– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. –
It’s welcome news that President Obama will turn his attention to immigration reform this year, as was announced on Wednesday by Deputy Assistant to the President Cecilia Muñoz. Economic recovery will happen more quickly if both high- and low-skill immigrants are permitted to enter the United States and work legally.
Two years ago, when Congress was considering comprehensive immigration reform, both President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and the Congressional Budget Office, headed by Peter Orszag, an economist closely identified with the Democratic Party, estimated that the benefits of additional immigrants outweighed the costs. If Congress allowed more immigration, then American taxpayers would come out ahead financially.
Yet, after Congress refused to pass President Bush’s plan to allow most undocumented workers to receive work visas and wait in line for citizenship, the Bush administration’s immigration policy deteriorated into a series of arbitrary raids on different companies, rounding up undocumented workers and deporting them, in many cases separating husbands and wives, parents and children.
We can do better. Although the unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent last month, the jobs are going to come back, and, as has been the case in the past, native-born Americans will want jobs that are different from those of immigrants, according to economics professor Giovanni Peri of the University of California at Davis.
Congress needs to overhaul immigration law and create an expanded temporary worker program with a path to citizenship, along with more verification to prevent workers from working illegally, and monitoring of tourists and students so that they do not overstay their visas.
A rational immigration policy would have numerous advantages:
- Undocumented workers would pay taxes to federal and state governments rather than to grey-market check cashing services.
- Payments for health care through insurance could be collected more easily, rather than burdening hospital emergency rooms with immigrants without health insurance.
- Foreigners who want to work here could pay the government for visas rather than pay smugglers for unsafe, illicit transportation.
- Improvements in security. Legal visas and bank accounts would make it far easier to identify and track potential terrorists, dubious financial transactions, and those who simply overstay visas.
A rational immigration policy would solve several real problems the United States faces with regard to immigration. The international economy is tremendously dynamic; our immigration system is not. Temporary workers must spend months applying for admission, and due to the pile-up in April of every year, may not even get a visa.
Few low-skilled workers have a legal and reliable method to enter this country and work legally, and few Americans want to do the jobs, such as fruit picking and cleaning, that these workers want to pursue. And even high-skilled workers trained at U.S. colleges and universities, often at taxpayer expense, might have to wait years and spend thousands of dollars to become permanent residents of the nation.
Mr. Obama might want to consider transferring the authority of setting quotas from Congress to the Labor Department. The Labor Department already has the presumptive authority to judge whether demand for foreign labor is justified, through its foreign labor certifications. If the Labor Department is allowed to determine whether or not a foreign worker would displace a native one, it could also be allowed to calculate visa quotas.
High-skilled workers educated in America ought to be able to stay; otherwise, our investment in their education becomes lost to another country. If the Labor Department determines that a foreign worker would not displace Americans, that worker should not be barred from entering the country due to an arbitrary quota. And people who want to enter this country in order to work in jobs Americans are not willing to take ought to have an easy, legal way to do so.
Mr. Obama has the opportunity to craft a sensible and dynamic immigration system. All Americans should wish him success.
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“And even high-skilled workers trained at U.S. colleges and universities, often at taxpayer expense…”, Diana - I don’t get it! Unless you’re talking about students working illegally - the F1 visas are paying pretty well - around $50K for community/state 4year education in CA. Anyhow as for the general dilemma - many things are true - you’re saying, as well as the upset comments I’ve read. The bottom line may be: Will USA take care of its own people (free education by all means - including clarification of the words “life, freedom and pursuit of happiness”) and not just import skilled labor!? Why aren’t people in this country stimulated somehow for progress and better future, but rather let rot in misery and lack of enlightenment on welfare and fed media crap and cheap entertainment? Are back in Rome BC? I understand efficiency - Indian engineer, schooled for $500 masters degree and comparable salary, versus US $60,000. But who really benefits from the efficiency. I don’t think GREED will let corporations offer market prices lower, accordingly!? They have the power of lobbying and going around antitrust laws sometimes, which maintains artificial monopoly and price setting…!? And again why would someone invest $50K today in higher education in USA - when tomorrow the H1B cap can be increased to 200K+ and his expected salary WILL NOT JUSTIFY the benefits or maybe not even cover the loan and interest!? And about the unskilled labor exuberance - where are our children going to get summer jobs at? Or what happens to the industries that feed on cheap labor until open market reaches equilibrium and prices start to go up, - would it be a smooth adjustment then?
I don’t understand what the big deal here is. Why not make them residents and let them contribute more to American society? I mean, the majority of them are paying taxes anyway, but it would increase the government’s revenue if they ALL paid. The Congressional Budget Office has said numerous times Immigration Reform will have a net positive impact, not a negative one. The sooner we solve this, the better.
As an American born, skilled and licensed tradesman, I’ve found a foreign illegal worker relative to an legal worker will work for less money, produce lower quality results and won’t question poor work practices required of them by management because they can’t risk losing their jobs by questioning the poor work practices.
In the trade world, companies benefit by using illegal immigrant workers (directly or more often indirectly), due to workers lower pay and an the company’s ability to ignore safe working practices which saves time and money. Companies don’t necessarily profit more by using these workers, but it allows them to bid and win jobs at a lower cost than their competitors who are less reliant on illegal immigrant workers.
I mentioned above the use of illegal immigrant workers either directly or indirectly by companies and I alluded to the preference for indirect workers. If a company can avoid directly hiring an employee they aren’t directly responsible for employee health and injury costs, a big plus in today’s world of high and ever rising health costs. The use of indirect workers comes about via the hierarchy of contractors and subcontractors and workers on a typical job.
Some subcontractors hire day labors typically illegal workers, paid by cash on a daily or weekly basis. If day laborer gets sick or injured, they get replaced by a new day laborer and the one being replaced is left to deal with their sickness or injury on their own (a trip to the emergency room ultimately paid for by the taxpayers).
Unless illegal immigration of low skill trade workers is stopped, when the current set of illegal workers were made legal, there would still be a new set of illegal workers that will work for less and be willing to work under poor working conditions to take the newly legal and US born workers.
I write from the perspective of a construction tradesman but I have strong evidence that the use of illegal workers have the same impact upon business practices in the areas of farming, landscaping, food preparation and serving, housekeeping and janitorial work. I know people that used to work in all of these areas and would happy work again in these area if they could work safely and at a livable wage.
The bottom line is not that companies can’t find legal workers to work for them, IT IS that companies can’t find legal workers to work for them at the the wages and conditions they are required to pay to stay competitive with companies that use illegal workers.
To all of you remember when Mr Bush push for CIR and it didn’t pass….one week after you hear the media “Credit crisis , housing crisis……recession… etc !!? so now think about it if they can’t pass it this time…. may be no more social security retirement or….try to figure out the future news !! And by the way the same top economist that inform Mr Bush now tell President Obama to push for it but some people think it’s about politics between democrat and republican -wining vote ,blue collar jobs…and all the no sense !!! hahah they’re some people talking about socialism , am conservative and i believe 100 percent that we live in capitalism so“If You Snooze, You Lose” in other word if you can’t pay your mortgage or pay your bill get out and let new people to do it !!
Peace all
Wow this is the same drivel the author wrote like a month or two back. Let me translate the article “Hi there’s not enough jobs to go around, so bring in more people to work for less money and all around things will be better.”
So basically things will get better for rich bastards in this country that don’t want to pay living wages so they will have access to cheap labor and can then walk all over these second rate non-citizens.
So in the end this article is rubbish, there are stories of Americans applying for low end jobs that are being recently vacated due to immigration raids, so that shoots the story out of the water too about Americans not being willing to do the work.
Don’t get me wrong the immigration situation is complicated and definitely needs serious work, but when some dingbat economist comes out saying immigration helps the economy when there aren’t enough jobs to go around it makes you really wonder. Economists are the reason we are in such a deep crap hole right now. May be if we have some people that focus less on computer models and data, and instead focus a little more on rubbing some brain cells together and figuring out a human solution that involves the well being of human beings I can go to sleep without waking up in the morning feeling like I wanna hang me a banker or an economist.
What a crock. Legal citizens will do any work if the price is right. The Laws of Supply & Demand auto-adjust this. If we had a shortage of labor there would be no need for anyone to be on welfare. Cheap alien labor benefits only those who exploit it — the large corporate farms. Illegals may get you cheap lettuce but you pay for it in many other indirect ways. This is typical Government (Economic) Speak. Start with what you want and find an argument to support it, while ignoring the truth.
“No amnesty for foreign invaders.”
So…when and how did your family get here, H1B_GO_HOME? And what is the punishment, then, that we give to “Foreign Invaders?” If there is no “amnesty”? Do we just ship them out, despite how long it’s been that they invaded this continent?
Foolish Dolts suggest the illegal aliens have third grade educations and are not a threat to the American People. That is not correct for starters, and at a secondary level, those people are illegal aliens. The American People, and by a substantial margin, clearly polled as being apposed to amnesty since 1987, and for diminished immigration levels generally. I suspect the idea of a national vote on the issue in the coming election scares the wits out of the power brokers in Washington, and Obama has to get that dealt with and fast.
Those who want the immigration laws enforced however, have a giant ace in the hole. The States are far more seriously connected to the citizens of this country and I don’t think they will allow this country to be railroaded as Washington would have. Washington may simply ignore the wishes of the people, but the States won’t. Keep in mind that the polls have clearly shown the American People want the illegal aliens deported, and want the level of immigration turned down and significantly We will win in the end. The only real question is will the Federal Parties yield before there is bloodshed.
“majority of economists…” ya, like look at the splendid job these brilliant anonymous “economists” did for Wall Street. Yes, that is it, appeal to authority like a good socialist.
Anyone with a brain can see that our schools are filled with 3rd world children. Who pays for that genius? Their Dad works at Denny’s for $8.00/hr and their Mom clean bathrooms under the table - that means not taxed, genius.
Who pays for their house full of children born in US hospitals? Taxpayers are sick of the cost, not the people. The people are smart friendly, wonderful, hard working people. I say let’s keep them and ship out the halfwit socialist scum that are too stupid to think. Then we can all be happy.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth is being paid by India’s NASSCOM lobby and Wipro’s master conman Azim Premji who is orchestrating all this PR.
The problem is twofold. On one end, it’s professionals coming on H1 visas and like, displacing American professionals and depressing pay for the ones still working/looking for work. On the other end, the flow of uneducated, unskilled, mostly not even speaking the most basic English immigrants, mostly over porous Mexican border, who then take low paying menial jobs no American would take.
The answer to the first part: there’s no lack of qualified professionals, particularly in my field (IT). There’s though a severe lack of qualified IT professionals willing to work for $18/hour on 1099 with no benefits whatsoever. I know the number - that’s what was paid the guy I had to “transfer knowledge” to before I was laid off a few years ago. No new laws actually needed - just enforce the existing ones about the bona fide effort the employer must make to fill the position with an American or Green Card holder before applying for H1. Tricks like posting the job with the pay level way below the prevailing rate, or requiring to fluently speak the language of the country from which, incidentally, the H1 worker is recruited, should not be allowed.
Here’s the answer to the second part (no American would take low paying menial job). Millions of Americans spend years on welfare rolls. Cut the welfare - and all of a sudden these jobs will become attractive. The only exception should be made for welfare recipients who are studying in a course that may increase their chances for meaningful employment.
In case there is a real shortage of labor in certain area, the ways to bring in workers on temporary work visa should be figured out. But temporary must mean exactly that - not a step to the Green card.
And as for accommodating illegal immigrants - what part of the word “illegal” is hard to understand? The only accommodation should be deportation. Or jail, if they broke other laws in addition to illegal entry.
“native-born Americans will want jobs that are different from those of immigrants”
Who, exactly, did they think was doing those jobs before illegals took them away?
Why is there no mention of AMERICANS and what they want. Americans, by a landslide, DO NOT WANT MORE ILLEGALS. Job competition is fierce enough.
H Warren
According to a 2007 U.N. and International Labor Organization study, Americans are ranked #1 in world worker productivity. Most other studies rank workers from India at 124th among all nations. People are just people? I don’t think so.
Perhaps importing 4 million workers ranked 124th in productivity and replacing workers ranked #1 in productivity by the millions - in jobs “no one wants to do” - such as, say, SOFTWARE is the cause of our problem.
Where are the millions of imported workers from Japan, Germany and Australia? They are obviously highly skilled engineers -especially Japan. Why are we only importing 3rd world workers.
Name one invention or new industry created by India or China and given to the world.
California has the highest foreign-born population of any state in the U.S. but it also has the worst state economy in the U.S. Logic then tells us that immigrants do not help the economy.
When India removes the LAWS on its books making it ILLEGAL to hire AMERICANS there, then come back and talk to me about “free movement of goods and people”.
BTW, Wal-Mart has been banned from opening in India because it would put 21 million native Indian retailers out of business. How’s that for “protectionism”?
It seems “free movement of goods and people around the world” applies to some countries, but not to others.
To paraphrase Orwell, “Some countries are more global than others”.
Oink. Oink.
“It will stop low skilled immigrants taking the low paying jobs. But the high paying service jobs like software programming, web design, accounting, legal are going to be outsourced anyway, through the Internet. If labor cannot move freely around the world as capital, then we don’t really have a market economy.”
Did it just dawn on you that the market economy is failing miserably? Those low-wage paying jobs are at that wage level precisely because the nation has been flooded with uneducated, unskilled, ignorant labor by the advocates of labor flexibility and unregulated capital flows and investment instruments.
The majority of economists and evidence does show immigrants are good for our economy. Most Americans agree that we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It’s too bad the rapid and xenophobes are hurting our country by standing in the way of progress.
No one is buying this lying propganda. There are millions of Indians in the country illegaly working as software engineers, test managers, project managers etc etc. These are jobs that pay 6 figures and Americans want them. You have also failed to mention the millions of people that are trying to get in legally. We have immigration quotas for a reason.If we need more then raise the quota but do not allow people that start out breaking the law to be rewarded, this will only encourage more to break the law. You are so dead wrong! And, if it is allowed, I suspect many Americans will vote the Democrats out of office.
No amnesty for foreign invaders. End the flood of cheap foreign labor that is depressing our wages. Require all applicants be screened by the E-Verify program.
Hussein Obama will lose this fight.
If you are worried about someone with a 3rd grade education who doesn’t speak English taking your job, you really need to take stock of what you have done with the opportunities you have been given so far.
Separating someone else’s family isn’t going to improve your life very much.
Mr Obama this is not the change that we asked for. Remember, it’s not only hispanic Americans that voted for you. With millions of unemployed Americans you are going to do this Please help us. Stop talking and we need your help Disappointed with Obama.