MoneyWatch, September 12, 2013 has an article about a new employer-sponsored study by Duke public policy and economics professor Jacob Vigdor that claims “Immigrants are a key part of the American success story at the community level, revitalizing local areas and creating economic growth and jobs for U.S.-born workers.”
Among the assertions in the article is this by Jeremy Robbins, director of the Partnership for a New American Economy – one of the organizations that commissioned the study, “…communities with higher rates of immigration retain more manufacturing jobs than areas with fewer immigrants.”
Think about that. Which seems more logical; immigrants generate more manufacturing jobs, or manufacturing jobs attract more immigrant workers? If the latter is more likely, the statement by Robbins is senseless.
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Think about that. Which seems more logical; immigrants generate more manufacturing jobs, or manufacturing jobs attract more immigrant workers? If the latter is more likely, the statement by Robbins is senseless.
This is true, years ago, in Orange County a bottle making company located in Santa Ana, so they did not have to pay union wages like they did in Michigan. In fact, La-Orange outside of aerospace employed thousands of immigrants mainly Hispanic and some Asian whether they were legal or illegality in the US until these jobs were shipped overseas. Loretta Sanchez district was hit more by manufacturing lost in the past 10 years than wealthier districts that covered South Orange County. Manufacturing has recently insource some of the jobs that went overseas in garment- work (sewing ) and food processing these two industries the past 30 years have used a lot of immigrants, legal or illegal.
If immigration were the goose that laid the golden egg, California would be the shining example. The most number of immigrants, both in sheer numbers and percentage of total population. But what has their economy been for many years? Unemployment rates that have been 1 1/2 to 2 percentage points above the national average since the mid 2000s.
And while a lot of people are crowing about their “balanced budget”, the fact is this year’s budget was only balanced by, yet again, raising taxes. It’s already one of the most taxed states in the country and a lot of people who are no more than middle class incomes are paying a very large percentage in state income taxes. Which is why many are leaving.
You see people saying Texas will soon be “blue” due to the increase in Hispanics. Then what? Another state soaking the taxpayers dry to pay for every social program under the sun for the families of immigrants? Which is another bogus argument. Those who say “immigrants don’t get welfare” ignore the fact that in general citizens don’t get it for themselves, but their families. So saying they can’t get welfare themselves as immigrants is a distinction without a difference. The taxpayers are still paying to support their American born children. Apply and it’s rubberstamped. How blind do you have to be to not see this?
The State of Texas has recently started advertising on TV to lure businesses from Maryland to Texas. They tout their more “business-friendly” environment. It’s worth noting that Texas’s prosperity, built largely on oil and new ways to extract it, is tempered by having THREE of the ten poorest counties in the country, largely thanks to illegal immigration.
It’s simple math. The Hispanic population is growing rapidly and they will vote Democratic and it will become another California which is anything but business friendly.