So you are a older work who has spent the long 6 months looking for a new job. You worry about competing with younger and perhaps less expensive workers taking a new job that could be yours. If you are in many states like Arizona, California, Florida, NY,Texas or even Illinois you might be thinking that the millions of illegal or undocumented aliens are competing against you. The question is do the facts validate that view?
The San Diego Union Tribune this weekend wrote:
"A study released last month by the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, based on data from 2005 to 2007, shows that at that time there were roughly 680,000 immigrants in San Diego County, legal and illegal. More than half came from Mexico and Central America, with relatively small percentages coming from other areas, led by the Philippines, Vietnam, China and Canada.
In total, they constituted 27 percent of the local work force in 2005-07, including 62 percent of the county’s farm workers, 60 percent of machine operators and fabricators, and 43 percent of construction workers — at a time when that industry was still booming.
Nearly one-quarter of the county’s immigrants at that time were in low-wage service occupations, including hamburger flippers, nursing aides, janitors and hotel maids. They earned an average of $18,625 annually, slightly above the minimum wage and 16 percent lower than the $22,262 paid to U.S.-born workers.
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The wage gap was even broader in construction. The study estimated that immigrants were paid $31,042 per year, 25 percent less than the $41,389 average of their U.S.-born counterparts.
Although the vast majority of those immigrant workers were legal, the low-wage jobs attracted a greater percentage of illegal immigrants. A nationwide study by the Pew Research Center last year shows that 30 percent of illegal immigrants go into service jobs, compared with 17 percent of legal immigrants. Twelve percent take production jobs, versus 5 percent of legal immigrants.
The ready availability of low-paid immigrant workers keeps a damper on wage growth in those occupations. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, said the main people facing the brunt of that impact are low-skilled workers with less than a high school education, since those jobs typically don’t attract higher-skilled, U.S.-born workers. The study found that the stream of new immigrants into the U.S. economy reduces the salary potential of low-educated immigrants but has relatively little impact on native-born workers.
The study found that the only U.S.-born group to be affected by immigration in California was men without a high school education, whose wages were estimated to be 2.9 percent lower than if they weren’t competing with immigrants.
“In terms of income, the aggregate impact on the economy is very small — a fraction of a percent of the gross domestic product,” said Gordon Hanson, director of the Center on Pacific Economies at the University of California San Diego. “Most unauthorized immigrants are the educational equivalent of high school dropouts, meaning they’re competing with less than 10 percent of the U.S. population.”
Hanson added that illegal workers fill certain needs in the economy since they tend to be more willing to travel to the best job opportunities and their numbers ebb and flow with the economy. He said that theoretically, those needs could be solved through legal immigration, but U.S. visa programs are so slow and cumbersome that they don’t match the demand for workers.
One of the other major economic arguments concerning illegal immigrants is that they don’t pay their fair share in taxes but rely on taxpayer-provided services, including public schools and hospital emergency rooms. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports greater restrictions on immigration, says the cost to California alone comes to $10.5 billion per year."
5 Responses to "Does Arizona's Immigration Law really affect the availability of jobs for Legal Workers?"
May 3, 2010 at 6:51 AM #
It depends on your job skills. In my case, illegal and /or undocumented workers do not affect me. If you are a professional engineer, teacher or medical professional, then you have no worries wince an illegal alien is not going to be able to qualify for your job role. A documented immigrant will, yes.
So my advise to high school and college students is to choose a career that is difficult to outsource to foreigners. Unfortunately, there are not many. One choice is elementary and secodnary teachers.
May 3, 2010 at 1:18 PM #
If you're a professional, then I don't think illegal aliens are too much of a threat. Legal immigrants are another story. Many more are professionals that are attracted or recruited to the United States.
May 4, 2010 at 7:31 AM #
I agree with many of the points made by "Anonymous". We need to move from strict "political correctness" to "economical correctness". In other words, does the policy make economic sense? If the policies are not resulting in the intended results, then they should be discontinued.
May 4, 2010 at 11:57 AM #
I, too, agree with many of Anonymous's points.
I'll answer this question as a US citizen that has, over the last five years, lived in Arizona and New Hampshire.
In Arizona, there's an idea that Americans won't pick vegetables, wash laundry, clean hotel rooms, dig ditches, or hang drywall.
In New Hampshire, with a much smaller illegal immigrant population, most of these jobs go to American citizens. I've noticed that the pay for these positions seems to be a bit higher here in New Hampshire. I've also noticed that as a consumer, I pay more for these types of services than I did when I lived in Arizona.
As a society, we should make a choice. Is cheap labor, and therefore easier acquisition of wealth, more important? Or is living in a society in which its legal participants are paid a fair wage for the work they do something that we value?
This article is trying to have it both ways. How can it only cost unskilled workers 2.9% salary, but the construction example shows a 25% change? Are you telling me that a construction company that has access to labor that costs 25% less than what I make only has a 2.9% impact on my salary?
May 9, 2010 at 12:29 PM #
Our current liberal based government, both at the national and state levels, continue to vote for the very provisions and entitlements these illegals feel they're owed. I am proud of who I am and where I came from, but am not of Hispanic descent, and did not always had the financial security and benefits of a successful 40+ year professional career. At one point, when I was young, just starting out and struggling to make ends meet, I approached the county offices of human services in which I lived, for assistance (back in 1971) and was told I: 1) had a job, 2) made to much money (which was then $3.33/hr.) 3) had insurance 4) did not fit the racial or ethnic category (and I specifically didn't say profile) to qualify for the county, state or federal assistance I was seeking. My request was denied. Needless to say I was dumbfounded and angry ... but I continued to work hard and eventually paid off the hospital bill for the delivery of my first born son. To see these tax funded social benefits I was denied because of my ethnic and income standings, bestowed on the undeserving, still make me angry ...
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