The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has put up a website giving what it calls “10 Immigration Facts Everyone Can Agree To.” The so-called facts are both falsehoods and half-truths. Here is their #2:
U.S. Chamber’s Myth: “The sluggish U.S. Economy doesn’t need more immigrant workers.”
U.S. Chamber’s Fact: “Immigrants will replenish the U.S. labor force as millions of Baby Boomers retire.”
FAIR’s Fact: With the nation’s high unemployment and underemployment, the national focus should be on creating jobs for those workers rather than on importing more workers looking for jobs. Baby Boomers are increasingly being let go by their employer before they are ready to retire and replaced with foreign workers. As a result, these unemployed Baby Boomers are increasingly taking lower wage service jobs in competition with younger workers looking for their first jobs. The law of supply and demand still applies: increase the supply of workers and wages will stagnate or go down. This was explicitly stated in the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate’s immigration reform bill (S. 744). Lower wages were forecast as a result of enacting the bill for the next 18 years.