Immigration

But it is also a politically awkward admission by Obama — because Obama and his establishment allies in the GOP and in business want to increase the annual inflow of foreign workers and consumers into the U.S. economy. House Speaker Paul Ryan is one of those allies — he’s been pushing for years to allow companies to hire “any willing worker” from the U.S. or overseas. … [Read more...] about Obama: Yeah, Immigration Does Cut Wages For Americans

In 2016, for example, federal data shows that former President Barack Obama gave federal “Employment Authorization Document” work permits to at least 2.3 million migrants for U.S. jobs, and approved visas for roughly 500,000 outsourcing workers, such as the H-1B white-collar workers, H-2B blue-collar workers and H-2A agriculture workers. Those temporary workers were in addition to the routine inflow of 1 million legal immigrants and roughly 400,000 illegal immigrants. … [Read more...] about Donald Trump’s Immigration Reform Will Raise Wages, Jobs, Admits Business-Funded Group

Moody’s Analytics looked at Arizona’s economic output for The Wall Street Journal, with an eye toward distinguishing between the effects of the mass departures of illegal immigrants and the recession that hit the state hard beginning in 2008. It concluded that the [migrant] departures alone had reduced Arizona’s gross domestic product by an average of 2% a year between 2008 and 2015. Because of the departures, total employment in the state was 2.5% lower, on average, than it otherwise would have been between 2008 and 2015, according to Moody’s. … [Read more...] about WSJ: Arizona’s Pro-American Immigration Reform Boosts Wages, Productivity, Housing

However, it bears noting that it is problematic to apply the same static methodology used for small temporary inflows to measuring the impact of the entire population of immigrants, which has grown over the course of decades. Over such a long period of time, capital has had plenty of time to adjust, and so these estimates can at best be described as upper limits that exaggerate the real impact of immigration on native wages and overall incomes. … [Read more...] about NYT Hides Wage Gains in Donald Trump’s Merit Immigration Reform

Trump’s most recent endorsement of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) RAISE Act, which would cut legal immigration in half in order to drive up the wages of U.S. workers, has shown a renewed commitment to the economic nationalist agenda that propelled his election. … [Read more...] about Trump Immigration Crackdown Leads to Higher Construction Wages