Blame offshoring for the negatives of immigration 4536

RArmant Reason

************************************************************************** Economists call this a "supply-shock"-a situation where excess labor causes wages to fall.

The role of college-educated foreigners in depressing wages of U.S. natives is brought home by Harvard economist (and Cuban immigrant) George Borjas. In his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: Borjas concludes that immigration 1980-2000 reduced wages of the average U.S.-born worker by 3.2 percent in 2000.

The reduction varied dramatically among education levels. Native high-school dropouts suffered an 8.9 percent wage reduction. But even college-educated natives suffered an above-average reduction of 4.9 percent.

The impact was greatest on college graduates with 11-15 years of work experience - i.e., most likely to have young families - when it amounted to 5.9 percent. Even new college graduates, with 1-5 years of experience, faced a wage reduction of 3.5 percent.

Remember when an American college proposed that tuition payments be linked to income its graduates received while working?

That might be another victim of immigration. ***************************************************************************

But is not it true that the purpose of immigration has always been to reduce wage pressure on American businesses? So, it works beautifully and exactly as it has been devised.

I don't agree, though, that nobody is willing to discuss this. In the newsgroups immigration debates pop up periodically. But the problem is that the situation on the labor market is far below in the list of the favorite topics of Americans such as Schiavo, ends, gay marriages, the Ten Commandments and god knows what else. The general impression is that the more important issue is the less desire people have to talk about it.

Old Pif