actual paper<\/a>\u00a0confirms this; they cite one study that finds that each 1% increase in immigration was associated with a 1.2% decrease in wages of less-skilled natives, another that found that in the 20 years from 1980 to 2000, immigration increased the male labor force by 10% and caused a drop of 9% in the wages of high school dropouts, and an overall wage drop of 3%.\u00a0 Other studies, which examine effects on workers split into occupational rather than educational groupings, find smaller negative or even potential positive wage effects (though I\u2019m skeptical that splitting workers by occupation is the right way to go, when workers can move from one occupation to another more easily than they can move to higher education levels).\u00a0 But even the studies showing depressed wages don\u2019t determine a loss in jobs, so they discard immigration as a contributor to declines in jobs.<\/p>\nThis contrasts to their analysis of the impacts of offshoring, specifically to China, and automation, where they develop estimates for impacts of these elements and, as my kids would say, \u201cmath out\u201d a figure in number of jobs lost.\u00a0 They cite a 2016 study which calculated the effect of trade with China as a reduction in employment of 2.37 million jobs, which they increase by 12% by extending the timeframe to produce 2.65 million jobs lost, and\u00a0they calculate the effect of robots by multiplying out an estimate of 5.6 displaced workers per robot times 250,475 robots deployed in 2016, to yield 1,402,660 displaced workers.<\/p>\n
But it doesn\u2019t seem to me that there\u2019s a bright line between \u201cjobs taken by immigrants\u201d and \u201cjobs lost to robots or the Chinese,\u201d since any job that\u2019s held by a (new) immigrant, or which is created and for which a (new) immigrant is hired, is a job which could have gone to someone displaced in this manner.\u00a0 One might even say that immigration and globalization are two sides of the same coin:\u00a0 it\u2019s just a matter of whether the foreign-born workers willing to do the work for less live overseas or right next door. To be sure, immigrants, living in America, are consumers as well as workers, but their consumption isn\u2019t really comparable to native-born workers, since, at least for significant number of years after their arrival, generally speaking, they consume little here in order to send significant sums of money back home.<\/p>\n
In that sense, I\u2019ve always viewed limits on immigration \u2014 that is, as opposed to our de facto<\/em> open immigration system, in which it\u2019s still relatively easy to find forged identification and a job \u2014 as a sort of backstop to globalization and automation, by providing or holding open for native-born Americans, jobs which aren\u2019t as easily automated\/offshored.<\/p>\nThe study seems to assume that all workers have a specific, unalterable occupational field, so that available employment in one occupation doesn\u2019t translate into available jobs for individuals in other occupations.\u00a0 But this is a very limiting assumption.\u00a0 Consider the fact that, when the auto factories in Michigan started to close, enough of those workers moved out-of-state that the phrase \u201cMichigan diaspora\u201d gets 731 google hits.\u00a0 How many of this new generation of former factory workers would have taken up jobs in the poultry processing plants, for instance, had these employers not found a ready workforce in the form of immigrants, often illegal immigrants, willing to accept lower wages and worsened working conditions?<\/p>\n
If there is no net impact due to immigration because it\u2019s a fallacy that there are a fixed number of jobs available, then the same ought to be true of automation and offshoring.\u00a0 That the authors conclude otherwise suggests that they didn\u2019t want to counter the prevailing accepted opinion on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Image:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov\/news\/releases\/2001\/08\/images\/20010826-1.html<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, \u201cno,\u201d and in this case, I\u2019m referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, \u201cMillions of jobs are still missing.\u00a0 Don\u2019t blame immigrants or food stamps.\u201d\u00a0 (Pet peeve:\u00a0 article titles that are multi-sentence.) The article reports that The share of Americans with jobs dropped 4.5 percentage points from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,18],"class_list":["post-8570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-immigration","tag-labor-force-participation"],"yoast_head":"\n
Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, "no," and in this case, I'm referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, "Millions of jobs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, "no," and in this case, I'm referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, "Millions of jobs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-27T03:59:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-27T12:51:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/files\/2018\/02\/steelworkers.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html\",\"name\":\"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-27T03:59:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-27T12:51:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, \\\"no,\\\" and in this case, I'm referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, \\\"Millions of jobs\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?","description":"Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, \"no,\" and in this case, I'm referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, \"Millions of jobs","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?","og_description":"Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, \"no,\" and in this case, I'm referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, \"Millions of jobs","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2018-02-27T03:59:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-02-27T12:51:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/files\/2018\/02\/steelworkers.jpg"}],"author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html","name":"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-02-27T03:59:36+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-27T12:51:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"Yes, I know, rhetorical questions generally have the answer, \"no,\" and in this case, I'm referencing a Washington Post Wonkblog article, \"Millions of jobs","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/02\/immigration-absolved-job-stealing.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Has immigration been absolved of job-stealing, again?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2018\/02\/steelworkers.jpg\")
<\/p>\n