In a weekly article entitled “Immigration reform and your wages”, columnist Gil Smart concludes:
“In a nation of immigrants, there will always be a moral argument for reform; I share those sentiments. But let’s be clear on the consequences: At a time when America needs a raise, immigration reform may amount to a pay cut.
“We don’t need more low-wage workers. What we need are better-wage jobs.”
WATCHDOG: Smart touches upon many significant factors in a well researched article and it should be read in full, but he misses some vital points and we differ with his conclusion.
For one, we need more young people and a higher birthrate if we are to be able to maintain Social Security at current levels. Without the influx of Latinos and our more prolific African American population, the USA would be in the same predicament as most of Europe with birth rate dropping precipitously and, without immigration from Africa, threatening to reduce national population by as much as half over the next few decades.
An even more important factor is how immigrants bring ambition and the second and third generations become better educated and more focus on succeeding. The USA needs ambitious families if we are to compete with the growing middle classes in Asia.
Smart is correct that unskilled and semi-skilled workers will have less opportunities and lower real wages. This is in part due to competition from abroad but just as much from the robotization of industry, where machines now perform the tasks hitherto performed by workers. Output and profits increase, but not employment.
In the future it will be the educated and the motivated who will refresh and sustain our country, as the progeny of incoming immigrants have done in the past.
In the future, work will need to be shared. Perhaps people will work shorter hours and start taking a month long vacation each year, as do other advanced countries.
And as wealth is further polarized with the top one percent (and especially top 1/10th of one percent) becoming richer and more isolated from the rest, we will need social programs that will help subsidize low level workers and to sustain this nation’s historic commitment to democracy.
