Posted on 08/18/2003 7:05:41 PM PDT by new cruelty
LOS ANGELES - Men working blue-collar and service jobs in 15 states tended to earn lower pay when they were employed alongside newly arrived Hispanic immigrant men because the new arrivals were often paid less, driving down the wages for all, according to a UCLA study.
The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center study released Monday analyzed 1990 Census data on male workers in 38 U.S. metropolitan areas. It found that men - both native and established immigrants - earned an average of 11 percent less than others in comparable low-level service and manual labor jobs when they worked with Hispanic newcomers.
Minority workers in those jobs earned an average of 14 percent less. And the higher the proportion of newly arrived Hispanic men, the less money the other workers tended to make, the study said.
The study results reflect only the period of time the data were collected. The same type of data from the 2000 Census has not been released yet, said Lisa Catanzarite, the senior research sociologist who conducted the study.
"These findings push us to understand that wage penalties in 'brown-collar' occupations stem from newcomer Latinos' marginal status, and not from immigration, per se," Catanzarite said.
Employers' attitudes and immigrants' status when they first come to the United States are to blame for the disparity in wages in some jobs, she said.
Many employers devalue certain jobs where Hispanic immigrants are overrepresented, such as landscaping, construction, farm labor, groundskeeping and painting, and pay less. And immigrants are unable to resist low wages and have little political power to demand proper pay, so they end up working for less, Catanzarite said.
"The point is, if you have a vulnerable group, when they're exploited, then that can push down wages for everybody," she said. "Somewhat paradoxically, policies to combat pay penalties for native-born workers necessarily involve improving the status of immigrants."
The study recommends expanding worker protections for the immigrants, enforcing minimum wage standards and extending amnesty.
Catanzarite said people should not infer from the study that immigrant labor hurts American workers.
"The findings don't suggest that immigration overall is hurting native-born workers," she said. "Some of these jobs wouldn't even exist if those immigrants weren't here."
Among the metropolitan areas tracked in the study were the cities of Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Boston, Las Vegas, Dallas and Washington.
I wonder how many tax payer dollars it took these geniuses to come up with this. I could have told them as much for nothing!
I know what you mean, but I get paid for similar studies. I oversee several projects that require studies into issues where the result is often in plain site. Even so, common sense isn't enough for some and due diligence is required. So, my department carries out each inquiry to the fullest extent and documents the information collected, just in case anyone ever asks to see the methodology for reaching a certain conclusion. In that respect, to most people, this part of my job isn't very interesting and is more akin to watching grass grow.
HAWKINS: Well -- well, one of the first things the Ford Foundation did was they created a group called MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Foundation, and this -- this was a radical alternative group to what was then the mainline Hispanic political group, which was LULAC, which was the League of United Latin American Citizens.And it's important to know that LULAC had the world "citizen" in its title. It was a middle-class, Hispanic movement which stressed assimilation. They wanted a policy that would move their people up.
Of course, there was -- there were -- they had a civil-rights agenda. They didn't want to be discriminated against. But they wanted to move into American society, be good citizens, be Americanized, and take their place in the United States.
MALDEF was set up to counter this group, to set up a radical group, which would be opposed to assimilation, and they... O'REILLY: It's unbelievable.
We tried. It was called Prop 187 and the Liberal Courts overturned it.
I truly believe God has not yet forsaken America.
The Lord Helps them that helps themselves. Collectively, we are allowing liberals to create a Socialist Gomorrah. Remember what God did to that place.
Sorry, they are not. Slavery is involuntary servitude. These people come here willingly pursuing a better life by offering to work for money. You besmirch their honest effort to better their lives, in addition to the people who have, and in some sad cases even today, suffer from actual slavery.
At the mercy of their new vile slaveowners, who will pay what they want to pay the slave, regardless of what "market prices" dictate labor is worth.
'Price' is a ratio at which a trade takes places. A market price is one set in a voluntary trade, and those workers come here voluntarily to exchange their labor for money. If the people who had money, and work they wanted done, did not offer sufficient money in trade for the work it would go undone.
After all,it is unfair for the slaveowner to have to abide by the laws they allowed to be enacted, they should ignore all those that are detrimental to themselves.
I reject out of hand your assertion that businessmen want restrictions on the size of the labor pool. It is the unions who demand people not be free to exchange their labor for money at a price they are willing to make the exchange.
Following laws are for the other guy, the "stupid ones" who follow the laws while they work to change the ones they think wrong.
If the law is immoral, why should it be obeyed? Did the Founders submit themselves to law, or recognize that individual libery is more important? You can disobey the law and work to change it.
Now what is the definition of a criminal...?
Impossible to even know these days given the reams of regulations and rules inflicted upon us by creatures in Washington. People who hid runaway slaves used to be criminals. I won't fault them for disobeying a bad law.
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