In case you didn’t know: Illegal aliens crowd out American workers
Northeastern University has quite a treasure in Andrew Sum, director of the school’s Center for Labor Market Studies. Here’s an op-ed in the Boston Globe that he co-wrote with associate director Paul E. Harrington on the effect of illegal mass immigration on America’s labor markets:
The overall effects of new immigrant inflows from 2000 to 2005 on American labor markets are unprecedented. Between 2000 and 2005, the total number of employed workers 16 and older in the nation increased by 4.8 million. Over the same time period, the number of new immigrants entering the nation and finding work was estimated to be 4.13 million. This means that new immigrants accounted for 86 percent of the total gain in employment that the nation experienced over the past five years.
Our analysis suggests that close to two-thirds of these new immigrant arrivals were unauthorized. Among males, all of the net growth in employment between 2000 and 2005 was attributable to new immigrants.
Emphasis added. Whenever President George W. Bush or his supporters brag about the millions of jobs that have been created on his watch, bear in mind that Americans got only a few percent of those jobs, the rest went to newly arrived immigrants.
The op-ed continues:
Available evidence shows that there has been a high rate of displacement of younger, native-born male workers and younger women without four-year college degrees by newer immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants.
Then they demolish a myth so unreasonable that it can fairly be called a lie, one that’s routinely pushed by the Boston Herald’s editorial writers:
The notion that there is a shortage of unskilled, low-educated workers in the United States and in Massachusetts is a canard. The evidence — ranging from employment rates to measures of changes in annual earnings, weekly wages, and employee benefits — reveals a surplus of less- educated workers in both national and state labor markets.
If Massachusetts or the United States had a shortage of unskilled workers, wouldn’t that be a good thing? High-school drop-out rates are mostly seen as measure of a problem, not an asset, right?
There’s more:
Illegal immigration has also contributed to the growth of off-the-books jobs and the breakdown of American labor laws.
I suggest you read the entire op-ed.
