on 10/15/11, all illegal aliens leave the U.S., either by choice or by force. Let’s iclude those who are incarcerated. They are released and deported. This is neither pro- nor anti-immigration, take it as a given with no judgment attached.
So…what happens on 10/16/11?
What real effect will there be on social services, the education system, the prison system, the economy?
Obviously there would be some savings because of fewer people incarcerated, in the public school system, in emergency rooms…
But we would also lose a fair amount of our work force, tax revenue and an awful lot of customers.
There was a piece on the Daily Show about farmer not having enough farm workers to harvest his crop. its The Daily Show, so it’s comedy, but I can imagine the impact in California if there were no one to pick the crops. Is this a job that Americans will do? If so, they certainly wouldn’t do it for the same price. Would the price of strawberries skyrocket? etc…
Well, for one, the price of produce would skyrocket. You are definitely right about that. Also, the cost of dining out, as there would be a lack of dishwashers, line cooks and other support staff in restaurants. Ditto for construction costs.
The simple fact is that there are loads of illegals that work at below minimum wage in a lot of industries. You fill those positions with people working at 3 to 5 times as much pay, you increase the cost and therefore the end price.
The unpleasant truth is you need a certain number of illegals unless you are willing to pay a great deal more for a whole lot of things.
You don’t precisely “Need a certain number of illegals.” You need a certain number of workers to achieve a certain market-clearning wage price.
If you dramatically reduce the labour pool, you will dramatically jack up the cost of wages in theory. Since illegal immigrants tend to pool in lower-wage jobs, the price of low wage jobs in general would rise dramatically - in theory.
In reality it wouldn’t even be that smooth. You’d have gaping problems of inefficiency, since labour doesn’t move instantly. Some companies might go bankrupt because their production would be so disrupted. Even companies that employed no illegals at all might be blown out of business because they’d lose a large number of customers who suddenly left the country. So you’d see wages at the low end, and the price of many goods and services, become wildly unpredictable, and some businesses would collapse. Some goods would skyrocket in price while others would not; it would take quite some time for the market to catch up. It’d be quite a lot of unpredictable economic disruption.
The effect would be the same if you removed any large pool of randomly chosen workers who were overwhelmingly in low wage jobs.
Incidentally, most illegals do not work for wages substantially below minimum, but it really doesn’t matter; take away a large number of workers and wages will go up and crazy stuff will happen.
No, it wouldn’t, because farm labor is not a large percentage of the retail price of produce. While farmworkers comprise 30% of the production cost to the farmer, his total costs comprise only 19% of the retail price. So farmworker wages make up only 6% of the retail price of fresh produce.
The problem is, though, we are seeing farm labor shortages from anti-illegal immigration crackdowns. Alabama and Georgia, which just passed strict laws cracking down on illegal immigration, are seeing some pretty severe labor shortages, especially in agriculture and construction:
Exactly. It doesn’t matter what the cost of the labor is if most of the crop is left rotting in the fields.
I know it’s not a job I could do, no matter what the pay was. I go to the local pick-your-own a few times a year for various crops–berries, cherries, apples, etc.–and pay for the privilege of bending over a lot (for berries at least) and harvesting fruit. Normally I’m totally sick of it after about one container and would probably be in a lot of pain if I had to do it to get paid by the piece as I’m not in shape for that kind of thing.
Don’t have a lot of farms here in the big city, but yes, we’d lose a lot of waiters and dishwashers and in this neighborhood, tons of construction and retail workers with charming Irish brogues. And bartenders!
If you’re extending the term “illegal aliens” to mean everyone who, due to expired visas or non-work ones, shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing where they’re doing it, lots of students wouldn’t show up for classes from kindergarten to doctorate programs. I also think people would be surprised at the numbers of grandparents and old aunts and uncles who would vanish.
This was already the premise for a movie (OK, technically the premise was that all the Latinos in California disappeared, and I am well aware that most are legal - but most illegals are Latino and the gist of the OP’s question was the point of the film).
Suddenly there would be a dire need for labor in so many professions that they cannot be listed.
This need for labor would inevitably result in a steep rise in the proffered wages for these jobs, and then the legal unemployed would take them.
The prices of material goods and services would rise to reflect the new wage balance.
I am fine with this, because I would like to think that the price I pay for my daily bread fully compensates the people who baked it.
I do not care to pay lower prices if those prices are driven down through the exploitation of workers who have no other choice but to accept the non-living wage that illegal immigration fosters.
But how long do you think you could afford your daily bread if it cost 3, 4, maybe 5 times what it costs now? I know for a fact that my family would last maybe a week, then really end up struggling.
Unemployment is 9.1% and has been for the last three months. This translates into 14 million people out of work. Plus, This figure does not take into account underemployment, those that are working fewer hours. There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country, some of which are children. Therefore there are enough out-of-work Americans to take the jobs that are vacated. In 2009 in Maricopa County according to news radio (FWIW), most of the report to INS of illegal immigrants were legal citizens working as day laborers losing employment opportunities.
Some of you are recycling the unfounded assumption that illegal aliens fill jobs that legal residents won’t do such as berry picking, dishwashing, etc. Has it ever occurred to you that people do want these jobs but are not hired because the employer knows they can pay less by hiring illegals? The cites about the loss of farm workers is telling, but what does it tell? I suspect it tells us that illegal immigrants are cheaper than machines which are themselves cheaper than minimum wage. You also ignore possibilities of reimplementing legal visa programs such as the bracero program if you are right and certain jobs cannot be filled.
The real impact would be on things everyone consumes such as gasoline (and highway taxes), consumer goods (like groceries) and so on. But lets examine the numbers, there are around 11 million illegal immigrants in the US out of a population of 312 million. If that number included all illegal immigrants, then they make up just over 3.5% of the population. In effect, you would lose 3.5% of the consumption in this country which may be made up for in the increased cumsumption of Americans returning to work to fill those jobs.
Also, one needs to take into account that the illegal immigration population is not uniform. In places like North Dakota, deporting the 6 illegal immigrants from Canada probably will not have much impact but in places like California, Arizona, Texas, etc. it would have a real impact on the economy. The state would save significant money in social programs that are per consumer. Questions would have to be answered such as keeping the education budget the same so CitizenPained can keep their job or keeping the cost per student the same and spendong that money somewhere else. At the same time, the cities/counties/state would lose revenue in taxes. A significant number of houses would become abandoned contributing to even lower prices.
Also as you see in places like Georgia that are having a crackdown, you don’t just lose the illegal immigrants. You lose the friends and family that leave with them, either to stay with them or out of fear of racial persecution.
Prices would never climb by such astronomical amounts. Your family would have work available. Not great work, but work. The wage would reflect living wage in your neighborhood, not whatever the “living wage” was in the ghetto that your illegal counterpart fled from.
Of course not, wages will go up and part of that cost will be borne by the consumer but considering that labor costs are such a small cost of the final product, there would be a slight increase in prices if any at all.
I find it hard to believe that a benefit of illegal immigration is to keep the price of consumables down. You just ate a $15 meal at your favorite restaurant. How much more expensive would that meal have been if the dishwashers were paid minimum instead of illegal wages? What about the cost of biulding your house if electricians and not illegal immigrants ran the wiring? How much would that raise the final price?
Apparently, there’s a great deal of unemployment among poor minority (not necessarily Hispanic) youth…and these kids want jobs. Most of them would be able to do things like bussing tables and washing dishes and, during summer or weekends, doing fieldwork. It was pretty common, in fact, for kids to take these sorts of jobs when my mother was a kid, she told me that she had to pick cotton during the summers when she was young.
I think that there IS a labor pool that’s being underutilized.
I’ll grant you, teenagers shouldn’t be working in heavy construction or dangerous factory jobs, but there are also plenty of adults who are here legally who are unemployed, too.
This probably is not even in the realm of possibility for many who think that immigrants are hired just because they are willing to work for less, but it’s also because they are frequently better and more skilled workers with better job-specific education for particular work. They are highly qualified to work in those jobs while there are very few qualified and educated Americans making themselves available for them.
There was a time an American could presume they were among the most educated, skilled, well-trained, and valuable employees in the world (incorrect then, but closer to the truth than it is today). That is not presumed anymore as the global community gets smaller and job specific training becomes more available to more people worldwide. We cut our vocational training programs while other countries have invested in theirs. We may not like to accept that an ‘illegal’ got the job because they are better at math and writing than our kids, have had more specific experience and job training than our kids, and on top of that, are willing to work much harder and for lower pay than our kids.
Recently some business leaders from foreign countries that the US would like to have investing in US jobs met with the State Department to discuss why it is undesirable for them to do so.
Many of the reasons foreign companies find American workers too expensive for what skills and education they bring to the jobs are among the same reasons US employers find immigrant labor more effective and profitable. This is the case even if they get paid the same as American labor.