If California’s economy can’t survive without illegal immigrants, whose problem is that?

Justin, I think I understand your overall point about: “…some discussion about whether California’s economy–and in particular its agricultural sector–really ought to exist in its present form”, especially considering the doomsday perspective of Rex Laird.

BUT I do believe he has a point and I would like to read your examples of how it could be positive, such as an improved immigration policy – to provide the necessary workforce for these positions would be ideal; but as we’ve seen time and again, a significant portion of the population just does not believe that.

As much as there is a demand for individuals to work in these roles, employers are unwilling to increase wages – Walmart comes to mind – to the level that Americans desire. And if employers are forced to take that drastic step, I don’t believe they’ll swallow all of the cost and inevitably we’ll see it passed to the consumer. (Umm haven’t we seen that overall wages are increases much slower?)

In some ways I hope they do, if anything to force the reality on Americans of the value of these positions and their own unwillingness to work in them. You just can’t have cheap products and services without the cheap expenses to produce them.

I guess the day may come that Americans will have to ask themselves is it worth the hit in prices to have the type of stringent immigration policy so many demand – or will they finally realize, you need someone willing to work those jobs and its not going to be the average Joe Citizen so better get someone else to do it.

HELLO…..I agree with ymm…what the movie “A day without a MEXICAN”

People act is if the price increase won’t be offset elsewhere. The amount of money we pay in inefficient government managed social programs for the welfare of illegal immigrants will offset the cost of produce and dish washing services. The current system has the middle-class tax payer subsidizing (via social programs and infrastrucutre) labor intensive business, and the middle-class tax payer should never have been put in this situation in the first place.

The mainstream media (aside from maybe Lou Dobbs) never focuses on the fact that immigration is really only a bad thing because of the existence of the welfare state. The welfare state is at the core of the battle here, since that is where the overwhelming financial burden comes from. If the immigrants can exist here without dependence on the state, by all means we should have more. If they can’t, deport them.

Too simplistic Rod. Your assumption is that the welfare state in fact provides disproportionately for illegal immigrants. It’d be interesting to see if you have any legitimate studies that can demonstrate that is in fact the case.

But here is a simple economic consideration. The cost of a price of a product is based on the value of expenses incurred to produce the specific product. There are several components to this, but the most critical is the cost of the materials that make up a product and the resources – usually human – used to create the product. As the cost of human labor increases, employers constantly have to determine whether they will pass such a cost to their customer or take a cut in their profit margin. Most employers will not take the cut in margin unless necessary.

Also keep in mind that those cost savings in a welfare state are not always guaranteed in a tax refund if I understand your thinking. Instead its very likely that tax rates are maintained, we pay the same, and government simply applies those savings into other government funded programs – ahem – such as a war. Considering the cuts we enjoyed under Bush, we in turn are also dealing with some of the largest deficits in recent memory – and if you check the budget, our dear GOP friends have also cut several welfare programs. So they can cut further, but inevitably to pay off those deficits a future Congress will have to raise taxes.

So before we see any savings in a reduced Welfare state, we’re likelier to see much higher prices in products that depend on the cheap labor of immigration – illegal or otherwise.

It’s easy to blame a bogeyman like illegal immigrants, but its hard to refute the numbers.

On another tangent, Justin have you read this interesting piece in NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/business/yourmoney/19view.html?ref=yourmoney

I’m curious what your take is on this.

The meat packing industry use to have union wages and benefits – ie living wages. Now most barely pay minimum with no benefits. Where did these middle class jobs go? To illegal immagrants, the augument of there are no Americans willing to do the job is bogus. This is the first decade were the majority of American’s have had their real wages go down – the economy is good – if you are in the top 1% , there are lots of new jobs, if you like minimum wage and no benefits. And yes this is the fault of immigration and the flood of workers, not of lazy middle/lower income Americans – which is how the media likes to depick them. Meat packing use to pay well, construction use to pay well -

It is one of the causes of the growing gap in income between the top 1% and everyone else. A gap that hasn’t been this big since the 1920′s. It is not good for our economy in the long run, and it is not good for the majority of American Citizens – unfortantly the government doesn’t reflect the interest of the majority, but of the wealthy. This is very much a class issue, since illegal immigrants benefit one class of people in this country, but compete against, and lower wages, and benefits for all the other classes.

People vote for their interest, they are not stupid, but since the media also tends to represent the wealthly, they tend to say most people are stupid and don’t understand the economics and that illegals are good for the economy as whole. No, we get it really, in our paychecks.

Look Justin … “massive lawbreaking ?” maybe we should change the law ?? Might that be a better solution than changing the economy ?

This is another issue where most Americans don’t have the foggiest notion how there country works. We have always relied on the influx of immigrants to fill jobs that you could call entry level. They have built railroads, canals, roads, tend animals, raise food, fight wars and died. As the immigrants stay on their children are educated and moved up into the working and middle classes. That process is still at work and our economy is reliant as ever on it. Those who entered the country illegally now fill 5%-8% of the jobs in this country. In some sectors the percentage runs as high as 80%-90%. If every unemployed person in this country would take a job now filled by an Illegal worker there would still be millions of unfilled positions. How much would it cost to lure a teenager working at MacDonalds on to a roof in the summer to spread Hot tar? Where I live in Texas the price of labor to build the average house would at least double and maybe triple if all illegals were gone. Who could afford them then? The inflation rate would skyrocket as millions of job openings would force employers to double and triple their pay in a fierce competition for workers. This would be good for those low end workers but the economy would shut down due to double digit inflation and would contract as consumers who have less cash due to inflation would spent less. Within a few years businesses would fail and millions would lose their jobs from two things the fact that there are 5%-8% less consumers spending money on rent, food, electricity, cars, gasoline or clothes etc. Then any gain wages those still working get is eaten away by inflation. The loss of all the wealth creation that that 12 millions workers are responsible for would disappear. We might see a up to a 5% contraction in the size of our economy which might be on scale as the market contraction of the late 1920′s. This is a freemarket capitalist economy, if there is a demand the market will try to fill it and there is a huge demand still for labor and a healthy economy will always create jobs. How are we going to fill them?

you people will never get it.

It’s the numbers, numbers, numbers~

What happens when the economy takes a dive?What will all these people do to support themselves?

Answer: more welfare benefits!!

I’m just glad the San Francisco Chronicle still gets delivered to our door every morning and can start such highly intelligent debates.

I need to ask someone; anyone who knows the answer to this question: How much money do mexican immigrants put into social security, if any? I watched a documentary called wetback on the sundance channel and it was said that immigrants put in about 15 billion dollars a year. is this true? write me at dariuscrss@yahoo.com if this amount is so and SS is being taken out of their checks, where does this money go.(I know it does not go back to them because we are to busy trying to kick them out.) Is there a law against trying to make a better life for you and your family? sounds like it may be and if that is the case, then every caucasian person from brits, to irish, to who ever (white) should be shipped back to where they came from. for those of you who would think that my comments are racial, they are not. racism is an act of hate; telling the truth(the real truth) about past history is not. for all of those(black,white,whatever) who say the sickening phrase ‘ some my best friends are(black,white,whatever)’answer this question: how many of these ‘best friends’ come to your house? If your child came to the house or crib with a person that was of another color, would you except? see, i ask these questions because immigrant bashing is rasism. you got people in arizona and abroad willing to kill a person for wanted to make a better life for themselves and their families. they are willing to die to see it happen for themselves and the families. I would except my child no matter what color person he or she brought into our house and i am a proud BLACK woman. PROUD!if you took to long to answer, i bet my life it’s NO> God bless the world because we are going to need it. i almost agree with the individual who wanted ‘in God we trust’ off the money or anywhere else it is posted. not because i don’t believe in God; it is because we are not trusting in God; correction: i believe in Him. i am a child of God because he told me on aug. 4 2002 when he told me it is time for me to change and work for Him. He changed me. ilove every race on this earth because God does and hHe told me to do so.NOLA

First, there are plenty of studies that show that illegal immigrants are, in fact, have a negative economic impact on the US. Bears Sterns is one that comes to mind, but there are others that I read. Google it if you do not believe it. Basically, you have to include the cost of education, infrastructure, and policing. For example, each illegal immigrant child (or American citizen born to illegal immigrants) costs the state of California over $10,000 to educate per year. Add to that healthcare, etc and you get the point.

What illegal immigrants do is to depress the wages paid to low skill jobs. This displaces the low skilled native born americans. Where do these go? Basically, in the underground market and on the government wellfare network.