More Immigrants, More Jobs

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The author's thesis does not hold water.
1950's
Population Growth = 11,516,000
Employment Growth = 7,215,000 (62.65%)
1960's
Population Growth = 19,449,000
Employment Growth = 13,862,000 (71.27%)
1970's
Population Growth = 30,811,000 (Depression in Mexico)
Eloyment Growth = 21,224,000 (68.88%)
1980's
Population Growth = 20,865,000
Employment Growth = 17,685,000 (84.76%)
1990's
Population Growth = 21,667,000
Employment Growth = 16,998,000 (78.45%)
2000's (Mar. 2009)
Population Growth = 26,254,000
Employment Growth = 5,137,000 (19.57%)
*********Data*********
Avg for previous 1950'- 1990's = (73.20%)
Avg. employment growth for 2000's should/would have been: = 19,218,994
Employment Shortfall 2000-2009 (March) = 14,081,994
Source Data:
BLS CPS Downloaded on 4/20/2009
http://www.bls.gov/data/
Formula: Each decade represents EOY Dec XXX9 to EOY Dec XXX9
Example: Decade of 1950's = Dec 1949 to Dec. 1959.
Series Id: LNU00000000
Not Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Unadj) Population Level
Labor force status: Civilian noninstitutional population
Age: 16 years and over
Series Id: LNU02000000
Not Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Unadj) Employment Level
Labor force status: Employed
Age: 16 years and over

weaver of CA 4:48PM July 07, 2009

Another silly, sophomoric opinion on immigration from Bandyk.
First, are we talking about immigration or illegal immigration -- two entirely different things? Bandyk seems to conflate the two.
Regarding legal immigration, we allow an average of 138,000 legal foreign workers in our country per MONTH. Still this is not enough to satisfy Bandyk, who relies on shoddy research and contorted logic to make his (weak) case.
The H-1B visa scam is well-known and I suggest Bandyk take his head out of the sand and look at the evidence.
Regarding illegal immigration, there are an estimated 12-20 million low-skilled, largely impoverished illegal aliens in our country, with an estimated 8 million of these illegally employed -- stealing (yes STEALING) 8 million jobs from Americans.
Look at how illegal immigration has devastated the Black working class in Los Angeles and other cities? Bandyk apparently cares little about this.
Unemployment is now at a 26-year high, with fewer jobs available in our economy than there were ten years ago. With the mass legal and illegal immigration that has occurred during this period, it looks like Bandyk's immigrants haven't created that many jobs for the lazy, non risk-taking Americans.
As much as Bandyk, the Wall Street Journal, and other cheap labor enthusiasts try to spin and deny the obvious, the fact remains both legal and illegal immigrants do and are taking jobs away from Americans -- while businesses shifts the social costs of this onto the backs of American taxpayers.
It is time undo the radical effects of the 1965 Immigration Act, revert to pre-1965 levels of legal immigration, and vigorously enforce existing immigration laws and mandate E-Verify to end illegal immigration and decrease the illegal population.

Stan of OH 11:06PM July 03, 2009

A Simple and Fair Way Create American jobs. End H-1B and L-1 Corporate Visa fraud and abuse.
And, we have the tools to make it happen. US Senate bill, S.887.
S. 887 - Senator Dubin's new bill to reform H-1b and L-1 Corporate Visa Fraud and Abuse to protect American jobs and ensure Americans get a fair chance to compete for jobs in our own country.
Congress – Support S. 887. No more American layoffs. Fix H-1b and L-1 Fraud and abuse NOW.
Americans we need your help. Insist elected officials support S.887. We must stop corporate Stop visa fraud and abuse before more Americans and lose their jobs, their homes, their savings, and their insurance.
Unemployment and Visa Workers
A criminal investigation of H-1b visa fraud, the US DOJ found
- H-1B workers OUTNUMBER UNEMPLOYED American techies
- H-1B employers DISPLACE QUALIFIED American workers and DEPRIVE U.S. citizens of employment.
- H-1B workers in Information Technology "substantially" exceeded the 241,000 unemployed US citizens in the same occupation.
And, that's the tip of the iceberg. Don’t forget the 20% fraud found by Feds
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9133529
How did this happen?
Corporate greed. Bottomless lobbyist funding. Microsoft H-1B lobbyist? Convicted felon Jack Abramoff.
The result of this toxic formula - Congress passed laws that make it legal for employers to lay off Americans and recruit their replacements exclusively offshore.
Why Microsoft can’t find qualified local talent and needs to go offshore?
Lay off Americans. Replace them with corporate visa workers. Solicit laid off Americans and offer 50% for their old jobs.
ACT NOW BEFORE ONE MORE AMERICAN GETS LAID OFF AND REPLACED BY FOREIGN CORPORATE VISA WORKER
Please Tell Your FRIENDS, FAMILY MEMBERS, and COLLEAGUES. Tell them to INSIST their elected officials support S 887.
Help us create American jobs by ending corporate visa abuse and fraud, and give Americans a fair chance to compete for jobs in our own country.
For more information about the bill and how together we can restore American jobs for American citizens please visit www.brightfuture.jobs.

Replaced By H1b of WA 2:48AM July 03, 2009

Contrary to what so many Supporters of Illegal Immigrants are saying in advance of the latest attempt to give amnesty to 12 million Illegal Immigrants, evidence indicates that Illegal Immigrants actually had an overall negative effect on the USA GDP. Here are the facts that back this up:
Fact 1 - Pew Center studies by Jeffrey S. Passel show Illegal Immigrants compete directly with U.S. Citizens and Legal Residents for jobs. One study "estimated that illegal immigrants fill a quarter of all agricultural jobs, 17 percent of office and house cleaning positions, 14 percent of construction jobs and 12 percent in food preparation." That means that 75 percent of all agricultural jobs, 83 percent of office and house cleaning positions, 86 percent of construction jobs and 88 percent of the food preparation jobs are done by U.S. Citizens and Legal Residents.
Fact 2 - Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics we have 20.6 million Americans looking for work versus 8 million working Illegal Immigrants (Pew Center estimate). And in the last decade there never was less than 5 million more out of work Americans than there were working Illegal Immigrants.
Fact 3 – Per U.S. Government Statistics unemployment and welfare paid to workers out of work because of competition from Illegal Immigrants is estimated at over $100 billion per year.
Fact 4 – Considering the average U.S. Savings Rate for this decade is effectively zero, if this $100 billion tax had remained in wage earner hands it all would have been spent resulting in no net impact on GDP.
Fact 5 – The Labor Markets most affected by Illegal Immigrations have seen an average 8% decline in wages, resulting in an approximate $58 billion drop in GDP.
Fact 6 – Illegal Immigrants send remittances estimated at $9 billion out of the USA. Add this to the falling wage effect and Illegal Immigration represents a $67 billion drop in GDP.
Fact 7 – The United States is a net food exporter and a net clothing importer. Loosing Illegal Immigrant food and clothing expenditures has no net impact on GDP. The food would be exported if not consumed locally. And imports have little GDP effect.
Fact 8 – Fewer people in the USA means less house building. Based on GDP data if 12 million Illegal Immigrants had never come to the USA this loss in GDP would total between $15 billion and $30 billion.
This leads to the inescapable conclusion that rather than experiencing a GDP gain from Illegal Immigration, we actually experience a net GDP loss of $37 billion to $52 billion thanks to Illegal Immigration. This represents a half percent contraction in GDP. By comparison, the "terrible fourth quarter 2008" represented a 0.8% GDP drop. And the absence of Illegal Immigrants competing for jobs would result in no net decrease in Social Security and Tax collections. While adding millions of Illegal Immigrants to Social Security at mid career only serves to make the program even less financially secure in the future.

Norski of MN 10:23AM July 02, 2009

When will these blogging hacks stop equating H1-B guest workers with immigrants? One is expected to go home another is expected to stay.Immigrants may or may not bring jobs to this country when they settle her, but H1-B guest workers take jobs and all the data proves it. Even immigrants complain when their job is given to outsourcing or guest workers.
Jobless citizens and jobless immigrants create jobs as well; they create jobs in the public sector for lawyers, cops, prisons guards and social workers. Maybe that should be an argument for allowing more H-1B workers into this country?
Better yet, let's outsource every job in the USA so that we can all be raised as cattle to feed the masses of extra-terrestrials that may be coming right now. Does it make sense?
Yeah sure it makes sense, like this article makes sense. Like the policy of allowing US citizens and green card residence to go without employment makes sense. Like cheap labor makes sense.
Sorry Pal, but you lose this toss, back of the line loser and back of the line for your loser handlers at US News and World Report.

Doc in CA of CA 6:39PM July 01, 2009

This flies against all common sense and the rules of supply and demand. I think employers just enjoy being able to compete US workers against the entire world thru easy immigration. That's far too much leverage. We've had so many claims of labor shortage, jobs Americans won't do, the necessity and greatness of foreign workers, etc. for so long that the credibility is gone. If you further consider the education and healthcare costs associated with easy immigration it's just overwhelmingly clear that immigration is a loser for the whole country except for employers!!!

prousa of NJ 6:19PM July 01, 2009

Jobs can only grow at the rate at which Capital can create them, whereas people can migrate in search of jobs many times more quickly. As such, the unemployed can quickly swamp out and depress ANY jobs market wages and ruin an economy in no time at all.
This has been proven historically in the USA many times. The era of steam propulsion began with the 19th century. By the 1840’s improved transportation presented the United States for the first time with the possibility of people immigrating to the USA faster than jobs could be created. And the first time this became a reality was with the German and Irish migration prior to the Civil War. The resulting wave of Immigrants provided so much unskilled labor to the USA economy that unemployment was rampant. As unemployment figures were not kept at that time no one knows the full extent of the problem but the history books paint the era as a time of significant unemployment and strife.
The Chinese were not vilified when they first arrived in California. It was only after unemployment exceeded 30% due to Immigrants arriving faster than jobs could be created that the populace turned their ire upon them. As the largest group of immigrants, the Chinese, who by that time made up almost a quarter of the population, were an easy target for Labor Unions and the result was the truly obnoxious Chinese Exclusion Act. But again the trigger was excessive immigration coupled with high unemployment.
And history repeated itself twice again as two great waves of excessive immigration, one from Central Europe and the other from Eastern and Southern Europe, flooded the unskilled labor markets between the Civil War and 1910. And those floods were so devastating to the U.S. economy that the unemployment rate reached 32% for manufacturing, mining, and transportation workers by 1910 (which were the big unskilled labor jobs of that day and age). And in the 1890's the states of Maine, Kansas, and Michigan experienced periods of unemployment exceeding 50%. The low wages and high unemployment created the perfect environment of the development of the mega-wealthy Robber Barons. Not even the opening of Ellis Island could bring order to the economy. It took World War I to pull us out of it. That and strong immigration limits.
So today we control immigration. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Norski of MN 5:01PM July 01, 2009

As a matter of fact, I have studied and worked in Economics and Economics related fields for many years. And the theory you advance is meant to explain the long term (read decades here) effect of Immigration. The theory, simply put is that with more workers coming to the USA you need more Bosses to tell them what to do so that makes more opportunities for the Native Born to be Bosses. Again I will cite Walter Heller who once said "if you line up all the economists in the world end to end they will all point in different directions". His point being the success or failure of any economic principle is based on what is assumed away in postulating that theory. Since the theory you cite is dependant on a significant passage of time and includes Legal Immigrants, which outnumber Illegal Immigrants by about 3.5 to 1, it is almost worthless in the short term and when discussing Illegal Immigrants.
The key factor here is that job growth is a function of available capital (otherwise known as money). If we let in one million immigrants per year because that is how many jobs we created in excess of our native population growth then an extra half million Illegal Immigrants means that a half million people will go unemployed - native or immigrant - because there is no more capital to create more jobs. During the last expansion unemployment bottomed out at 4.5% plus there was an addition five million people who wanted to work but were not counted as unemployed because the had not interviewed with anyone in the four weeks before the USBLS data was published. These people are also referred to as “Discouraged Workers”. Up until the Nixon Administration the unemployment numbers included these people and Economists considered 2% to be full employment. It wasn't until the advent of Stagflation that the Discouraged Workers were removed from the unemployment figures and Full Employment was re-defined as 4%. This was done so the politicians could look good. Considering these changes even if not a single Illegal Immigrant had set foot in the USA, we would not have reached full employment any time in the last decade and unemployment would have bottomed out at 3.6%. And if that actually had caused worker shortages, we could have let in a few million more Legal Immigrants and maybe the wait for people trying to immigrate from places like the Philippines would not be stuck at 14 years.
In point if fact the Pew Center published a study a few years back that showed that even in the most Illegal Immigrant populated industry, Farm Labor, Illegal Immigrants only make up 25% of the workforce. The study clearly showed that Illegal Immigrants compete with Americans (Citizens and Legal Residents) directly for jobs. This simple fact is also ignored by the theories you cite. Based on those theories, is it better to elevate seven hundred thousand people as Bosses while seven million Americans go unemployed? Because that is what happens when you combine ALL the observable facts.

Norski of MN 4:45PM July 01, 2009

Also, we must be careful to compare our apples with apples and oranges with oranges. With indirect displacement, this is difficult. We only see US citizens being required to train their cheap, more easily abused foreign worker replacements some of the time. More frequent are the isolated cases where we see US workers dumped here, and more guest-workers and immigrants brought in over there. And immigration lawyers know that this is part of the game, as can be seen in the cases of Cohen & Grigsby and Fragomen et al., and in statements from the immigration lawyers associations. It's also difficult to know how to count the very young children who immigrated, attended US public schools and universities, and leter "made good", as compared to the easily hidded bright US student who was rejected for that honors course because it was full, and thus, discouraged and lacking resources, failed to make the breakthroughs he would have otherwise. And then we have to deal with the brilliant drop-outs like Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, who had just enough money, just enough chutzpah, just enough intellect and knowledge to "make good".

Bruce de la Vega of FL 4:21PM July 01, 2009

Neither values nor jobs occur in fixed quantities. OTOH, we do see both direct and indirect displacement of both gifted, highly-skilled, knowledgeable and industrious US STEM workers, and laborers, and we see increased age discrimination coinciding with increases in already excessive guest-work visas and immigration.

Bruce de la Vega of FL 4:14PM July 01, 2009