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Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#31

Post by bb88 »

tosser00001 wrote: post #24
tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

It’s interesting the immigration cannot even be mentioned without getting down voted. It seems obvious to me that fewer low skill workers would result in higher wages for those who could most benefit from it.

Please don't complain about being downvoted. This isn't slashdot.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#32

Post by greeneggs »

tosser00001 wrote: post #24
tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

It’s interesting the immigration cannot even be mentioned without getting down voted. It seems obvious to me that fewer low skill workers would result in higher wages for those who could most benefit from it.

This does not seem obvious to me. For example, imagine if you overnight doubled the US population. Would wages go down? Well, overnight you would also double the economy and double demand for just about every kind of work, from hairdressers to security guards. What's the overall effect? (And you are talking about just 3.5%, not 100%.)

Here's one classic study on the effect:

David Card, "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market" (1990), http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf

Quoting from the abstract: "…This paper describes the effect of the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 on the Miami labor market. The Mariel immigrants increased the Miami labor force by 7%, and the percentage increase in labor supply to less-skilled occupations and industries was even greater because most of the immigrants were relatively unskilled. Nevertheless, the Mariel influx appears to have had virtually no effect on the wages or unemployment rates of less-skilled workers…"

That's a rapid influx of 7% of Miami's population! But the effect isn't obvious to economists, either, and you can find people arguing both sides. This is a fairly balanced article: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/04/541321716/fact-check-have-low...

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#33

Post by whatever1 »

darawk wrote: post #29
whatever1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. China is calling.

China is successful now entirely as a result of their conversion to capitalism. This is an extremely well known fact about China. China tried communism, it went absolutely terribly. They changed to capitalism, and things got good. I can't imagine an example that more perfectly agrees with my point.

How is Facebook doing in capitalist China?

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#34

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

sdinsn wrote: post #25
tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

I'd argue that legal immigration has the greatest impact on higher sectors of society- such as salaries in software / IT. This can be fixed by raising the minimum pay for H1Bs. I'd believe that illegal immigration has a incredibly small effect overall.

The illegals are all picking strawberries for below minimum wage so we don't have the bear the true costs of our food. Remove them and there would be serious repercussions for those at the lower strata of society.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#35

Post by BurningFrog »

greeneggs wrote: post #32
tosser00001 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting the immigration cannot even be mentioned without getting down voted. It seems obvious to me that fewer low skill workers would result in higher wages for those who could most benefit from it.

This does not seem obvious to me. For example, imagine if you overnight doubled the US population. Would wages go down? Well, overnight you would also double the economy and double demand for just about every kind of work, from hairdressers to security guards. What's the overall effect? (And you are talking about just 3.5%, not 100%.) Here's one classic study on the effect: David Card, "The Impact of the Mariel Boatl…

The effect of a doubling of the population depends entirely on who the new people were. Are they native speaking engineers, doctors and pop stars? Or illiterate and sickly old people?

One thing is for sure, housing prices would skyrocket!

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#36

Post by harlanji »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #12
delbel wrote: post #11

Article fails to make a point. Jobs are the solution to poverty, hands down.

It's actually educational attainment [1] [1] https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/how-does-level-education-rel...

I live in San Francisco and work in Mountain View, CA, with the lowest sector of society. I showed up for work starving and with only 18 years of programming exp., about a momth ago (ie. No low skill, dish washing/bagging as a teen). None of my classmates or former colleagues would help me more than a few hundred dollars, despite 10+ years of shared history. Now I can at least feed myself, grand totaling like $40/day cash income, ie. Too poor to wait 2 weeks for payroll. 2yr ago I was making over $200k and was wrongly fired, destroying my resume. Lowest rung job is the magic bottom step, humbling but I learned the ropes at 14yo so it’s just time to rebuild now, after months of starving/begging for work. I got a bachelor’s degree in 2011 and had old friends/classmates locally who are still here, too.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#37

Post by neumann »

noobermin wrote: post #18

It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder. Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You ca…

The slope counts for something, but the y-intercept should not be forgotten. And in the US, the distribution along the y-intercept is huge, but often ignored.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#38

Post by whatever1 »

whatever1 wrote: post #33
darawk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is successful now entirely as a result of their conversion to capitalism. This is an extremely well known fact about China. China tried communism, it went absolutely terribly. They changed to capitalism, and things got good. I can't imagine an example that more perfectly agrees with my point.

How is Facebook doing in capitalist China?

Also, in which textbook is it stated that capitalism requires joint ventures of the government with every multinational company that tries to operate whithin its borders?

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#39

Post by jorblumesea »

greeneggs wrote: post #32
tosser00001 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting the immigration cannot even be mentioned without getting down voted. It seems obvious to me that fewer low skill workers would result in higher wages for those who could most benefit from it.

This does not seem obvious to me. For example, imagine if you overnight doubled the US population. Would wages go down? Well, overnight you would also double the economy and double demand for just about every kind of work, from hairdressers to security guards. What's the overall effect? (And you are talking about just 3.5%, not 100%.) Here's one classic study on the effect: David Card, "The Impact of the Mariel Boatl…

Most immigrants (legal and illegal) are not Indian software engineers working at Google. They are low skill/poorly educated and got in on refuge status or because they have a family member already in the country. They work as taxi drivers, construction workers, cashiers, etc. It's not a huge leap of imagination that a constantly increasing low skill labor supply is to the detriment of current workers in these fields (many of whom might be immigrants themselves). 29% of immigrants lack a high school degree or equivalent GED and are disproportionally represented in the service industry, construction, maintenance, and other blue collar positions.

For example: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/source_i...

So yes, it is likely that immigration rates have a negative effect on the wages of native workers in low barrier of entry positions. You'd have to suspend disbelief to accept the narrative that there is no impact.

source: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested...

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#40

Post by acchow »

tosser00001 wrote: post #14

Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

You're ignoring the demand side. Immigrants also increase demand. For everything.
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