Do Immigrants Compete with Current American Workers?

Some Economist Say Immigrants Don't Compete in the Job Market

Really?

I wrote the following letter to a group of some 400 of my college classmates, a group that can be characterized as highly educated, professional, upper middle class, urban, coastal, and liberal.  It is the elite Hillary-supporting group that people in "flyover country" love to hate.

My goal in the letter was to affirm there can be liberal populism, not just Trump style populism.  A liberal can have reason to want to vet and control travelers and refugees.  A Democrat may have to choose between competing values of social justice, our country's obligation to the poor of America vs. its obligation to the poor of the world.  

Here are excerpts from the letter:

        "Trump and Hillary both made the immigration a matter of identity coalition-building.  Hillary had her coalition of the discriminated-against.  Trump had his coalition of whites.  Trump has racial and religious dog-whistle reasons for wanting a travel ban and limits on immigration.   Democrats and progressives should stop using immigration and refugees as a litmus test for Trump-style ethnocentrism.  There are progressive reasons to want to limit immigration and stop certain groups of people from entering the country.

Not welcome

        "Let us say there were a part of the world where there were lots of skinhead, KKK-loving, anti-Semitic Nazis.  Wouldn’t a progressive Democratic president or candidate say it is dangerous to bring these people into our country, that we don’t want Nazis and Jew-haters here?   The Democrat wouldn’t be appealing to ethnic or religious animus; he or she would be saying that some people are unwelcome because their politics and attitudes are ugly and dangerous.  

        "In the Travel Ban Trump was appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice although he obscured it in the language of the actual Executive Order. Democrats are asserting the Travel Ban is really, under the surface, all about religion, banning Muslims.  Couldn’t a progressive Democrat say we don’t want Jew-hating anti-Semites?   The Democrat would be saying that the American melting pot values toleration and inclusion, and that is the reason for the special vetting of people from places where toxic attitudes are endemic.

       "I am pro-immigrant. The current 13.4% first generation immigrants, and 24% immigrant and first generation immigrants, bring us back to the levels of the mass European immigration of the beginning of the 20th century.   Maybe progressive Democrats have erred in defining immigration as a matter of ethnicity and national character and a litmus test for racism.    But what about our obligation to black Americans still living in the poverty echo of Jim Crow and all Americans being hurt by automation and global trade. The agricultural crops will get picked, and landscapes maintained and motel rooms must be cleaned, and if employers need to pay $20 an hour to get it done, well then let the labor market do its magic.  Maybe reducing immigration is the easiest and best minimum wage policy and anti-poverty policy.

        "Could a Democrat say that?   One has.  Barbara Jordan, back in the 1990s, made exactly that argument."

 Click: NY Times

My letter got pushback.   Immigrants don't really compete with low skilled American workers, I was told.   I was sent links to newspaper articles saying Immigrants make jobs, they don't take jobs, some economist argue.   New people in America create general economic growth.  New immigrant labor lower the cost of some building projects and therefore more building projects get built and new projects mean more work for the lawyers and surveyors and everyone else up the job chain.  And new people in an economy mean a bigger economy generally.  Those immigrants buy food, clothes, cars.  More people, more economy to serve them and growth helps everyone, rich and poor.

But don't they compete for the same jobs?  Not exactly, according to an article in The Atlantic.  Immigrants do different jobs.  Immigrants are hotel maids and construction laborers while native born workers do jobs that involve more public contact and better language skills.     Click Here   

Striving to come to America: www.84Lumber.com

They inserted a chart to prove their point.  My reading of the chart is that it disproves their point.  Of course immigrants compete for exactly the same kinds of jobs and the charts shows it.  These are the jobs that are essentially minimum wage or near minimum wage  jobs with the only real difference being jobs that require a drivers license or public contact being ones where immigrants are under-represented.

Some jobs are difficult or impossible to automate.  They tend to be tedious jobs or they are jobs requiring little training or specialized skills, e.g. hotel maids or picking tree fruit or construction cleanup.   These are low status jobs in part because they are low pay jobs.  There is nothing inherently "low status" about cooking food; TV shows are built around cooking competitions.  Picking fruit or cleaning hotel rooms would not be low status if they were paid $20/hour.  Would there be an adjustment in the price of fruit or hotel rooms?  Almost certainly yes, which would mean that consumers would pay more and taxpayers would pay less in food stamps and other income adjustments because people working full time would be brought out of poverty.    What would be the equilibrium value between these low skilled jobs and the jobs of college graduates?  We don't know until we try but supply and demand would presumably close the current gap--something that would be good public policy outcome. 

A globalist humanitarian might make the argument that America has an obligation to the poor of the world to be a lifeboat to them.  They can draw an image of poor sojourners, perhaps Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, or the appealing woman and girl in the 84Lumber ad from the Super Bowl.  They have need.  We have the capacity to save some of them them, therefore we must save them, out of Christian charity, some will argue.  But an American politician who asks American voters to reduce the standard of living of his fellow Americans in order to serve the humanitarian needs of foreigners--however kindhearted the sentiment--will lose the election.  Voters want charity to begin at home.

There is a struggle between competing good values, one being Christian charity and one that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.  If American voters want America first and Americans first then it is right and just that they elect a government who gives that to them, or at least so says the Declaration of Independence.  And that sentiment was the centerpiece of Trump's inaugural speech.

Chart from Tanvi Misra, The Atlantic,