Immigration Does Suppress Wages

civvver said:
There's some truth to that though, if you can find an in demand high paying job in a more rural area it can be worth it to go like living in Austin or Houston over San Francisco as an engineer, though I don't know if Austin and Houston as still cheap, some 5 years ago they were booming in tech jobs and cost of living hadn't nearly caught up. Or if you're a doctor, there are still hospitals all over rural areas. We had a friend who was finishing his residency as a urologist and he really want to move back to southern california where he grew up, but his pay was the same as some job offers he got in Tennessee and the cost of living was about double.

My sister lives in an apartment style condo she bought in Oakland. She's a manager in graphics design and makes at least double what I do, but her two bedroom 1300 sq foot condo she told me the mortgage + escrow is 4k a month. Comparatively my 2500 sq foot 4 bedroom house is only $1850. And then the taxes, higher federal bracket and much higher state rates, our take home is not that far apart when it's all said and done.
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Right but the economist made the case that it only makes sense to avoid cities if you aren't a skilled worker (which is still most people) - the skilled workers are still better off moving to cities all things considered although its becoming less attractive with time. (Sorry I didn't do a good job of explaining this point in my last post)

Obviously this isn't a black and white thing, every industry and job and person is different but overall if you're highly skilled, cities still make a lot of sense. But if you aren't highly skilled then according to this guy it doesn't make sense to move and leave your support network behind as wages in cities for non-skilled laborers are too low, upward mobility (again for non-skilled laborers) is non-existent these days and cities are getting stupid expensive.

There are other considerations than just raw pay and cost of living to consider too. For example, I could have stayed in the Midwest and worked in aerospace but none of the jobs out there would have been the kinds of work I'm interested in; they mostly don't exist out there. Also, while I may have been able to bank more of my paycheck in the Midwest, there is a lot more fun/cultural stuff to do out in LA than in the Midwest along with other ancillary benefits to living in an urban area. I'm fairly progressive and while I could get a space job in say Huntsville, Alabama, I really don't want to do that because Roll Tide and Roy Moore and my wife isn't too keen on teaching little kids that evolution is a lie and Jesus rode a stegosaurus into Jerusalem.

But, to each his own! It's not cut and dry.
 
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Perfection said:
Ummm.... What does that have to do with my post?

Anyways, I'm not too worried about AI taking over my engineering job, because even it does, I can gradually morph into a go between between engineering AI and less technically profescient humans. The good thing about humans is they inherently value the time of other humans, that doesn't mean we won't need to rethink the economy and wealth distribution in light of AI advances but I do think there will always be a role for humans.
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Of course there will be and since you are pretty well educated in a field that is important to the future, you will have a place. Those who cannot adapt will be marginalized. All the guys who could not adapt to the personal computer world of the 80s and 90s became real estate agents or car salesmen.
 
Bamspeedy said:
Someone living in a trailer in a rural area has more living space (and a yard, too!, maybe even a tool shed) than someone living in an efficiency apartment in an urban area. A camper is smaller I suppose, but double wide trailers are bigger than many apartments (14 feet x 56-70 feet). Double wide is the standard for 'trailer parks' nowadays.
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They aren't going to have more living space living on minimum wage necessarily, unless they stay with their family. I guess the key point of the segment is that the big draw for cities has traditionally been their phenomenal ability to allow someone without skills to move upward economically and therefore it was worth moving there and leaving their family/friends behind. This ability has essentially disappeared over time but my counterpoint is that it's not the case that this upward mobility has suddenly transferred to rural areas - they still don't have much in the way of upward economic growth for non-skilled people. They are cheaper to live in and your wages will go further but in a lot of the country, rural life still means minimum wage jobs at McDonald's and Wal Mart and outside of some progressive states, minimum wage is still well below what it really costs to live independently anywhere.

The key thing is whether or not you have a family/friend support network back at home in your rural area. If you don't, I'd argue you're no better off moving to the city than staying home economically. But most people probably do have those support networks where they live and so a move to the city wouldn't be beneficial if they aren't skilled. But this doesn't mean you can expect to actually make a decent living in a rural area either without skills of some sort. And then once you get those skills, there is still a lot more opportunities in the cities to advance with them.

And it really chaffed me that they didn't bother exploring any of these issues (much lower wages, less job opportunities, etc) related to rural life and instead focused on the benefits as expressed by a rich dude with no self-awareness.
 
Depends on how big the small town is. My sister lives in a town of 13 000 and her husband is an engineer. He has recently applied for a job in a small city.

Financially they are better off where they are but it's a lifestyle thing probably for retirement in 15 or 20 years. It's about warmer there, almost Mediterranean climate,vineyards, nature etc.

Immigration made to books look good for the previous goverment. A local economist looked into it and excluding immigration economic growth was sub 1%.

Our house doubled in price in 7 years, put bonus onto the mortage 5k left to go. Mortage free age 37 and 41.

In our 20s we saved by not going out, no holidays, no car, lived like students for the most part. No smartfones either bought them after the house.

In USA terms we let in 60 million people. I'm not claiming 0 immigration is a good idea but the number could have been 12 million.

I'm not advocating 0 immigration and most of them were reasonably well off pricing the locals out. A lot of Chinese hiding their money as well when their government cracked down on corruption.

If you sell your house in London for a million pounds, come here with 2 million dollars but a house in Auckland for a million or so and live in a warmer climate.

Move down here same house about half a million, small town NZ 300k+ at least for something vaguely decent.

We don't really have trailer parks here.

Average wage is around 50k iirc but something like 70% of the country doesn't get the average wage.

Buying a house is 7 to 20 years average wage in most of the country, even in the cities that was a lot lower ratio circa 2000.

Wonder what changed.

2000 3.8 million
2010 4.3 million
2018 4.9 million.

The right wing government 2008 to 2017 accounted for 500k of that. They didn't do it to benefit the average NZer.

1. Made the economic numbers look good.
2. Drove up house prices benefitting investor classes.
3. Suppressed wages.

Wages didn't double in those years and rent/mortgages are excluded from inflation figures and the cpi, consumer price index.

When they were banging on about the tax cuts for the average NZer it was dog whistles for the top 30%.

So if you're a liberal pro minority, anti corporation, pro working class mass immigration is actually counter to their interests and your ideology.

My OP the chicken work used to be done by blacks. Crap work but the got paid better for it. Liberals blame to corporations but if you cracked down in them hard they wouldn't hire illegals either so being pro immigrant confuses me in that regard.

Not in not saying anyone gets deported just turn the tap down to a number the country can absorb which apparently is around 20%.
 
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Zardnaar said:
Wonder what changed.
.
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Money and people have become more mobile and when they do it is disrupting. When rich people move their money around, prices often go up in the destination areas. When poorer people move places, labor costs/wages can go down for some, but when it pushes local people out of jobs they hate, the locals get a chance to move up or away. When very skilled people move into a new city to work, it increase local amenities, pushes prices up, can improve schools and generally helps a place.

A lot of folks left CA in the 90s and many came to NM. They sold their crappy 1500 sf $500,000 home and brought that cash to NM where they could buy a top of the line 4,000 sf home for $300-400,000. Totally screwed the market for locals. Oh well.
 
Socrates99 said:
Surplus labor is only a problem when people have no money to spend. Increased population should also increase demand for goods and services which in turn increases demand for labor. Its stagnant wages and wage suppression coupled with automation and outsourcing that are causing problems in industrialized nations.

Dekker is right about our own countrymen. It's the upper class "job creaters" that keep wages low to line their own pockets. People look at high marginal tax rates as the government stealing money from the rich. They're really just discouraging the capitalist class from sucking too big a slice of the pie out of their company's profits. It's why people constantly point out the ever increasing wealth gap. I just wish more people pointed out why its important.

Immigrants are the scapegoats. There is a fabricated animosity towards the "other." Blaming people with no money and no power for economic woes is one way the wealthy maintain the status quo.
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Immigrants have been scapegoats for that. But they've been more, they've been used as the tool to keep things that way. So while they are not the ones ultimately to blame, stopping their entry is one way to force the wealthy to pay more for about. That is why you get the anti-immigration reactions, and you can't just wave them away because they make sense.

Unless you change the whole economic system and take away political and economic power from the current small minority of wealthy (which is to say, take the control over the means of production from them and distribute it widely), what else are workers in a capitalist society to do? Within that capitalist society, if they are not fighting to overthrow it, they are left only with the "solutions" of fighting the tools through which the wealthy keep their grip on the surplus. Fighting within the rules of a capitalist society inevitably leads to animosity against groups who are competitors driving down wages. It's part of the logic embedded within its rules. In fact it is part of the rules of social-democracy even, of any "compromise" system that essentially allows accumulation by a few. You can have regulated capitalism, social-democracy, instead of savage law-of-the-jungle capitalism, and you still have to control for immigration.

The problem is that the option of changing the rules does not even cross the mind of most people. It's too "radical". So opposing controls on immigration, while it makes sense if you are a radical in this way indeed (and only in that case), does not solve the current problems of working people. And will not gain their support.
 
Zardnaar said:
Buying a house is 7 to 20 years average wage in most of the country, even in the cities that was a lot lower ratio circa 2000.

Wonder what changed.

2000 3.8 million
2010 4.3 million
2018 4.9 million.

The right wing government 2008 to 2017 accounted for 500k of that. They didn't do it to benefit the average NZer.

1. Made the economic numbers look good.
2. Drove up house prices benefitting investor classes.
3. Suppressed wages.

Wages didn't double in those years and rent/mortgages are excluded from inflation figures and the cpi, consumer price index.
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Don't give too much credit to the NZ government alone, or to immigration alone there. This has been a worldwide trend. The right-wing took control after the financial crisis, deciding on the strategy for "recovery" was handed over to the bankers. Unsurprisingly they did in in a way that further concentrated wealth.
One government in one country set the way, the others all followed. It could have gone differently, but the politician in power chose this path. That is why I hate Obama so.
 
innonimatu said:
Immigrants have been scapegoats for that. But they've been more, they've been used as the tool to keep things that way. So while they are not the ones ultimately to blame, stopping their entry is one way to force the wealthy to pay more for about. That is why you get the anti-immigration reactions, and you can't just wave them away because they make sense.

Unless you change the whole economic system and take away political and economic power from the current small minority of wealthy (which is to say, take the control over the means of production from them and distribute it widely), what else are workers in a capitalist society to do? Within that capitalist society, if they are not fighting to overthrow it, they are left only with the "solutions" of fighting the tools through which the wealthy keep their grip on the surplus. Fighting within the rules of a capitalist society inevitably leads to animosity against groups who are competitors driving down wages. It's part of the logic embedded within its rules. In fact it is part of the rules of social-democracy even, of any "compromise" system that essentially allows accumulation by a few. You can have regulated capitalism, social-democracy, instead of savage law-of-the-jungle capitalism, and you still have to control for immigration.

The problem is that the option of changing the rules does not even cross the mind of most people. It's too "radical". So opposing controls on immigration, while it makes sense if you are a radical in this way indeed (and only in that case), does not solve the current problems of working people. And will not gain their support.
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Increasing the tax rate at the top margins would go a long way towards solving things. It's one of the things that prevented wealth inequality in the 50s and 60s. There were still rich people but the middle class was bigger.

Look at it this way. Say the top marginal rate kicked in at $10m a year and it's something ridiculous like 90% (that's what it was under Eisenhower). If you're the owner of a decent sized company and you could personally keep $15m but you know that'd mean on that last $5m you're going to be paying the government $4.5m of it. Sounds terrible right? Instead you could reinvest some into the company and spread some to your employees to increase retention and morale. Better than sending it to the government right? Taxation isn't just something done to fund programs it also helps control the flow of money.

Now apply that to this immigrant thing. Yes immigrants might underbid locals but they generally lack education and skills often coupled with a language barrier. Employers aren't exactly seeking them out unless they want to exploit their migrant status (undocumented) or their desperation. Good jobs, the ones that Americans or other Westerners want for healthcare, good pay and other benefits, are not being suppressed by immigration. They're being suppressed by the greed of the few. The real answer isn't pooping on immigrants. That would make only very small changes. The better method would be to discourage that greed in the first place.
 
Yes, going social-democratic would solve things fro the space or a generation or so. And it would be better than carrying on like this.

The thing that makes me unhappy about that solution is that things were that way, many more workers got enough to live decently... but that system got dismantled without any serious fight! I guess one mush accept that history works that way: improvements and regressions. It is frustrating nonetheless, and makes one wish for greater guarantees that it won't be so easy to concentrate wealth again.
 
The not concentrating wealth thing was the exception not the rule. It really only lasted from the war years to thev1979s or 80s.

It's not a NZ first thing either. I'm a pragmatist it, I wouldn't really want NZers to build a house for me but would prefer Germans or Norwegians. I wouldn't rush out to buy a house built in the last 30 odd years without someone I trust looking over it.

In America the immigration system needs an over haul but u don't think the GoP it Dems have a clue because they have entrenched positions along ideological lines
 
Zardnaar said:
IDK, I went to a meat plant in the 90's and the smell put me off. I expect a bit more for nightshift so the pay was fairly bad. They sent some Syrian refugees that way for the halal processing.
I've been to a poultry place as well, wouldn't do it again unless the pay was stupidly high. Come to think of it I would not do it at any price as it would aggravate an old injury.
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The main reason why immigrants take such jobs is because it dosnt require native language, school education or even a drivers license
Yeah the smell is quite bad, all it takes if for someone to accidentally cut into the intestine, bladder or stomach by accident and the smell of animal feces's can put you down, empty your stomach but the assembly line has to keep moving as it too costly to stop. As I said the people at the start of the line have a tough demanding work.
 
innonimatu said:
Don't give too much credit to the NZ government alone, or to immigration alone there. This has been a worldwide trend. The right-wing took control after the financial crisis, deciding on the strategy for "recovery" was handed over to the bankers. Unsurprisingly they did in in a way that further concentrated wealth.
One government in one country set the way, the others all followed. It could have gone differently, but the politician in power chose this path. That is why I hate Obama so.
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This entire thread is about a global trend that’s been going on since the peak at the end of the fifties and made obvious in the early 80s and you blame Obama.
 
Birdjaguar said:
A lot of folks left CA in the 90s and many came to NM. They sold their crappy 1500 sf $500,000 home and brought that cash to NM where they could buy a top of the line 4,000 sf home for $300-400,000. Totally screwed the market for locals. Oh well.
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There, those are the ones from closer. That have the solution, "just scatter your family to the wind, it's opportunity, you're welcome!" And btw, you all really need to not own guns, for, uhm, reasons. :lol:
 
Farm Boy said:
There, those are the ones from closer. That have the solution, "just scatter your family to the wind, it's opportunity, you're welcome!" And btw, you all really need to not own guns, for, uhm, reasons. :lol:
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Hows is the trade war been treating you ? I read some farmers are doing really well (California garlic farmers) the rest are in pretty tight situation (Soy, dairy)
Its wiped out nearly 150 Bil from our stockmarket and were staring down the barrel of a recession, but Australian farmers stand to make up for the lost US Argiculture share in China and made gains in the TPP
Just hang in there, hopefully a democrat administration will be able to slowly fix everything.
 
Hygro said:
This entire thread is about a global trend that’s been going on since the peak at the end of the fifties and made obvious in the early 80s and you blame Obama.
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There was this great financial crisis thing where the bankers had to run to the state for help. Or go bankrupt and have the whole rules of the game rewritten. Turns out that they fully owned the american administration and their scare vanished pretty fast.
Instead of having their power stripped away they were offered unlimited backing to carry on as they did, and nice new asset bubbles.
 
Zardnaar said:
We have problems building new houses, so makes you wonder why let so many people in.
Anyway an affordable house is 6 years income, 3 years is ideal. So if you gave a double income on the average wage no kids but a house. But only 30% get the average wage the median wage is lower.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/114779557/is-it-really-more-expensive-to-build-new-in-new-zealand
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This is the thing, western economy based on demographic growth and expansion once your demographics enter decline you need either young immigrants to make up for that shortfall and aging population.
The other solution is have more kids but thats a long term solution that will take an entire generation before it is felt. thats why countries like the Germany are taking on immigrants, the other solution is Japan is intending to build several million robots and automate there industries. Once population stops growing housing prices will of course fall, but then your in a recession. It also partly a cultural thing as Australians dream is to own your own home where as in places like Germany its more about saving enough for retirement and local government controls property market to keep rents low.

Dont worry the housing bubble is going to burst again, its just overheated.
 
Up thread, I mentioned that the idea of more hard workers being bad as not intuitive. So is the idea that you absolutely need population growth. If it makes intuitive sense great. But we need you then thinking about how to make population growth not necessary to economic growth
 
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