Low-skilled illegal and legal immigration's effect on earnings opportunities of American workers.

Sessions.senate.gov ^ | May 19, 2006 | Senator Jeff Sessions

[mmercier]

it is not just those with low skills that are getting killed off economically.

i have spent a decade becoming a trained proficient carpenter who will shortly be forced from the business because i can be replaced by three illegals for half the rate. and they mostly work for cash by the day, no benefits and no comp and no ss or state tax's paid by their employers, thereby underbidding the shit out of my lawful company owned by the sons of italian immigrants.

i chose this business 15 years back, the biggest mistake i ever made.

[durasell]

The way to survive this -- the way it's done in NYC -- is to go high end. Very high end. This will require a good deal of study and effort on your part, but it can be done.

The guys that bang nails can always been replaced. The guys with specific skill sets can't ever be replaced.

[hermgem]

There are depressed wages directly affecting labor.
What is additionally affecting those working in the private sector are health care costs, increasing local taxation from sales to property/real estate taxes.
Public sector employees find themselves shielded in guaranteed jobs, whereas private sector employees compete and carry the load.
And where do the majority of liberals, based on total employment, do their laboring with wages, benefits, pensions assured: in the public sector.
On top of it, those liberals feel sorry for low wage earners and vehemently call for others to increase and up those wages.

[doubtfire]

Maybe we should just let immigration lawyers write a new bill...

I think that is actually who wrote it.

[dalereed]

Construction wages haven't gone up in 20 years and what used to be a good middle class income of mostly whites and blacks with talant and good workmanship has been taken over by the illegals working for cash.

I was drivin out of a 56 year old business by the influx of illegals and cash paying contractors by 1992.

Their production is way below par and so is the workmanship but people put up with it because by not paying wages on a check they are saving over 100% and paying $20-25/hr. which what wages were 20 years ago not including the average fringe benefit of $7-8/hr.

If you consider the benefit package, wages still have a ways to go to catch up with what they were 20 years ago.

[SmoothTalker]

"We have 11 -12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. Today. We will likely have an additional 4 - 5 million before the border is secured. When these people become citizens, they will start bringing family members, which will add 20 -30 million more.
"

Not to mention the fact that they breed like rabbits.

[A. Pole]

[...] Then perhaps the most significant amendment that was adopted was a Bingaman amendment. It would reduce the incredible escalating number under the new H-2C visa foreign worker program. Under the original bill, the numbers were unbelievable. The amendment reduced the total number of immigrants that would have come into the United States if that bill became law from 78 to 217 million to a lower 73 million to 93 million. That was a strong vote for that provision and we make progress in reducing the numbers.

However, this bill, S. 2611, still enacts a four- to fivefold increase over the current levels of legal immigration into America over 20 years. Current law would bring in 18.9 million over 20 years. Did you get that? This bill, if passed today, even after the Bingaman amendment passed by a substantial majority, would still bring into our country three, four, five times--at least four times, I suggest--the number of people who can come into our country legally today.

That is a huge number and will lead us at the end of 20 years to have the highest percentage of foreign-born Americans this Nation has ever had in its history, including the great migration period between 1880 and 1925. It is a colossal bill still in terms of those numbers.

The Senate also accepted, after rejecting it 3 weeks ago when the bill first came up--the bill was pulled from the floor because we couldn't get a vote on Senator Kyl's amendment to make certain that criminals are not given amnesty under the bill. It was a simple amendment to say criminals, felons, couldn't be given amnesty, and we couldn't get a vote on that amendment.

[...]

I recently took a trip with Chairman Specter of the Judiciary Committee to South America. We were provided State Department news clips. There was an article about a poll in Nicaragua that said 60 percent of the people in Nicaragua would come to the United States if they could. Sixty percent of the people of Nicaragua said they would come to the United States if they could.

We next stopped in Peru, and I asked one of the officials at the Embassy about that poll and asked him did he think it was true. He said they just had a poll in Peru earlier this year--I mean this year, both these polls were this year--earlier this year, he said, and 70 percent of the people of Peru said they would come to the United States if they could. [...]

[Jim_Curtis]

but that does not change the fact that there remains MANY. . .NUMEROUS . . .jobs that will not, cannot be filled by our own homegrown and available, unemployed.

Everyone is a potential employer for a job Americans aren't willing to do.

I have a house that needs painting but I can't find anyone who will do it for $20. There are people willing to do it who are starving to death in Africa so why don't we bring 500 million Africans to the US so that we can fill these kinds of jobs?

[investigateworld]

I would have agreed with you 10 or 20 years ago, but the market for high end is very limited. (California contractor "B" licensee for umpteen years)

[investigateworld]

I would have agreed with you 10 or 20 years ago, but the market for high end is very limited. (California contractor "B" licensee for umpteen years)

[A. Pole]

Labor is a commodity, a raw material. Corporations are legal entities.

This is the subversion of the natural moral order. Labor is a key activity of human beings who should be served by the political/economical system. Corporations are a construct.

[durasell]

A bunch of friends of mine have made the switch. Some moved from renovation to cabinet work. All are making six figures now. The thing that they've made clear is you have to know the stuff and have the "personality" for it. One guy I know spent six weeks in Italy doing nothing but emailing pictures of marble to a psychotic client.

[WayneM]

You can argue all you want but it is clear to anyone with a brain that a large pool of illigal alien labor has driven down wages for citizens in the US - starting with the poorest and now working up into middle class. This is simply a product of natural economic laws of supply and demand.

I am not going to argue with you. I took the trouble to read through your recent posting history and can see that you can become argumenative, so I will go ahead and tell you no - I will not provide links to back up my statement that the pool of illegal alien workers has driven down wages.

In reading some of your previous posts it also appeared to me that you favor a fairly unrestriced flow across the southern border.

Before I go outside and mow my lawn (yes - I still do my own yardwork) I'll go ahead and tell you my main concerns are cultural - not economic. I look at the economic prosperity of the US, and compare it to the poverty of Mexico. Mexico probably has more natural resources per capita that we here in the US, yet Mexico is mired in poverty.

It is clear to me that the reason for this disparity is cultural. We have our culture and Mexico has its culture. Everything about the USA and Mexico, along with El Salvador and Guatemala and the Honduras, are products of our respective cultures. I don't want our national culture blended with these national other cultures. We have enough bad cultural problems of our own without importing more.

I am very sympathetic for the poor in Mexico and Central America (If I were born down there I would probably be trying to move to the USA also). I have no problem with immigrants per se (I was married at one time to a child of immigrants), but I don't want their cultures to take root here. The only way this can be prevented is for immigration to be limited and controlled.

[angkor]

When these people become citizens, they will start bringing family members, which will add 20 -30 million more.

The minute one becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen, she or he can fill out family based visa applications for spouses, fiancees, minor children, and elderly parents (of course, all you need to do is "document" that family relation, wink wink).

I can understand the humane intent of family based resident visas, but I object to handing that awesome privilege over to 12 million poorly-educated, low-skilled lawbreakers.

[detroitdarien]

If slavery were made legal, billions of "labor opportunities" would open right here in the US.

A "job Americans won't do" would include investment banking - if it only paid $3/hour. These bogus arguments get circulated by companies that would LOVE the creation of a whole sub-citizen class of "guest workers" in this country. What a gift to corporate America - workers that won't complain, collective bargain or sue, will work for sub par wages in sub-par conditions, and can be sent away after a few years for another fresh batch.

[investigateworld]

"One guy I know spent six weeks in Italy doing nothing but emailing pictures of marble to a psychotic client"<<<

Damn, I want that job!
Actually I get a lot of former carpenters applying at my cabinet shop. They just can't live on $10 an hour.

I see a lot more younger guys "Wearing the Orange vest"*

*Refers to working for Lowes or Home Depot. Used to be an insult to guys who seriously underbid a job and went bankrupt.

[durasell]

"job Americans won't do" would include investment banking - if it only paid $3/hour. These bogus arguments get circulated by companies that would LOVE the creation of a whole sub-citizen class of "guest workers" in this country. What a gift to corporate America - workers that won't complain, collective bargain or sue, will work for sub par wages in sub-par conditions, and can be sent away after a few years for another fresh batch.



And your point?

[durasell]

Trust me, you don't want that job. Someone who spends $250k renovating their bathroom is not well-balanced to begin with -- giving them people to "boss around" doesn't improve their mental health. The punch sheets (I think that's what they're called) are as thick as phone books and lawyer fees are built into the estimates.

On the other hand, the work pays really well. Combat pay...

[BW2221]

My biggest concern is the unknowns in the Senate bill. If it opens immigration, I can see CAIR and the Saudi government shipping millions of Muslims to the U.S. If you think Mexican aliens create problems, "you ain't seen nothing yet."

[detroitdarien]

And your point?

The only group that wants the flood of these workers are the employers who want a sub-citizen class of cheap labor. Having millions of un-assimulated, un-assimulatable people erodes our culture, our values, our language and our middle class. Not to mention a possible national security disaster.