‘Politically explosive’ study suggests immigrants taking jobs from Americans

"In the year since the official end of recession in the United States, immigrants have seen job growth but native-born workers have continued to lose jobs," the Christian Science Monitor reported on Friday. "That's the politically explosive conclusion of an analysis released Friday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts."

"In the year following the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers posted a net gain of 656,000 jobs, while native-born workers lost 1.2 million," the story explains. "The foreign-born category includes legal and illegal immigrants. As a result of immigrants' recent job gains, the unemployment rate for immigrant workers fell during this period from 9.3 percent to 8.7 percent, while for native-born workers it rose from 9.2 percent to 9.7 percent."

"Are immigrants (including many in the country illegally) reducing employment opportunities for native-born Americans?" the Monitor asks. "And are immigrants pushing down wage levels?"

www.rawstory.com...

Hmm, now why are the spidey senses tingling here... Why would they not separate out illegal from legal when making this comparison? Who cares about the LEGAL immigrants? They have every right to pursue whatever jobs they want. It's the ILLEGALS that concern me, and just about everybody else that takes part in these debates.

I can't really make heads or tales of this study, other than to suggest there is some other motive. Maybe someone else can weigh in.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Well, I guess this part just seems to explain a lot-

"Immigrant presence in the U.S. labor force has been increasing for several decades," the Journal asserts, "with foreign-born workers now representing 16% of the U.S. labor force, up from 10% in 1995. ... Immigrants also tend to be more flexible about their wage expectations and more mobile than native-born workers."

I mean, who has to perform a study to state something as illegals and legal immigrants are taking jobs and driving down wages.

Hmmm, I guess the law of supply/demand and common sense must just fly right out the window of these intellectual giants.

In my estimation, there has been a influx of 30 million illegal immigrants in 30 years. In the same time frame there has been an influx of 30 million legal residents. That last is from their numbers.

It does not take a rocket scientist to do the math.

Also, during the time frame of the economic downturn, do you think that maybe immigration would have been slowed down? Nooooo, of course not.

Here is the 2009 number-1,130,818 From here-www.dhs.gov...

Hey, we are doing so well, we should bump that number up to 2 million.

This is where I get so pissed with some folks. They say that illegal immigration and the legal immigration does not affect the job market. What absolute idiotic world do they come from?

This is where I get so pissed with some folks. They say that illegal immigration and the legal immigration does not affect the job market. What absolute idiotic world do they come from?

they come from obamaland in liberal world.....................sorry couldn't resist

A new Pew study is being widely touted as demonstrating that as the nation struggles to recover economically, immigrants are gaining jobs at the expense of native-born workers.

this is a fact immigrants legal or otherwise do work jobs that most americans think they are too good for thus drving down wages which was said there is truth in those statements.

secondly define what is an immigrant? someone who has come here with a visa or migrant worker and who displaces americans and take away opportunities for other people here legal that is.


to me immigrant is define as previously said just a foreigner who comes here to work and then gets what they want and then goes back home or sends money back home instead of pumping that cash back into the economy.

Are immigrants (including many in the country illegally) reducing employment opportunities for native-born Americans?" the Monitor asks. "And are immigrants pushing down wage levels?"

the answer is a resounding yes that a look at the unemployment rate in this country the real rate and the amount of those who are drawing unemployment benifits.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


What's interesting is that a lot of the jobs that illegals are taking are up for grabs for Americans. The United Farm Workers started a 'take our jobs' program which invites native born American citizens to take jobs away from the illegals. So far the number of people that took up the offer of employment are a staggering...less than 10. And one of those people was Stephen Colbert.

Honestly, if you lose your job to a foreign worker, it might be that you're just not as good of a candidate. My parents are both foreign born dual citizens, as am I. My father didn't take anyone's job, he simply was a better candidate. He worked hard and got all boot-strappy.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Well heck, the more the merrier then. Why not begin petitioning the government to allow totally unfettered immigration?

Sounds like a plan.

I suppose what you are then saying is that they only take jobs that no one else wants, right?

Or that over supply of workers does not drive down wages?

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


Well, do you think Americans are looking for difficult farm work? If they were, they'd have been able to get it by now. The UFW are doing a great job at trying to get the word out, but there's been almost no response from the unemployed to get that sort of job.

I honestly don't think we should have unfettered immigration, though we really, really need to overhaul it. It's punitive towards people who were born in certain parts of the world while being overly favorable towards people born in other parts.

And having experienced the system...it's not fun.

If anything we should simply make it easier for central and south Americans to legally enter the country. It undercuts the 'coyotes' who illegal traffic people, cutting down on criminal revenues and the ties these immigrants have forced upon them by criminals.

Though honestly, a more reasonable trade policy and dealing with the root causes of problems is the only way to tackle illegal immigration. A stable central and south America are the only things that will cut illegal immigration.


And honestly, who says Americans are entitled to those jobs? America is a meritocracy, whoever does the best job is supposed to get the job.

When it comes to 'unskilled' jobs like farm work, those who are willing to do the same work for less get the job, that's capitalism for you. It would be easily fixed if these workers were allowed in legally as they would be forced to receive higher wages.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


they will never be allowed legally. First off they don't want to be United States citizens. They want to be Mexicans plain and simple can you blame them?

Why would any illegal MEXICAN want to become like the United States citizen . If you are illegal there is better privileges for you without the responsibilities.
For example if i was Mexican and i decided to smuggle 450 pounds of weed across the border into the united states and i was caught. I would be released back to Mexico to try again the next day.

anyone who believes that 20 million people could enter this country and not take any jobs or add any stress to our infrastructure is delusional. flat out delusional. you can argue that there's countervailing rights and beliefs that have to come into play. but to argue that jobs are not taken and stress is not added is just stupid. its not even ignorant. its willful ignorance. its stupidity.

So are American companies screwing over America by avoiding paying taxes and decent wages to American people or are immigrants somehow taking these jobs by force? Seems like this thread is really just anti-free market since it includes legal immigrants.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


20 years ago, construction was a skilled labor job. Now it is a piecemeal mess. You have like 20 different laborers. None of them know carpentry. One knows how to stick frame. The next knows how to lay joists. The next one knows how to lay flooring. On down the line. They get paid for production. 7/8 of them do not speak English.

You and others can go on and on about them only taking menial labor but you are wrong.

Furthermore, not knowing English is a detriment to our society. Furthermore, them not knowing the Constitution and our laws, allows our government to bribe them with the welfare system for votes.

There are a hundred reasons to stop immigration of those that do not want to learn our society and our laws.

I have NO PROBLEM allowing complete access if my taxes do not go for this welfare state the government has created. As it is, 50-75% of my labor goes to taxation and the statists are using ignorant voters to continue this cycle of madness. I would like the cycle stopped.

At my age, if I was able to keep the labor my government has stolen, I could retire. As it is, I barely have enough to survive this downturn. I am old school. I do not depend on the government in anyway. I am sick of the government stealing my labor to support those that do not save for rainy days. I am sick of seeing people paying for groceries with foodstamps and jumping into their ghetto car with $2000 per wheel rims and sporting an Ipad.

That is my beef. Remove all the welfare system and let in as much as you want. I could care less, no one can compete against me straight up in what I do. But when my labor is taken to support the rest of this welfare country, it tends to really piss me off.

As stated previously, Immigrants want no part of society in this country. I get along with everyone, and I mean everyone. I have yet meet an immigrant legal or not who would hold a conversation with me.

Construction IS a joke now a days. 20 illegals who know how to do one thing is cheaper than 5 skilled carpenters. So to work in this environment, the skilled carpenters have to adjust their wages. The same with farming. Americans would take those jobs if the pay was what it was supposed to be. As it is, it's not enough to support a single person.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to rent a house with 10 other people. But if I were sending my earnings to a family in another country where 2 American dollars an hour makes you upper middle class, then I might consider it.

What we have to compete with now is a group of people who choose economic slavery. They commune together, work together, and send their earnings back home.

reply to post by Curiousisall


So you blame the companies? Where taxation is destroying our competitiveness with other countries and with an ample supply of illegals, the only way they can be competitive is to hire illegals.

Plus, when an illegal is working not paying taxes, they are making the equivalent of 50-75% more than someone that pays taxes at the same wage.

60 million illegal and legal immigrants in 30 years. That is the low number in the US. 2 million people per year. Do you THINK that had something to do with the stagnation of wages. Actually the decrease in wages.

People cannot be this woefully ignorant to the basics of economics.

Tell me, do you THINK that just maybe, a country cannot take in the equivalent of the population of Canada every 15 years without some darn problems? Hmmmm?

It seems that what ever white collar jobs that are here, are filled by a lot of middle eastern folks, or Asian. Then to top even that, the jobs which were good paying jobs that were left, seem to all get sent over seas. So to sum it up we are loosing work at both ends. When is the freaking govt at least going to make it hard for companies to move jobs over seas?

Besides overpopulation, this is yet another reason all immigration must come to a complete halt for at least 20 years.

Militarize the border and end all immigration visas.

We need to deport all illegal aliens, no exceptions, and place the US Military on the border to handle the current crisis. We should establish English as our official language and establish a moratorium on all legal immigration until the unemployment rate goes down below 7%. Once it reaches that rate we should then limit immigration from non-western nations.

Let’s accept reality here. Immigrants coming from Europe have our same culture, will easily assimilate and have high salary expectations. Immigrants from non-western nations have a different culture, don’t easily assimilate and do not have high salary expectations. They are taking our jobs and enforcing changes to our culture, neither of which we as Americans want. The problem is not immigration but where the immigrants are coming from.

I have no problem with Muslims, Sikhs, Chinese, Ethiopian, etc….. The problem I have is that they lower the wage standards and they have a different culture. Multicultural society is collapsing all around us and it is being artificially propped up by politically correct.

I live in America and what this means is that I will enjoy American culture not Saudi culture or Chinese culture. If I want Chinatown I will go to Shanghai not New York.

I encourage you to read this article by Pat Buchanan: buchanan.org...

What is happening in Europe partakes of a global trend. Multiracial, multi-ethnic, multicultural nations are disintegrating.

Russians battle ethnic Muslim separatists in the North Caucasus. Seventy percent of Americans support an Arizona law to identify and expel illegal aliens. Beijing swamps the homelands of Tibetans and Uighurs with Han Chinese. India fights secession in Kashmir, Nagaland and the Naxalite provinces.

“Wars between nations have given way to wars within nations, ” said Barack Obama in his Nobel Prize address.
Ethnonationalism tore Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union and Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia into 22 separate nations, and is now tugging at the seams of all multi-ethnic states. Globalism is in retreat before tribalism.

I am sorry if I sound like some xenophobic racist truth is what I said is politically incorrect but it is the absolute truth.

Originally posted by saltheart foamfollower
reply to post by Curiousisall

 

So you blame the companies?

American companies that hire imigrants by choice? Yes.

Where taxation is destroying our competitiveness with other countries and with an ample supply of illegals, the only way they can be competitive is to hire illegals.

Have some numbers to back that up? How many of these corporations are protected by off-shore tax shelters again? How many of them are barely scraping up a profit by offering lower wages? I am very interested in seeing the numbers you have to back up your assumption with.

Plus, when an illegal is working not paying taxes, they are making the equivalent of 50-75% more than someone that pays taxes at the same wage.

First of all, the article is about both legal and illegal immigrants so you cannot pick half the argument and stick with just the problems there. Besides, that illegal pays taxes on the money they spend and yet the American corporation gets out of paying taxes on the employess wages. So again, the American company screws America out of tax dollars by choice and you blame the employees for that?

60 million illegal and legal immigrants in 30 years. That is the low number in the US. 2 million people per year. Do you THINK that had something to do with the stagnation of wages. Actually the decrease in wages.

You are going to have to demonstrate to me how they had control over wages. Usually companies pay what they choose to pay, not what the employess ask for. Who offers these low wage jobs for these people to come take? I am pretty sure that would again be American compaines. Yes, that is American companies offering low wage jobs in order to lure in cheap labor. Not the other way around.

People cannot be this woefully ignorant to the basics of economics.

And yet, you do go on.

Tell me, do you THINK that just maybe, a country cannot take in the equivalent of the population of Canada every 15 years without some darn problems? Hmmmm?

Tell me, do you think they would be coming here if there were no companies looking to avoid paying a fair wage and the taxes they should be?

reply to post by Misoir


Well, I would suggest something like a test like they do for citizenship. Learn the Constitution, basic laws, our election system, speak English, maybe a couple other things. And then anyone can come over.

Of course we need to have a full year or a full education of these very thing in our schools.

Not just memorizing the Consitution, but understanding the ideas and ideals it stands for.

This is sorely missing in this day and age.

Plus, if people in other countries started learning the principles of such a great freedom loving document, these other countries may begin to change themselves. There people instead of running to the US, would want to change their own country, instead of ours.

reply to post by saltheart foamfollower


Pat Buchanan is 100% right our cultures are being changed by a mass exodus from non-western nations to western nations. We are supposed to accommodate these new members of our society who still cling to a separate culture which is sometimes at odds with our own. We need to leave the rest of the world alone and lock up our borders to all non-western immigration.

It’s happening in England where in 2009(?) the most common name in England and Wales is Muhammad, Muhammad! Not Benjamin, Thomas, David, or James. That is the death of the west and one day within this century we will wake up on the continent our founding fathers handed down to us and we will be saying our prayers at Mosque on Friday.

I’m sorry if that sounds like a racist xenophobe but I have no problem with Muslims as long as they keep their culture in their countries. Notice the wave of Right-wing anger rising in Europe? The xenophobia, nationalism and anti-Islamism, this all stems from the new immigrants who moved to Europe and they cannot assimilate. Either the west will turn to violent civil unrest or we will wise up to the problems, through down politically correct, and solve the issues at hand.

Let the bashing begin. Call me a Fascist, a Nazi, a Right-wing reactionary but you know what, I love and cherish my country and my culture, I don’t want it to change not from Muslims and not from Liberals!

Originally posted by xyankee
When is the freaking govt at least going to make it hard for companies to move jobs over seas?

Yeah, great point. You tell me and then we'll both know.

If they are going to move overseas, fine. Just make it so the company and its affiliates are prohibited from doing any further business in the US, and force the owners to ship out with them. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

You elect officials to act on your behalf, and instead they cut you in half.

reply to post by Curiousisall


You're right then. Let's blame everyone but the individuals. Write that in the deportation letter if you wish. "It's not you, it's me."

You're right, it is the companies. Can you really blame them when their motivation is profit? If they paid the immigrants decent wages, does that mean they won't get hired? No. It just means that one more slot is unavailable for a natural citizen and there is a high chance that the money gets shipped out of the country.

Immigrants from near 3rd world countries have no expectation of fair wage. Our worst living conditions are hundreds fold better than what most are used to. So they come here and live in these substandard conditions, cohabitate with multiple families to spread the cost of living, all the while being able to live off of a few bucks an hour. Can Americans do that? Sure we can, but to hell with that. I'm not doing it and you aren't either.

No one's saying it, so I'll be the first to stick my neck out. Deport the illegals now, shoot those trying to cross the border illegally, and completely and without exception stop ALL immigration from anywhere. If they don't speak English, deport. If they are living 2 families to one home, deport. If they are on a social service program, deport.

Take the jobs that become free from doing so, and place those on unemployment IMMEDIATELY.

Don't open the borders back up for anyone. We're out of room. Sorry. No vacancy. If we have a mass pandemic and some spots open up, we'll be in touch.