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You have to be a certain level of stupid to believe a migrant is the reason your pay sucks.
The migrant isn’t the reason, no, but an oversupply of people and under supply of jobs will depress wages.
So intentionally immigrating more people than the economy can bear will drive down the cost of labor.
That’s the entire point of TFW and H1B
Undersupply of jobs? That's weird coming from all the "nobody wants to work" rhetoric.
If a company wants to pay a illegal/migrant worker over an red blooded American, that's capitalism baby! Solve that issue instead.
Hahahaha yeah “nobody wants to work (for the unliveable low wages I want to pay)” really is quite the statement, isn’t it?
They never seem to say the whole thing though.
“nobody wants to work (for the unliveable low wages I want to pay)”
If the position exists at that wage, then someone is willing to work at that wage. The wage will only increase if it is either government mandated to increase, or if no one is willing to work for it unless it is higher. Just because a wage seems unlivable, doesn't necessarily mean that someone isn't willing to work for that amount of pay.
So then why are some people complaining that “nobody is willing to work”?
Simply, it is an example of jumping to conclusions, or, perhaps more specifically, a faulty generalization.
Cool links and all, but you still didn’t answer the question…..
Let me be more specific while using your own terms….
“What conclusion are people jumping to, and based on what information are they using to jump to this conclusion?”
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If the position exists at that wage, then someone is willing to work at that wage.
You sound like a company I interviewed with years ago, who, straight-faced advertised a position they were trying to fill for a skilled technical professional at the mid-to-low end of a competitive salary 6 or 7 years ago...but that was mid to low based on a 40 hour work week and they were asking for 45 minimum, with mandatory overtime bumping that number to 55-60 per week for about half the time. And oh by the way, to put in that OT, you were required to work it when other members of your team were on site as well, so most teams just always planned to put in at least a half day every Saturday if not a full day, if not some OT as well. Some teams also came in Sunday.
I explained to them that breaking it down by the hour, they were offering a pay cut to anyone with the skills they demanded, not to mention the obliteration of anything resembling work-life balance...and ended the interview prematurely.
Now I'm job hunting again since I want to relocate and going to switch to remote work full time, and I see they're still posting that same job to the various sites.
So I guess the fact that they're still looking, for most of a decade, means that someone out there is willing to work for that ridiculous wage and schedule?
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They don’t have to pay them below minimum wage to suppress wages.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32389/w32389.pdf
Basically all published research on this subject indicates that migrant labour has very little effect on native wages.
This makes sense, because a migrant is a human being, not a machine. That is, they do not just produce, they also consume.
Incidentally, I'm very gratified by people here not tolerating this sort of fash adjacent rhetoric. Shit made reddit intolerable.
https://www.nber.org/digest/apr17/winners-and-losers-h-1b-visa-program
It’s really not that simple.
It’s not that immigrants are “taking yer jerbs “ but it’s really hard to deny that the economics of supply with cheap labor will suppress wages.
I’m not anti immigration, nor am I pro globalisation. But it certainly seems like many jobs that are being filled by immigrants, are being filled by that because the companies are exploiting the immigrants and not paying local wages.
I work in the tech industry and I see it.
Hell, here in Canada, the TFW’s were used to staff Tim hortons and McDonalds because the employer didn’t want to raise wages to match the value of the labor they wanted.
So what happened? They brought in temporary foreign workers, abused them, housed them 6 to a room and charged them exorbitant rates for rent. The foreign workers were used to depress wages and they were treated like shit .
in THEORY they didnt pay less than minumum wage, but in practice after forcing them to rent housing from the franchiser, it worked out to less than minumum wage.
these are REAL results, and they don't show up on your imigration study because they didnt immigrate, they were just used.
All right, has a small postive effect on native wages in aggregate, as the paper I sent takes pains to point out.
One important caveat is that we analyze aggregate labor markets and not individual workers’ outcomes which are not observable in our data. Some individuals may be displaced from work or experience reduced wages due to the competition of immigrants. The differences in individual outcomes and outcomes for the aggregate labor market in response to immigration were also pointed out in Dustmann et al. (2017) and Foged and Peri (2016). Still, our average outcomes suggest that for any group of native workers dropping out of employment or experiencing lower wages from immigration, a larger group of natives are attracted into employment or experiencing increased wages.
The point being, increased competition in a given sector will lower wages, obviously. But, all that's really doing for the tech sector is drawing forward the natural balancing of supply and demand that would've happened through education, anyway.
Also, the study does take into account illegal immigration to the US.
As for your example of Canada's highly unethical immigration policies. We agree! Importing workers and denying them mobility leads, basically, to a caste system where it's more profitable to hire the lower caste. The solution here is not reducing migration, it's to ensure that all migrants have full legal working rights. Either you're in, or you're not. In between statuses are bad both for the migrant, and for the native working class.
I totally agree on your final point, you’re in or you’re not.
The halfway programs cause problems, and they’re the ones I’m against.
Number of people relative to resources does matter though because otherwise India should be the richest country on earth….. but it isn’t.
I don’t have any great answers to that, but I can see the problem.
500 years ago, everyone, the west included, was poor, and everyone had basically the same amount of resources.
Then the west became rich. For many reasons, but certainly not resources per capita.
It may well turn out that in a century from now India matches the west in per capita income. Too early to say.
Unclaimed, fertile and abundant land that was practically being given away to people is a meaningful difference in easily available resources that early settlers of North America had available to them.
It’s not the ONLY difference, but certainly a meaningful one.
an oversupply of people and under supply of jobs will depress wages.
This is true, but do note that if one starts paying illegal workers under minimum wage, then that should also has the effect of stealing jobs — the employer would choose whatever labour is cheapest that meets their requirements.
But it's what my HateTV News channel tells me! They wouldn't lie.
/ s
We love the I dubya dubya.
The only dubya that's good
Yea man, and how are they doing it?
They keep more of the money while inflation does its job?
In many industries they focus on bringing in foreign labour so they can keep supply high and costs low.
You’d probably have a lot more people picking fruit if they had to start paying an appealing wage.
If overhead increases at a lower rate than profits, they will take more in profit. If all workers who meet the employment requirements are only willing to work if the pay is higher, then it would have to increase to attract them, thereby increasing overhead and reducing profits.
Kind of a messed up take here but migrants are used as a tool by the proletariat to keep wages low and to push down wages. I see the perspective that C-Suite Individuals (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) keep wages low and pocket the multi-million dollar change, but how do they justify it? "Market Rate" is a good way to deflect blame nowhere. Everyone's moving labor outside of the US, and at least for me as a USA born working class individual, it weakens my ability to earn for my family.
Would you say that limiting yourself to only "working class" jobs, whatever that means to you, is also weakening your ability to earn?
I'm sorry if I'm being dumb but I don't get what you're asking. I work as a unionized engineer and then always try to keep a second side hustle job (cashier, waiter, etc.). When I was a non-union engineer I saw third party companies hiring people that were underqualified and across the globe, remotely taking jobs. As a waiter/cashier however, I didn't see this at all. Although I was working minimum wage so I don't think anyone would necessarily ask lower.
The point I was trying to make is that, when I was making $35 an hour non-unionized, firms would offer to have remote engineers for $30 an hour. So now I'm effectively "over" market rate, and am at risk of being fired. This weakens my ability to earn for my family. If the latter didn't exist, I could have asked for $40 an hour even. Thankfully I'm now unionized at around that rate so I'm okay. But for my friends that aren't minimum wage, but aren't flying stacks of money rich, they are constantly at risk of just being another budget issue.
A variation in pay ranging from 30 an hour to 40 an hour, working full time puts you between 62k a year and 83k a year, if my math is accurate.
I understand noone wants to make less money ever, but you are doing well no matter if you had to eat a pay cut or not, and you even say yourself you didnt have to. You either care more about making this extra money than your friends or were better qualified/had better connections so that you could maintain what you wanted.
I dont understand how you can possibly say you have a stake in this argument. You are doing just fine, even if you choose to bring up all your past experiences and choices that make it so you "need" more money.
So your argument is basically, I can't sympathize for the common man because I'm doing well? After OT I make $103k a year. After taxes and union dues I make $64k a year net (about $5,400 a month) My apartment mortgage costs me $2,100. In 2021 my dad was let go as a cost cutting measure. Which is actively what I'm advocating against in my previous comments that you're railing on. His mortgage, which includes my mom and brother is $3,200 a month.
My brother is a student and my mom is a cashier, I pay for both places. Because my mom works and my dad recently landed a part time job not even making a third of what he made, we're still pretty fucked but can just get by. I literally have to work two jobs after OT on my first, to keep myself cushy. Which I'm okay with because I'm really young, and I'm grateful for what I'm working towards. But I have to ask, what the fuck are you going on about?
Edit: I looked at your post history and now understand what you're going on about. You're just one of those folks that defend the 1%. Lolol I was confused at first but now I understand.
Defend the rich? I'm arguing you have too much shit. You dont need so much. Its simple.
Edit to add: those mortgage prices are stupid. If you and your family dont realize there are choices in where you live, that you aren't owed the same house for all eternity, and to work in the same job for your whole life.
Wow. I didn't think about that. Holy heck. Let me just take my wife, my brother, my parents, and move half way across the map where, the cost of living will be lower but the cost of salary will be exponentially lower; because a stranger on the internet told me to! Shouldn't take me more than a week to uproot my whole life and move somewhere else. Thanks fam!!! 😀
(Major /s, if you already haven't noticed)
I'm saying there are choices, and you choose the selfish ones. Thats it. Claiming friends and family doesnt make it not self serving. I still stand by what I said, you aren't struggling, you just like to complain you get to be a bit less selfish.
And yes this is from some random internet stranger you are, again choosing, to argue with. People like you who refuse to learn and grow are the real problem, and are why younger generations just have to wait for older ones to die off for real change to happen for everyone.
Real talk, you do understand that most of those places that have cheaper housing will pay me significantly less? I actually took the time to look at NJ (where the average cost of housing in Teaneck NJ is $830k for the same single family 3br home my folks have). A job in Teaneck NJ which is literally what I do pays $65k a year. A mortgage for $830k right now is about $7k a month with current rates, but with the equity I have in my home would probably be around the same $5k a month I’m paying. But I’d be earning almost half my salary. You’re taking this idealized view “oh just move, you’re being selfish if you stay in a HCOL area,” but you aren’t realizing that EVERYONE has been affected. House prices in the suburbs have shot up. Which is okay if wages kept pace, right? But they haven’t.
Edit: I’m also not old, I’m not even 28
Since you and your family are owners, the housing prices going up at worst is a wash, and at best you make a profit.
You and your family made many choices to benefit an enrich yourselves, all I'm saying is you dont get to then complain you were forced into your position. You aren't the abused people in this scenario, you are benefitting from it. See the point about someone owning an asset complaining its gained tremendous value year over year.
Edit to clarify: I'm actually advocating for far more than "just move", I'm saying people need to be ready to change and learn everything, even if it came down to a new city, field of study, field of work, or even language (although right now there is no place in the US that would require this leap).
We both bought during COVID, and only because the rates were so low. Our home prices have gone up, but not crazy (we had to pay extra for property taxes due to the appraised home value though), but I didn't mean to come off as abused. I'm doing well, and knock on wood whenever I get the chance [edited, spelling incorrect], but I also know I'm on a thin fucking tightrope - due to what I'm about to bring up next.
However, and this is what caused our discourse, I don't believe it's right for jobs like my father's to just vanish to the other end of the world. That has real life implications for everyone, someone's family, their mental health; it just messed him up for a while dude. To go back to the main topic of the thread, "Migrants aren't pushing down wages, its your boss," while you believe that we may not be promised anything in life (and this is true), what's the point of upholding this social contract, going to work and producing towards a GDP, towards a country, and doing your fair share; when you can't even be promised your end of the social contract, the American Dream? At that point, I'm sure my dad would have just made the decision to stay in India instead of coming to the US in 1996.
In one of my other comments, I talk about how my middle school janitor came to this country (back in like the 70's or the 80's), and purchased a house on a Janitor salary. Dude was unionized and was based af. From my experiences today, the American Dream is dying and not the same as what it once was. Whether it be Migrants, companies, the policies that allow for labor to be off-shored; it's infected and (in my honest opinion), not worth chasing atm. We aren't a third world country, but we're not a country that can provide that social contract for its youth. The youth works to enrich the old and rich, kept oppressed by low wages and replaceability (the off-shoring of work), no longer do the youth work to enrich themselves.
"what's the point of upholding this social contract, going to work and producing towards a GDP, towards a country, and doing your fair share; when you can't even be promised your end of the social contract, the American Dream?"
I agree completely (despite everyone having their own version of "the american dream"), I just think we have different ideas of how to get there. I dont know all the answers but I do know going back to any place we have already been is just worse with corruption, accountability, abuse, and disparity in quality of living.
I think the main difference now is that groups that were originally on the side that generally benefitted from all of this abuse, are now being targeted for wealth extraction themselves and they can no longer live happy middle-income lives. Everyone besides the wealthy are being pushed downwards.
I'd also argue that what you mentioned your father going through is a mental health issue, and it would benefit us all if we acknowledged the need to help people transition to new skills or ways of life that fit the new reality.
If we focus on moving backwards the world will leave us behind and we will suffer for it. Looking forward means embracing change, and those who are good at changing quickly will have the advantage.
i mean, the employers in your industry are the ones deciding where to source talent. The engineers in these remote markets are just picking up jobs that are likely paying above-average for their locale. Which opportunities only exist because employers extend them...
Wholeheartedly agreed. The existence and ability to just easily off-shore everything and reduce costs, to a business; is like candy to a baby. You don’t blame the candy, or the baby, but you blame the circumstances that lead the candy to the baby. Keeping jobs at home is the only way towards the prosperity of the middle class. We unfortunately have policies that just favor the wealthy class over the middle class, and things like this happen.
In this case, the baby is part of a global group of babies (the baby-ouisie?) that persuaded many of the governments of the world to pass free-candy-for-babies laws so they could save money in their candy budgets and deliver higher return to their shareholders, so in this case, i'll 100% blame the baby
Honestly also very true. Something reductionist (and wrong) about my statement - the baby doesn’t have autonomy. They just go after impulse. Corporations do have autonomy, and typically choose to go against the middle class.
I did lol at the idea of a group of global babies trying to take over the world though 😂
Dude never said "working class" they said "middle" and their point is that a diverse field of labor used to and should earn that sort of status. The winnowing and undermining of the pay structure has pushed more people lower than they should be. What their place is inside that structure is not relevant to the opinion. This has nothing to do with their personal financial circumstances.
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It's not your boss, it's "executive leadership", the board of directors, and the shareholders.
But my boss is an immigrant. Although, so am I...
One of the worst unions our lads ever joined. Sorry. Unison were even worse for us. Went to Unite and similar and now shit is getting done.
Yeah all the "migrants" ive worked with were paid same as i was. Worked just as hard for the most part but like every other demographic there are people who, for their own reasons, chose not to. Could be a cultural thing i dont know, but it doesnt make them look too good when i have to do their job as well as mine.
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this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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