Trump: Make America White Again?

[Famous Mortimer]

However, if illegal immigrants were gone or significantly reduced in number, that would be a lot of construction, manual labor, gardening, dishwashing, etc. jobs that would suddenly need to be done and be filled by Americans making at least the minimum wage in their locality. Which would be better than these Americans having no income or living off welfare.

This is a myth, or even a hoax if you want. You can say whatever you want about global warming deniers, yet this is the way I see it an even much greater hoax still. They do the work that noone else is willing to do. Try to get your poor white unemployed neighbour to start cleaning toilets, and he probably wouldn't even talk to you anymore. And immigrants don't steal other people's work. Research show something like for every 10 new immigrant workers, something like 12 more jobs are created. By the way, did you know that most billionaires don't pay taxes at all? Neither do many/most multi national companies. Is that fair?

I could buy that Whites might not want to do agricultural work in the fields but the idea that they wouldn't be janitors is ridiculous. Most White people I know would jump at the chance to be janitors since the jobs actually do pay pretty well but they only go to immigrants because management is afraid White people would want even more. Additionally, it's not just low prestige jobs immigrants are taking. I worked as a temp in the mail room of two major banks, both times I was the only American born person there except for management. I wouldn't have a problem if these people had been hired because they were more qualified than American born workers but that clearly wasn't the case, as many of them were borderline illiterate. They were clearly only hired because they would work for less.

[Famous Mortimer]

No matter how high the minimum wage is, employers will still hire immigrants because they will work for the lowest amount allowed. Hypothetically though, if you do raise the minimum wage high enough that employers decide they actually want people who can read and write English, that opens up a whole new problem. What then do you do with all the immigrants who are now unemployed? Do you allow more to keep coming in?

I know, I know. Loads of poor immigrants having children they can't afford is going to make lots and lots of jobs because the Cato Institute said so.

[Famous Mortimer]

No matter how high the minimum wage is, employers will still hire immigrants because they will work for the lowest amount allowed. Hypothetically though, if you do raise the minimum wage high enough that employers decide they actually want people who can read and write English, that opens up a whole new problem. What then do you do with all the immigrants who are now unemployed? Do you allow more to keep coming in?

I know, I know. Loads of poor immigrants having children they can't afford is going to make lots and lots of jobs because the Cato Institute said so.

If it were just the Cato Institute, you would have a point.  However, there's an academic consensus that disagrees with you.

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And no, the Brookings Institution isn't a conservative think-tank.  It's centrist to center-left, on the whole. 

As the Time article explains:

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Whether the Brookings Institution is a conservative think tank or not is a matter of legitimate debate. Even if it's to be considered liberal, it's the least liberal liberal think tank there is. Exactly the type of market worshipers who think the economy should be measured primarily by the stock options of the super wealthy.

I understand that increased demand will indeed create increased job opportunities. I just think it's wishful thinking to imagine that unskilled immigration will create MORE jobs than there are new immigrants.

As to altering the job market itself, I admit that one area where immigration does indeed create a lot of jobs is under the table, subsistence level restaurant and convenience store  jobs. This is not really an ideal economic model though.

[Famous Mortimer]

However, if illegal immigrants were gone or significantly reduced in number, that would be a lot of construction, manual labor, gardening, dishwashing, etc. jobs that would suddenly need to be done and be filled by Americans making at least the minimum wage in their locality. Which would be better than these Americans having no income or living off welfare.

This is a myth, or even a hoax if you want. You can say whatever you want about global warming deniers, yet this is the way I see it an even much greater hoax still. They do the work that noone else is willing to do. Try to get your poor white unemployed neighbour to start cleaning toilets, and he probably wouldn't even talk to you anymore. And immigrants don't steal other people's work. Research show something like for every 10 new immigrant workers, something like 12 more jobs are created. By the way, did you know that most billionaires don't pay taxes at all? Neither do many/most multi national companies. Is that fair?

Completely untrue.

Do you think before the U.S. had millions of illegals, no one mopped? No one cleaned dishes? No one picked food, or did construction?

It isn't only cleaning toilets, illegals are huge in the construction industry for instance, you see them as landscapers/gardeners everywhere.

These are jobs that if there weren't illegals around, someone would have to do it.

The fact that you think there literally are not people you could pay to sweep the floors or clean toilets is silly, every country in the world has people to do these jobs. If no one wants to do it, well then the market would indicate that you should pay a higher price for that job. Businessowners would love to import quasi-slaves who they could pay almost nothing. But if that's not an option, then they'd have to actually pay a citizen the minimum wage.

I have no sympathy for the super-rich who pay no taxes, I do not worship at the altar of tax cuts.

The big thing you're ignoring is that our society isn't anything like what it was 100 or 200 years ago.  The United States is more educated and affluent than ever before.  There simply aren't enough native born working class people to fill these jobs, and someone who went to college is going to have no interest in what these kinds of low paying jobs.

You could argue that without immigrants, the wages for these jobs would rise until someone would work in them.  However, the wage for these jobs would have to rise so much, that these industries would either become untenable, or simply couldn't compete with low wage foreign competition.  This would be most strongly felt in the agriculture and manufacturing, and would have a ripple effect throughout our economy.

That's right, if we kick the immigrants out, the jobs will follow them overseas.  The only differences are that these people would make even less in their home countries, and we would be even more dependent on foreign labor.

I think this is just inaccurate. So many college graduates are underemployed, living with their parents, making $10 an hour at most, working as freelancers. I see no reason why such people wouldn't take $15 an hour cleaning jobs other than the fact that employers simply won't hire them because they're overqualified.

If businesses can't pay a decent wage, screw them, they deserve to go out of business.

Yes, Chinese restaurant jobs will go overseas but this won't really have an impact on America because no one left over here would have gotten those jobs anyway.

[Famous Mortimer]

No matter how high the minimum wage is, employers will still hire immigrants because they will work for the lowest amount allowed. Hypothetically though, if you do raise the minimum wage high enough that employers decide they actually want people who can read and write English, that opens up a whole new problem. What then do you do with all the immigrants who are now unemployed? Do you allow more to keep coming in?

I know, I know. Loads of poor immigrants having children they can't afford is going to make lots and lots of jobs because the Cato Institute said so.

If it were just the Cato Institute, you would have a point.  However, there's an academic consensus that disagrees with you.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And no, the Brookings Institution isn't a conservative think-tank.  It's centrist to center-left, on the whole. 

As the Time article explains:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I understand that increased demand will indeed create increased job opportunities. I just think it's wishful thinking to imagine that unskilled immigration will create MORE jobs than there are new immigrants.

I think the number one reason for why this is a fact happens to be that most immigrants have already finished education, yet are still very young. The most common immigrant is in his 20s basically. Which means that the government doesn't have to pay anything in child care or education for him, yet rips the benefit of taxes, consume and hard labour. Secondly, it's also extensively proven that immigrants in general are both more hard-working (a great amount of Asians in Norway still have a 7 day work week for instance, even if Norwegian law demands rest after a certain amount of days [I think it's 7] and much less criminal (except immigrants from a tiny amount of unfortunate countries). Latinos are probably the least criminal immigrants in the Western world by the way. The exceptions are immigrants from extremely war torn countries or countries where literacy is shockingly low (like Somalia).

The government won't have to pay for child care because immigrants are in their 20s? Again, that's a whole lot of wishful thinking. Lots immigrants have children in their 20s, much more often than American born people do. That's the main problem, the main reason they are desperate for work and end up driving down wages. I guess in a sense though, its not strictly speaking immigrant child care that the government is paying for, since the children are often American born citizens, still, its extra social services costs taken on as a direct result of immigration.