A tight labor market is especially important for young black men because they tend to be at the end of the employment queue. You have to let employers run through all the groups they prefer–and illegal immigrants are one of them–before they will reach out to ghetto kids. That’s the sociological reality. If we let in lots of unskilled immigrants, however deserving, they will jump ahead in the queue.
I’m sick of hearing Bush and others talk about how we need a guest worker program because there are all these jobs Americans won’t do. What they should say to be accurate is that there are jobs Americans won’t do–for those wages. Just compare McDonald’s to In N Out: Almost all the mickey-dee workers out here are Mexicans who know five words of English, whereas over at In N Out, you’ll find predominantly high school kids of all races who speak comprehensible English. The difference? In N Out starts out at $9/hour, whereas McDonald’s is minimum wage.
Restrict the low-wage immigrants and wages will rase on their own because of tight labor demand. As Kaus says,
I’d always thought the tight 90s labor market, and the opportunity it provided for those at the bottom, was one of the glories of the Clinton years that Democratic economists like DeLong celebrate and wish to replicate. Maybe Democrats could run an economy so hot it would provide employment for millions of decent, hard-working immigrants from Latin America and Korea and for any left-behind unskilled Americans. That would be nice! But until we achieve that miracle, we will have to think about restricting the influx of competing low-wage workers from abroad.
Yeah, because only restaters shop at WalMart. Yeah. I know it’s cool to think WalMart is evil, but they provide jobs for some people who would otherwise have no job, and they provide cheap stuff for the working class folk. They’re not evil, they’re not God’s gift to man, they’re a company that provides cheap goods and low paying jobs and that’s it.
[comic aside] On politics. E gad, the end must be near… The apocalypse is coming… Run for the hills… The Rapture, call the Unitarians, see if they are still here…[/comic aside]
As to WalMart, they push the boundaries of what I consider to be ethical business behavior–actually, go beyond them in many cases, such as Maryland where they refuse to provide health benefits to workers forcing the state to pick up the tab (in a system not structured for such things). Which is why I won’t shop at WalMart. Which is all I can do, and in a free capitalist society, all that can be done–if people don’t shop there they don’t exist. Not a particularly complex equation.
It would be nice if a third party candidate helped serve as a political shoe horn to get a democrat into the Presidency.
But it is rediculous to say, as instapundit’s reader email update says, “The Clintons know the democrats cannot win a two candidate race in a national election. The red state blue state problem for democrats is getting worse, not better.”
Gore won. Kerry lost by about 70,000– yes, 70,000– votes. (How did Kerry lose by 70,000? Ohio was decided by about 140,000 votes. Many people in Ohio and elsewhere were undecided prior to the election. [Don’t ask me how they could actually be undecided…] So take 70,000 + some voters who switch in Ohio and Kerry wins the whole thing.)
I wonder how long the WalMart happy red staters would oppose immigrant workers if their produce suddenly cost 10 times as much…
How would that possibly happen when all the goods found at WalMart are manufactured in China and all the workers at WalMart are poor whites and blacks (they got busted for hiring illegals years ago and have had a very strict hiring policy since)?
Besides, it’s logically inconceivable that 30% wage inflation would lead to a ten-fold increase in prices. I’d think a math major would have a little better grasp at computational reality….
Yeah. I know it’s cool to think WalMart is evil, but they provide jobs for some people who would otherwise have no job, and they provide cheap stuff for the working class folk. They’re not evil, they’re not God’s gift to man, they’re a company that provides cheap goods and low paying jobs and that’s it.
I could go into quite a long diatribe against WalMart and why they aren’t merely a company that sells stuff cheap and employs people even cheaper, but my point here was to point out the attitude of the people who are often the most vocal supporters of closing the borders and talk about how immigrants steal American jobs are the same ones who jump on the cheapest products bandwagon, and how that attitude, where the sticker price is the only thing they think about is going to hit them hard if the agricultural workers who are primarily migrants are suddenly gone from this country and produce either becomes expensive because of its scarcity or expensive because it costs alot more to pay for workers willing to do the work.
First of Andrew, as I pointed out to Bea, my comment was about the attitude and mindset of the WalMart loving red state block.
Second, if you think that 30% wage increase is going to convince people to replace migrant farm workers in the fields you aren’t as smart as I thought you were.
Second, if you think that 30% wage increase is going to convince people to replace migrant farm workers in the fields you aren’t as smart as I thought you were.
Well no wonder, because you’re putting words in my mouth! I was talking about 30% wage inflation at WalMart, which was the subject of your previous comment–not agricultural labor. How much agricultural pay would go up, I don’t know, but I bet it’d also become a lot easier to import agricultural goods from Africa and other places that can produce food far cheaper than we can.
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April 3rd, 2006 at 11:30:58 am
Key graph:
A tight labor market is especially important for young black men because they tend to be at the end of the employment queue. You have to let employers run through all the groups they prefer–and illegal immigrants are one of them–before they will reach out to ghetto kids. That’s the sociological reality. If we let in lots of unskilled immigrants, however deserving, they will jump ahead in the queue.
I’m sick of hearing Bush and others talk about how we need a guest worker program because there are all these jobs Americans won’t do. What they should say to be accurate is that there are jobs Americans won’t do–for those wages. Just compare McDonald’s to In N Out: Almost all the mickey-dee workers out here are Mexicans who know five words of English, whereas over at In N Out, you’ll find predominantly high school kids of all races who speak comprehensible English. The difference? In N Out starts out at $9/hour, whereas McDonald’s is minimum wage.
Restrict the low-wage immigrants and wages will rase on their own because of tight labor demand. As Kaus says,
I’d always thought the tight 90s labor market, and the opportunity it provided for those at the bottom, was one of the glories of the Clinton years that Democratic economists like DeLong celebrate and wish to replicate. Maybe Democrats could run an economy so hot it would provide employment for millions of decent, hard-working immigrants from Latin America and Korea and for any left-behind unskilled Americans. That would be nice! But until we achieve that miracle, we will have to think about restricting the influx of competing low-wage workers from abroad.
Amen!
April 3rd, 2006 at 2:09:19 pm
I wonder how long the WalMart happy red staters would oppose immigrant workers if their produce suddenly cost 10 times as much…
April 3rd, 2006 at 3:34:33 pm
Yeah, because only restaters shop at WalMart. Yeah. I know it’s cool to think WalMart is evil, but they provide jobs for some people who would otherwise have no job, and they provide cheap stuff for the working class folk. They’re not evil, they’re not God’s gift to man, they’re a company that provides cheap goods and low paying jobs and that’s it.
April 3rd, 2006 at 4:56:42 pm
I have to side with Andrew on this one…
[comic aside] On politics. E gad, the end must be near… The apocalypse is coming… Run for the hills… The Rapture, call the Unitarians, see if they are still here…[/comic aside]
As to WalMart, they push the boundaries of what I consider to be ethical business behavior–actually, go beyond them in many cases, such as Maryland where they refuse to provide health benefits to workers forcing the state to pick up the tab (in a system not structured for such things). Which is why I won’t shop at WalMart. Which is all I can do, and in a free capitalist society, all that can be done–if people don’t shop there they don’t exist. Not a particularly complex equation.
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:16:16 pm
It would be nice if a third party candidate helped serve as a political shoe horn to get a democrat into the Presidency.
But it is rediculous to say, as instapundit’s reader email update says, “The Clintons know the democrats cannot win a two candidate race in a national election. The red state blue state problem for democrats is getting worse, not better.”
Gore won. Kerry lost by about 70,000– yes, 70,000– votes. (How did Kerry lose by 70,000? Ohio was decided by about 140,000 votes. Many people in Ohio and elsewhere were undecided prior to the election. [Don’t ask me how they could actually be undecided…] So take 70,000 + some voters who switch in Ohio and Kerry wins the whole thing.)
April 3rd, 2006 at 8:54:51 pm
I wonder how long the WalMart happy red staters would oppose immigrant workers if their produce suddenly cost 10 times as much…
How would that possibly happen when all the goods found at WalMart are manufactured in China and all the workers at WalMart are poor whites and blacks (they got busted for hiring illegals years ago and have had a very strict hiring policy since)?
Besides, it’s logically inconceivable that 30% wage inflation would lead to a ten-fold increase in prices. I’d think a math major would have a little better grasp at computational reality….
April 4th, 2006 at 2:33:29 am
Yeah. I know it’s cool to think WalMart is evil, but they provide jobs for some people who would otherwise have no job, and they provide cheap stuff for the working class folk. They’re not evil, they’re not God’s gift to man, they’re a company that provides cheap goods and low paying jobs and that’s it.
I could go into quite a long diatribe against WalMart and why they aren’t merely a company that sells stuff cheap and employs people even cheaper, but my point here was to point out the attitude of the people who are often the most vocal supporters of closing the borders and talk about how immigrants steal American jobs are the same ones who jump on the cheapest products bandwagon, and how that attitude, where the sticker price is the only thing they think about is going to hit them hard if the agricultural workers who are primarily migrants are suddenly gone from this country and produce either becomes expensive because of its scarcity or expensive because it costs alot more to pay for workers willing to do the work.
April 4th, 2006 at 2:36:45 am
First of Andrew, as I pointed out to Bea, my comment was about the attitude and mindset of the WalMart loving red state block.
Second, if you think that 30% wage increase is going to convince people to replace migrant farm workers in the fields you aren’t as smart as I thought you were.
April 4th, 2006 at 9:38:43 pm
Second, if you think that 30% wage increase is going to convince people to replace migrant farm workers in the fields you aren’t as smart as I thought you were.
Well no wonder, because you’re putting words in my mouth! I was talking about 30% wage inflation at WalMart, which was the subject of your previous comment–not agricultural labor. How much agricultural pay would go up, I don’t know, but I bet it’d also become a lot easier to import agricultural goods from Africa and other places that can produce food far cheaper than we can.