The immigrant workers are not taking our jobs.

[Better Believe It]

'They' Are Not Taking 'Our' Jobs
By John Feffer
September 21, 2010

In an interview with Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) senior analyst Mark Engler, economist Giovanni Peri explains that supply-and-demand doesn't quite capture the reality. "If you have workers who do jobs that are not the same, and if they specialize in types of tasks that are complementary, this can increase wages and productivity for both," he argues. "An extreme example of this would be if you have an engineer and you add a construction worker. With the engineer by himself you're not going to do much. But with an engineer plus a construction worker, you can build a building. Therefore, the productivity of the engineer goes up a lot. And the wages for both workers increase."

When it comes to the contributions of immigrants, Peri goes on, "for the economy as a whole there is a positive effect on productivity, employment, and wages."

So, if you're upset about the unemployment rate, don't blame immigrants. For starters, blame the U.S. companies that are sitting on a record $837 billion in cash. "That's enough to pay 2.4 million people $70,000-a-year salaries for five years," writes Matt Krantz in USA Today. Blame the Obama administration for shelling out a million bucks per soldier in Afghanistan, which could go instead toward creating good jobs at home. Blame those in Congress who refuse to support further stimulus spending.

I'm definitely upset about the unemployment rate, so I'm planning to turn out for the One Nation Working Together mobilization here in Washington on October 2. It won't just be union activists hitting the streets. Also there will be organizations like the National Immigrant Solidarity Network and Immigration Equality. After all, those concerned about jobs and those concerned about immigrant rights are learning to work together. Even if the slogan has lost some luster in the Oval Office, the "yes we can" spirit lives on at the grassroots. Or, as my neighbor might say: We have met the new immigrants, and they are us.

Read the full article at:

http://www.fpif.org/articles/they_are_not_taking_our_jobs

[county worker]

1. No, wages do not go up if an engineer and a construction worker team up.

The amount of work may go up but the rate of pay is not effected by teaming up. You also have to add capital in the mix. Without capital there is not going to be any construction. Because we have a lending freeze and because banks and other financial institutions are hording cash there isn't much capital available and because of the lending freeze and the unemployment rate and the foreclosures there are not many buyers.

We need a works program and the money should only be spent on legal citizens and legal aliens. I am not anti illegals but government money should go first to those who are citizens of the government.

Also these new workers should be allowed to form unions.

[Better Believe It]

4. county worker ..... You're a "second class citizen" First class citizens are on Wall Street

Wall Street and corporate American want ALL working class people to turn on one another and fight each other. Private workers against government workers like yourself. White versus Black workers. Black workers versus Latino workers. "Citizen workers" against undocumented workers.

Don't play their game of conflict and division.

Fight those who profit and benefit from those harmful and divisive conflicts among working people.

Fight those who are destroying jobs and cutting our living standards. It's not immigrant workers.

It's Wall Street citizens!

Wake up!

[county worker]

5. I understand completely what you are saying. I also do not think we will have much success getting

a jobs bill passed if it is seen as a magnet to attract more illegal immigrants.

I am not anti-immigrant by any means. I do understand that in the construction industry wages have been depressed because if the increase in availability of non union construction workers.

Construction and manufacturing use to have jobs that allowed workers to become part of the middle class. Those jobs are scarce right now. I would like to see our governments invest in infrastructure building and repair which would offer jobs in the construction industry. I would also see an effort to bring back manufacturing.

Now my opinion is that if we spend government funds like that, the jobs should go to citizens and legal aliens. I do not consider that pitting workers against each other.


I didn't like the "wake up" part of your post. I am very aware of what is happening to us, more so than most I think.

My ideas concerning illegal immigrants are these. I think there should be a path to citizenship offered to those who are here. Their children born here are citizens and therefore are included in the jobs programs I spoke of.

The path to citizenship should have requirements that have to be met. There should be a waiting period and that waiting period would include the time that they have already spent here that can be documented.

All forms of taxes that citizens pay should be paid and current or a plan to become current is in place.

A monetary penalty should be paid in recognition of the violation of immigration laws. That money should be spent paying for the administration of this program.

There should be a clean police record.

During the waiting period for citizenship the immigrants should be granted green cards making them then legal aliens and subject to the jobs program I listed above.

A very important part of any immigration reform should be a plan to reverse the reasons why immigration to this country is what it is. That would be strict fines and imprisonment of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. A partnership between the American and Mexican governments to improve the economic & criminal situation in Mexico especially along our border should be put in place.

There are a few others but I don't recall them right now.

[dkf]

2. They take our jobs no more than a Chinese iPhone worker.

Seriously what is the difference. Do we really want those outsourced jobs any more than we want to work in some field?

[pampango]

3. It's easier to blame foreigners than to restructure our society. Immigrants have been unpopular

since shortly after the Pilgrims got here. (And even they weren't too popular with the existing residents of the continent. ;) ) Whether they were Irish, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Mexican, they were always said to cause lower wages, fewer jobs and more crime. It's amazing that we have survived the flow of these evil immigrants over the centuries.