Posted on 10/14/2003 1:12:52 PM PDT by VU4G10
| The U.S. unemployment rate today is at the highest level in 20 years. |
| Millions of hard-working Americans who are desperate for jobs can't find them, and both the short term and long term prospects do not bode well for many American workers. The economic problems we face would be bad enough if all we had to contend with were a recovering economy, the continued threat of terrorism, and increased competition from foreign companies. But a Congress that should be looking for ways to help unemployed Americans is busy opening the floodgates to millions of new immigrants who take jobs away from Americans - and also helping companies take the remaining jobs offshore. It almost appears that our government is committed to making sure everybody in the world has a job - except Americans. Historically, the U.S. admitted around 300,000 legal immigrants per year, but Congress changed our immigration policies back around 1965 and opened the floodgates. We now allow more than a MILLION legal immigrants into the country each year. A small number of these are refugees; some have special skills not easily found here. But an increasingly large percentage of those pouring through our borders are undereducated, unskilled workers who threaten the income of blue-collar workers, the backbone of America. Millions more come here each year ILLEGALLY, and the government does nothing to stop that either. It's no secret that most immigrants - legal and illegal - come to the United States for a single reason: money. They know that no matter what a job pays here, it will be far more than they could ever hope to earn in their own country. A job in America is a ticket to what appears to them to be a fortune, letting them live better than they could have imagined at home. It's also no secret that those same immigrants will underbid any American for any job. Their arrival by the thousands corresponds directly with thousands of Americans being pushed out of a job. In effect, every visa given to an unskilled foreigner is really a pink slip handed to a hard-working American. Worse yet, the pink slips are being handed to Americans by their own government, paid for with their own tax money! And the cost of this flood of immigration is not just being borne by those who lose their jobs. American taxpayers are increasingly funding the health, education and welfare of millions of immigrants at a cost of tens of billions of dollars per year. The Federation for American Immigration Reform recently released a report that detailed the fact that educating illegal alien children is costing the U.S. over $7 billion a year - enough to buy a computer for every middle school child in America. Health care for the two million illegals in California runs in the billions of dollars a year; and it is estimated that the annual health care costs of delivering illegal alien children in Denver, Colorado alone is in excess of ten million dollars. All of these costs are borne by American taxpayers. Clearly, we have a broken system, one that lets hundreds of thousands of unskilled immigrants - legal and illegal - into the United States at random to take American jobs, stifle the American economy, and put little or nothing back into strained local, state and federal tax coffers. This has to end. Congress needs to immediately enforce our immigration laws to stop the flood of illegal immigration and change our outdated laws to reduce legal immigration back to more manageable numbers. A step in the right direction is a bill introduced by Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, H.R. 775, which would end the totally unnecessary visa lottery program. It would help give us a "time out" while we assess other ways to manage immigration into this country. America has always been a land of opportunity and a nation of immigrants. But when the opportunity is for today's flood of immigrants to put Americans on the unemployment line, our system is out of whack. Instead of maintaining policies that hand out pink slips to America, Congress needs to get serious about stopping illegal immigration and reduce legal immigration to reasonable levels that will allow the millions who have flooded into this country in recent years to assimilate. Every day of delay is another stack of pink slips for Americans. |
First-generation immigrants, in general, spend little in the US, and send as much as they can back to their nation of origin. While this may be an honorable and worthy activity on its own, when there are millions of people doing that in the place of US workers spending their money here, the end result is a major flow of cash out of the economy - which in dollar terms can be figured as direct damage to the economy.
There is also the issue that when immigrants will work for extremely little, having a lot of them distorts the entire job market in a way that acts to devalue unskilled and low-skilled domestic labor.
The issues with outsourcing and high-skilled labor in the US are separate, but together they help to push the whole of the labor force in the direction of a lower standard of living.
Get real? OK Dude, I'm real!
I own an electrical contracting company in Atlanta. I would not hire an illegal immigrant under ANY circumstance ... in fact, I have not hired any immigrants (legal or otherwise).
HOWEVER, every day I see Latino workers busting their a$$es on jobsites, and doing very good work as brickmasons, sheetrockers, painters, landscapers, cleaners, etc.
If ANY of these workers are here illegally, and I'm sure many are, I fully support their arrest and immediate deportation. My comments in my prior post, pointing out the benefits of immigrant workers, was referring to legal immigrants ... you know, kinda' like our own ancestors! These folks have shown an ability to work hard, be productive and not demand an outrageous wage for their efforts. As long as they are legal, I welcome them to our country and our workforce.
I am fully aware of the problem of illegal immigration and the negative impact it has on our economy. But I am also aware of the positive impact that contolled, legal immigration can have. Now we just need to elect enough politicians with the gonads to stop the illegals.
Bulls-eye.
Where do the statistics come from?
Because unemployment insurance records, which many people think are the source of total unemployment data, relate only to persons who have applied for such benefits, and since it is impractical to actually count every unemployed person each month, the Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration project. It has been expanded and modified several times since then. As explained later, the CPS estimates, beginning in 1994, reflect the results of a major redesign of the survey.
This statistic has NOTHING to do with unemployment insurance. They even ask specifically, "How long have you been out of work" and report figures up to 1 Year+ -- long after UI would run out.
This figure has been criticized for leaving out people who are "so discouraged that they are not looking" -- but it is a consistent figure over time.
There is another figure -- "New Claims for UI" -- which obviously DOES depend on UI status -- and they also report numbers whose benefits have expired. Don't confuse the two.
There is also a figure of "total payroll jobs" which is from a survey of employers, and which is pretty dodgy from week to week, but useful over a long period. It can show you that job total may be going up even with strong unemployment, if lots of folks are coming into the market -- women, seniors (and immigrants, legal and illegal).
Clear??
Some states are giving "in-state tuition" to the children of illegals who have lived in state for some period. That's a separate issue.
As to "lots of grants" -- unless she is talking about graduate student grants, where it is true that many of the very strong students, especially in the sciences , are from abroad, I have no idea what she could be talking about.
Sources and data are our friends.
I don't distinguish much anymore between legal and illegal. Many legal immigrants get sponsors who bring them over and they get right onto Medicaid and SSI. Plus many immigrants are semi-legal ---- they crossed legally on a visitor or temporary visa, stayed and gave birth to anchor babies and collect welfare checks --- legally --- on their children even though they aren't legal.
I'm more inclined to rank them according to self-reliance and criminality. I'll take an illegal who is here working but left wife and kids back in Mexico --- where we taxpayers aren't having to pick up the tab on them over those millions of welfare moochers we're bringing in --- legal or illegal.
A good test of this common stereotype that immigrants are here to work hard blah blah blah would be to put an end to ALL welfare handouts --- SSI, Medicaid, Food Stamps, WIC, government housing, CHIP, TANF and the others to anyone who has been in the USA for less than 20 years.
If the "latinos" say "hey! sounds like a great idea" --- then I'll believe the stereotype. If there is gnawing and gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands and cries of racism, then I will know what they're really about.
Ummmmm, how about all those tax consumers on welfare? Instead of putting them on the dole we should put them to work "doing the jobs Americans won't do." No work, no welfare.
And how about the costs of those (illegal) immigrants to the American tax base? Right now we have supermarket and transit workers on strike in California because of drastic hikes in health care costs. Those hikes are due to throngs of uninsured illegal immigrants crowding into hospital emergency rooms for free medical care. The costs are paid by businesses and self-insured individuals like me. And health care is just one of the costs imposed by these lawbreaking invaders.
Dittos!!! I don't believe in shutting the door on immigration but it should be LEGAL and CONTROLLED. It should be designed to benefit authentic American citizens, not the profit-hungry, middle-class-destroying elitist corporate class alone.
Why does everyone automatically assume that every immigrant worker is just over here for the freebies?
I'm sorry but, yes, I think it is just you. A number of my in-laws have lost jobs that they have been doing for 17 plus years to immigrants. They were supporting their families making around $18 an hour as drywall finishers and loved their work. I know others in steel, IT and other industries loosing their jobs to immigrants and outsourcing. It's not about just farm workers anymore.
You left out a key word: "illegal." They break the law getting here. Their kids are automatic American citizens. Each such birth begins a new link in chain immigration that will eat us alive soon. They not only avoid paying taxes and send most of their earnings back to Mexico or points south, but they are major tax consumers. And soon, with Davis Driver's Licenses and Motor Voter, they'll be able to vote for candidates who'll promise them more and better freebies. And you're in favor of that?
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