Tweet
Originally posted by byu71
View Post
Could you give me a reference. Some of my golfing buddies over dinner started talking about the subject. One brought up the huge number of $$ being spent on undocumenteds for schooling, food stamps, incarcerration (SP) etc. in Calif. I argued saying they pay more in than they take out. Later I realized I was remembering what PAC said about Calif. in relation to the Federal government. 
I didn't correct myself though.
Have any studies been done to see what the net effect is. Not the effect of immigration including legal and illegal, but the effect when you just count undocumenteds?
I didn't correct myself though.Have any studies been done to see what the net effect is. Not the effect of immigration including legal and illegal, but the effect when you just count undocumenteds?
On balance, illegal immigrants are a net positive to the economy, but certainly not without some clear negatives. The negatives include driving down wages, since undocumenteds will perform necessary but very undesirable jobs for chump change (see anecdote at the end of this yawner); without immigrant labor (legal and illegal), wages on the low end of the pay scale would absolutely rise. That’s but one example of a result that is both positive (cheaper goods and services for the consumer) and negative (lower pay for laborers). One can read other commentaries that report how much illegals drain from government coffers for health care, law enforcement, etc., but they generally overlook that illegal immigrants are less likely than their legal counterparts to obtain/require such governmental attention, since they try to avoid governmental interaction.
One of the things that bothers me most about Trump is his constant demonization of anything or anyone he perceives as an enemy. The vast majority of undocumented workers in this country are good, hard-working people, not “bad hombres.” Deporting all of them (thankfully, an impossible task), would unquestionably have a very serious negative impact on the economy, not to mention the cruel effect of disrupting lives and separating families.
My anecdote: my law partner represents nearly all of the independent waste management (okay, garbage) companies in Northern California. Pretty much every garbage company is required to run a recycling facility that typically consists of long conveyor belts onto which all the recycling crap we throw out every week is dumped. The debris, much of which is pretty disgusting, moves along the conveyor belt while dozens of workers sort through the passing trash and put it in the appropriate receptacle (paper, plastic, boogers, etc.) all day long. Great job, right? And for this they might get the princely sum of $10/hour. As long as they provide an SS number, local laws prevent the employer from inquiring whether they’re undocumented, but most of them are. We know this because after anywhere from 2-5 months, the employer gets a notice from the feds that the SS number to which the worker’s pay was being allocated (and taxed) isn’t correct and a proper one needs to be provided. When the worker is alerted to this requirement, he/she never shows up for work the following day, presumably getting a job at another similarly enjoyable position elsewhere, and the taxes that were paid on the worker’s behalf go into the pot to pay your and my SS benefits, not hers or his. Get rid of all of these people and your garbage bill will jump, as will the cost of a lot of other goods and services.
Comment