Europeans. Public debate of immigration levels is a good thing, it is not a bad thing. Jamming immigration changes into a spending bill without debate is a bad thing.
Michael Sandifer
Oct 27 2021 at 12:55pm
Theoretically, even the lowest skilled immigrants boost productivity, on average, in addition to adding to our working age population, which has been experiencing increasingly slow growth for at least a generation. Of course, productivity growth has also slowed considerably since the early 2000s, leaving the US with frustratingly slow RGDP growth.
So, my question to the economists here is, why isn’t the productivity-increasing effect of even low-skilled immigration touted much more? It shouldn’t be difficult to truthfully declare that anti-immigration interests are anti-American growth.
Lillian T
Oct 29 2021 at 7:26am
From what I’ve seen in conservative circles, it all comes down to the level of assimilation. Now, granted, it’s different in working-class GOP territory if populists like Trump actively rile them up about job-stealing. But intuitively, conservatives feel a strong sense of loyalty and cohesion inwards. In my experience, the stories of highly patriotic immigrants who are eager to assimilate found in right-wing media are quite reflective of the reception these types of immigrants get from the average conservative. The left values diversity, the right similarity. Communist-hating Cubans? Love them. Religious Latin American Catholics? Great. Socially conservative/politically non-threatening Asians? Lovely.
The left sells immigration through diversity – that’s just not going to work for conservatives. I would be inclined to recommend restricting citizenship (especially birthright, an impossible task) and having more temporary workers come with greater frequency, with no benefits. But more suitable to conservative psychology would be reducing the perceived threat (dilution of cultural ideals) and then emphasizing assimilation. You won’t be as worried about having your job stolen from an immigrant if you can more easily see them as “one of you” – a patriotic or God-fearing or Republican etc. American. Reframing it as “we want to come to your country and work to make it better as one of you” sounds a lot more palatable than “we want to come to your country, make money, and we’ll pay taxes in exchange.” It’s not about the job market so much as it is about the sense of community and perceived threat/addition to it.
nobody.really
Oct 29 2021 at 12:11pm
I agree. In the This American Life stories I cited above, one of the earliest sources of grievance about the growing Hispanic population in a small Alabama town was the immigrants’ practice of keeping their fat Xmas light bulbs up all year round–a practice that conflicted with the prevailing norms in their town. This illustrated how the immigrants had failed to “assimilate.”
The vast majority of immigrants “assimilate,” but many people will never believe this fact–even pretty smart people. Consider the following argument:
Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751). If Franklin was freaked out about the “swarthy Germans,” what hope do we have of persuading today’s public?
But honestly, when you hear people talking about the importance of assimilation, do you hear them complaining about the Amish? Perhaps “assimilation” is just a polite way to express racial anxieties.
Lillian T
Oct 31 2021 at 5:14am
Certainly plausible that much of the underpinnings are racial. That being said, as a Republican from a cosmopolitan suburb, I always assumed that Republicans in the south were all really racist, but when I actually got down there I realized race is often the biggest deal in places with the most diversity (see: university); others in the same boat as I have reported similar experiences. Sure, an initial uncertainty if you’re meeting someone who doesn’t look like you is to be expected when you’re from a tiny rural town, but with a bit of conversation, the points of connection break the tension quite quickly. Shared religion is a huge one, patriotism another (especially to voters who view the left as ‘welfare-leeching, American-hating immigrant lovers’. But as you pointed out, commonality can be built over the smallest things. For small towns, their quaint customs are a vital part of the fabric of community. It’s offensive to them when outsiders come in and refuse to take part, because they’ve made themselves home without regard to the what makes that place home for the locals.
Reminds of me of a documentary I watched on Postville, Iowa. An influx of Hasidic Jews proved resistant to participating in small-town events despite the eagerness of the Iowans to have them assimilate. Pie-baking contests, parades, festivals, that sort of thing. Almost comical to see these ultra-Orthodox Jews doing their own thing while the white working class sits scratching their heads… can you blame them for being a bit upset when what defines community for them is those little things?
art andreassen
Oct 29 2021 at 10:34pm
Scott: Don’t know where you get your crime statistics but the U.N. has crime rates by country and the top 25 countries are all in Africa or Latin America. Ethnic Americans have the same crime rates as their native countries, i.e., Norwegian Americans have the same rate as Norway. Black Americans (who have the same rate as Africans) are 16% of the U.S population but commit half the murders, which indicates that African Americamns are six times more likely to murder than non-African Americans. Sweden now has the second highest crime rate in the E.U.
nobody.really
Nov 1 2021 at 10:18am
Cite?
gofx
Oct 29 2021 at 11:29pm
Legal.
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