| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
24 Mar 2006 04:40:15 AM |
| Object: |
Bush plans to steal your job and give it to an illegal |
We Don't Need 'Guest Workers'
By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; A21
Economist Philip Martin of the University of California likes to tell a
story about the state's tomato industry. In the early 1960s, growers
relied on seasonal Mexican laborers, brought in under the government's
"bracero" program. The Mexicans picked the tomatoes that were then
processed into ketchup and other products. In 1964 Congress killed the
program despite growers' warnings that its abolition would doom their
industry. What happened? Well, plant scientists developed oblong
tomatoes that could be harvested by machine. Since then, California's
tomato output has risen fivefold.
It's a story worth remembering, because we're being warned again that we
need huge numbers of "guest workers" -- meaning unskilled laborers from
Mexico and Central America -- to relieve U.S. "labor shortages." Indeed,
the shortages will supposedly worsen as baby boomers retire. President
Bush wants an open-ended program. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and
John McCain (R-Ariz.) advocate initially admitting 400,000 guest workers
annually. The Senate is considering these and other plans.
Gosh, they're all bad ideas.
Guest workers would mainly legalize today's vast inflows of illegal
immigrants, with the same consequence: We'd be importing poverty. This
isn't because these immigrants aren't hardworking; many are. Nor is it
because they don't assimilate; many do. But they generally don't go
home, assimilation is slow and the ranks of the poor are constantly
replenished. Since 1980 the number of Hispanics with incomes below the
government's poverty line (about $19,300 in 2004 for a family of four)
has risen 162 percent. Over the same period, the number of non-Hispanic
whites in poverty rose 3 percent and the number of blacks, 9.5 percent.
What we have now -- and would with guest workers -- is a conscious
policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in
Mexico. By and large, this is a bad bargain for the United States. It
stresses local schools, hospitals and housing; it feeds social tensions
(witness the Minutemen). To be sure, some Americans get cheap
housecleaning or landscaping services. But if more mowed their own lawns
or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy.
The most lunatic notion is that admitting more poor Latino workers would
ease the labor market strains of retiring baby boomers. The two aren't
close substitutes for each other. Among immigrant Mexican and Central
American workers in 2004, only 7 percent had a college degree and nearly
60 percent lacked a high school diploma, according to the Congressional
Budget Office. Among native-born U.S. workers, 32 percent had a college
degree and only 6 percent did not have a high school diploma. Far from
softening the social problems of an aging society, more poor immigrants
might aggravate them by pitting older retirees against younger Hispanics
for limited government benefits.
It's a myth that the U.S. economy "needs" more poor immigrants. The
illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the
labor force, the Pew Hispanic Center reports. In no major occupation are
they a majority. They're 36 percent of insulation workers, 28 percent of
drywall installers and 20 percent of cooks. They're drawn here by wage
differences, not labor "shortages." In 2004, the median hourly wage in
Mexico was $1.86, compared with $9 for Mexicans working in the United
States, said Rakesh Kochhar of Pew. With high labor turnover in the jobs
they take, most new illegal immigrants can get work by accepting wages
slightly below prevailing levels.
Hardly anyone thinks that most illegal immigrants will leave. But what
would happen if new illegal immigration stopped and wasn't replaced by
guest workers? Well, some employers would raise wages to attract U.S.
workers. Facing greater labor costs, some industries would -- like the
tomato growers in the 1960s -- find ways to minimize those costs. As to
the rest, what's wrong with higher wages for the poorest workers? From
1994 to 2004, the wages of high school dropouts rose only 2.3 percent
(after inflation) compared with 11.9 percent for college graduates.
President Bush says his guest worker program would "match willing
foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can
be found to fill the jobs." But at some higher wage, there would be
willing Americans. The number of native high school dropouts with jobs
declined by 1.3 million from 2000 to 2005, estimates Steven Camarota of
the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors less immigration. Some
lost jobs to immigrants. Unemployment remains high for some groups (9.3
percent for African Americans, 12.7 percent for white teenagers).
Business organizations understandably support guest worker programs.
They like cheap labor and ignore the social consequences. What's more
perplexing is why liberals, staunch opponents of poverty and inequality,
support a program that worsens poverty and inequality. Poor immigrant
workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans. The only question is how
much. Studies suggest a range "from negligible to an earnings reduction
of almost 10 percent," according to the CBO.
It's said that having guest workers is better than having poor illegal
immigrants. With legal status, they'd have rights and protections.
They'd have more peace of mind and face less exploitation by employers.
This would be convincing if its premise were incontestable: that we
can't control our southern border. But that's unproved. We've never
tried a policy of real barriers and strict enforcement against companies
that hire illegal immigrants. Until that's shown to be ineffective, we
shouldn't adopt guest worker programs that don't solve serious social
problems -- but add to them.
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| User: "-LANCE VAN NESS -Ä$$ xoÃ-¥LxS£Æ§RÐ" |
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| Title: Re: Bush plans to steal your job and give it to an illegal |
24 Mar 2006 08:56:46 PM |
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"PagCal" <pagcal@runbox.com> wrote in message
news:j0QUf.1576$VA1.1448@fe04.lga...
We Don't Need 'Guest Workers'
Wrong, Bush has already outsourced millions of jobs to China, Pakistan,
India, Singapore, Korea.
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| User: "PagCal" |
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| Title: Re: Bush plans to steal your job and give it to an illegal |
25 Mar 2006 05:08:00 AM |
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-LANCE VAN NESS -Ä$$ xoÃ-¥LxS£Æ§RÐ wrote:
"PagCal" <pagcal@runbox.com> wrote in message
news:j0QUf.1576$VA1.1448@fe04.lga...
We Don't Need 'Guest Workers'
Wrong, Bush has already outsourced millions of jobs to China, Pakistan,
India, Singapore, Korea.
Well, this too!
But, if the guest worker stuff goes through, not only will this
continue, but soon, you'll get an Indian assistant who wants to know how
your job ticks. Then, in three months, you'll get called into personnel
and laid off.
The other trick to watch out for, is that management will ask for you to
do up a job description of your work. In reality, they just pass this on
to a recruiter in the Pacific Rim/South Asia to fill.
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