Shouldn’t we address why population growth is so stagnant in our population to require constant immigration to boost our population? Why are so many people having fewer and fewer children? Could it be that housing, food, everything is skyrocketing in price and yet wages haven’t increased in decades?
You do realize that these things go hand in hand, no? Capitalists needwant cheap labor, so they exploit immigrants, in turn driving down wages for everyone.
Edit: I received some criticism as though I’m suggesting “immigrants are taking our jobs” - that’s wrong. I’m only saying that capitalists are exploiting a vulnerable population, which in turn creates more wage stagnation as the market is flooded with cheap labour.
I’m very pro-immigration, but I try to understand the nuance it has on the job market.___
This is a short sighted view. Immigrants don’t just “take a job”. They also require food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, etc, all the things that create demand, the actual job creator. To the extent that our immigration suppresses wages, it’s because we bring many of them in as TFWs. If we just made it easy for them to get citizenship rather than forcing them into an easily exploitable position wage suppression would be much less of an issue.
Holy, straw man argument much? You took one sentence, misinterpreted it, and spiraled it into a complete made-up narrative.
My only point is flooding the market with cheap labor has a ripple effect that brings down wages as a whole, not just for those being exploited. Nothing I said suggests that immigrants are to blame by “taking our jobs”.
TFWs aren’t the only way immigrants are being exploited, that is short sighted. There’s also PGWP propped up by phony trade schools and community colleges. TFWs give capitalists leverage, but it’s not the whole problem.
My only point is flooding the market with cheap labor has a ripple effect that brings down wages as a whole, not just for those being exploited. Nothing I said suggests that immigrants are to blame by “taking our jobs”.
Please. People who use Marxist language to justify their xenophobia are the fakest “leftists”.
Elizabeth Warren wrote a book about this issue 2 decades ago: The Two Income Trap.
It used to be that you could afford a mortgage on 1 income. Now you can’t even afford it on 2. The explosion of 2 income households has made it much harder to compete in the bidding wars for housing.
At the same time, homeowners (NIMBYs) go to city hall and fight tooth and nail to protect their investments by blocking new housing development. It’s this horrible cycle of ladder pulling.
I haven’t read, but read a brief summary. Thanks for sharing.
It felt unintuitive to me at first. Why would two incomes be more risky than a single income? But yeah if one of those two become incapicated/unable to find work… you are screwed since you need both. Single income you essentially have a backup (assuming they can find work)
So, reduced work week would free up needed time and reduce convenience costs, but families are still exposed.
But I don’t want to go back to a single income household at a societal level (doesn’t sound like EW did either). Tricky.
God I wouldn’t have the energy to raise kids. I work, my wife works, and working to pay someone else to raise my kids that I only see when I finish work sounds like shit.
I wonder if people realize that if we were to (as a thought experiment) get rid of all immigration but replace that entirely with homegrown birth rates, it would exacerbate the “problems” with population growth far more than doing it with immigration. Instead of bringing in working people who can start contributing to the economy essentially immediately, we would be bringing in children who would be drains on our resources for the next 18 years until we can educate them and get them into productive roles. The benefit of immigration is that some other country pours the resources into turning a child into a productive adult and then we reap the rewards.
I’m not saying immigration is good or bad, just that it’s a symptom not a cause of an underlying issue.
Also, how many uber drivers have you met that are doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc waiting for their certification to be validated before they can work? It’s anecdotal but I’ve met a lot of immigrants with professional degrees driving for uber because they can’t work for months to years because they need to get recertified/authorized.
Shouldn’t we address why population growth is so stagnant in our population to require constant immigration to boost our population? Why are so many people having fewer and fewer children? Could it be that housing, food, everything is skyrocketing in price and yet wages haven’t increased in decades?
You do realize that these things go hand in hand, no? Capitalists
needwant cheap labor, so they exploit immigrants, in turn driving down wages for everyone.Edit: I received some criticism as though I’m suggesting “immigrants are taking our jobs” - that’s wrong. I’m only saying that capitalists are exploiting a vulnerable population, which in turn creates more wage stagnation as the market is flooded with cheap labour.
I’m very pro-immigration, but I try to understand the nuance it has on the job market.
___I absolutely agree with you there. We need immigration, but it has to be controlled so that wages can climb to a reasonable level.
This is a short sighted view. Immigrants don’t just “take a job”. They also require food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, etc, all the things that create demand, the actual job creator. To the extent that our immigration suppresses wages, it’s because we bring many of them in as TFWs. If we just made it easy for them to get citizenship rather than forcing them into an easily exploitable position wage suppression would be much less of an issue.
Yes, businesses these days do tend to operate on a very short-sighted model. Usually not much longer than next quarters profits.
Holy, straw man argument much? You took one sentence, misinterpreted it, and spiraled it into a complete made-up narrative.
My only point is flooding the market with cheap labor has a ripple effect that brings down wages as a whole, not just for those being exploited. Nothing I said suggests that immigrants are to blame by “taking our jobs”.
TFWs aren’t the only way immigrants are being exploited, that is short sighted. There’s also PGWP propped up by phony trade schools and community colleges. TFWs give capitalists leverage, but it’s not the whole problem.
Please. People who use Marxist language to justify their xenophobia are the fakest “leftists”.
This is definitely a contributor, but declining fertility rates isn’t a new thing.
I think the largest problem is average hours worked per parent has been increasing for 60 plus years.
We need more full time jobs at 30 hours a week or so.
Elizabeth Warren wrote a book about this issue 2 decades ago: The Two Income Trap.
It used to be that you could afford a mortgage on 1 income. Now you can’t even afford it on 2. The explosion of 2 income households has made it much harder to compete in the bidding wars for housing.
At the same time, homeowners (NIMBYs) go to city hall and fight tooth and nail to protect their investments by blocking new housing development. It’s this horrible cycle of ladder pulling.
and she did nothing about it.
What did you expect her to do about it?
I haven’t read, but read a brief summary. Thanks for sharing.
It felt unintuitive to me at first. Why would two incomes be more risky than a single income? But yeah if one of those two become incapicated/unable to find work… you are screwed since you need both. Single income you essentially have a backup (assuming they can find work)
So, reduced work week would free up needed time and reduce convenience costs, but families are still exposed.
But I don’t want to go back to a single income household at a societal level (doesn’t sound like EW did either). Tricky.
God I wouldn’t have the energy to raise kids. I work, my wife works, and working to pay someone else to raise my kids that I only see when I finish work sounds like shit.
Depends on where you are. My wife and I work 100 hours a week easy
I wonder if people realize that if we were to (as a thought experiment) get rid of all immigration but replace that entirely with homegrown birth rates, it would exacerbate the “problems” with population growth far more than doing it with immigration. Instead of bringing in working people who can start contributing to the economy essentially immediately, we would be bringing in children who would be drains on our resources for the next 18 years until we can educate them and get them into productive roles. The benefit of immigration is that some other country pours the resources into turning a child into a productive adult and then we reap the rewards.
I’m not saying immigration is good or bad, just that it’s a symptom not a cause of an underlying issue.
Also, how many uber drivers have you met that are doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc waiting for their certification to be validated before they can work? It’s anecdotal but I’ve met a lot of immigrants with professional degrees driving for uber because they can’t work for months to years because they need to get recertified/authorized.