DACA Doesn't Cost Blacks Or Hispanics Jobs (?)
What should my attitude be about this story?
When we assert that something is the truth, we're typically indicating that the evidence is so strong that there's not a lot of doubt left about the conclusion. Does anyone know whether that's true in this case? Are these arguments fairly conclusive? The reasons given seem pretty cogent...but I'm not knowledgeable about economics, and not that great at thinking like an economist.
Input would be appreciated.
I also have to say that it seems at least a bit tendentious to characterize these arguments as "pitting minorities against each other." Perhaps that is what's going on...but I'm not so sure that such arguments, if given by Democrats, would be similarly characterized. I suspect they might more likely be characterized as genuine concern for minorities.
But, then, my intellectual pendulum has kind of swung in the I'm-getting-a-bit-irked-by-the-non-stop-Trump-bashing direction. Jeez, I can't even stand the guy and it's starting to seem like a bit much to me. But contrarianism is one of my most obvious intellectual vices.
When we assert that something is the truth, we're typically indicating that the evidence is so strong that there's not a lot of doubt left about the conclusion. Does anyone know whether that's true in this case? Are these arguments fairly conclusive? The reasons given seem pretty cogent...but I'm not knowledgeable about economics, and not that great at thinking like an economist.
Input would be appreciated.
I also have to say that it seems at least a bit tendentious to characterize these arguments as "pitting minorities against each other." Perhaps that is what's going on...but I'm not so sure that such arguments, if given by Democrats, would be similarly characterized. I suspect they might more likely be characterized as genuine concern for minorities.
But, then, my intellectual pendulum has kind of swung in the I'm-getting-a-bit-irked-by-the-non-stop-Trump-bashing direction. Jeez, I can't even stand the guy and it's starting to seem like a bit much to me. But contrarianism is one of my most obvious intellectual vices.
posted by Winston Smith at
12:29 PM
2 Comments:
There are a lot of weaselly games you can play to ignore the economic effects of immigration on marginal workers. You can only compare employment numbers (and ignore wage suppression). You can take advantage of unusual distributions of labor replacement (maybe only white people lose their jobs, which would be intersectionally convenient..). You can just focus on GDP like a bean-counting buffoon, in which case simply adding more wage earners almost always is the dominant effect. Or you can pretend that other factors, like globalization or automation are the "real" cause (they are definitely a part of the explanatory puzzle but markets discount everything, there is not just one cause, and immigration is so obviously a part of the supply/demand equation it is ignorant to ignore it), and give some sophistic statistics to make that point.
But the simple truth is, if you are working in an industry and a policy is in place to constantly increase the supply of labor in that industry, it is not in your interests. It will put downward pressure on your wages not to mention the threat of outright replacement.
That said, DACA is only a small piece of the immigration puzzle. It alone could have a very small effect. But the way these games have gone for 3 decades is the anti-immigration side caves on amnesty in exchange for enforcement which is never implemented, so politically it should really be understood as a pawn in a larger strategy of lax immigration standards.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm wondering--is there really any way that you can increase the labor supply (without some corresponding increase in capital...or however that goes) without making labor cheaper?
I'm just wary, because, to hear the "MSM" tell it, everything about illegal immigration seems to be good in every way. Either illegal immigration is a godsend for the country, or somebody's got an agenda.
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