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In 2005, there were 3.8 million unemployed adult natives (18 to 64) with just a high school degree or less and another 19 million not in the labor force. Moreover, between 2000 and 2005 there was a significant deterioration in the labor market prospects of less-educated adult natives.
The labor force participation has fallen significantly for both natives without a high school degree and those with only a high school degree. Had it remained the same in 2005 as it had been in 2000, there would have been an additional 450,000 adults without a high school degree in the labor force and 1.4 million more adult natives with a only high school degree in the labor force.
This decline in particularly troubling because these workers already have lower labor force participation and higher unemployment than more educated workers. They also tend to be the poorest Americans. Among teenage natives (age 15 to 17), labor force participation has also declined.
At the same time that natives have been leaving the labor market, the number of immigrants with a high school degree or less in the labor force increased by 1.6 million. Wage growth among less-educated adult natives has also lagged well behind more-educated workers.
The argument that America needs illegal aliens and high levels of legal immigration only makes sense if one ignores the plight of less-educated native-born Americans. We find little evidence that immigrants only do jobs natives don’t want.
Detailed analysis of 473 separate occupations shows that there are virtually no jobs in which a majority of workers are immigrants, let alone illegal aliens. The overwhelming majority of workers in almost every single occupation, even the lowest-paid, are native-born.
We find some direct evidence that immigration has adversely impacted natives. In areas of the country with the largest increase in the number of less-educated immigrant workers, less-educated natives have seen the biggest decline in labor force participation. Native unemployment also tended to be the highest in occupations with the largest influx of new immigrants.
While it would be a mistake to assume that every job taken by an immigrant represents a job lost by a native, it would also be a mistake to think that dramatically increasing the number of less-educated immigrant workers has no impact on less-educated natives.
This study calls into the question the wisdom of proposals to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country, or to increase legal immigration still further. The plight of less-educated Americans has generally not been an important consideration for most political leaders in the ongoing debate over immigration. The findings of this report suggest that it should be.
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Numbers USA (http://www.numbersusa.com/interests/jobless.html - broken link)
I think wages could easily be raised if all the illegals were deported. Think about how much money gets wasted every year educating illegals in our public schools and paying for their healthcare in our hospitals. The illegal may only be getting paid $6/hour under-the-table cash, but with all the freebies they get at the expense of our system, they are getting alot of benefits for not having insurance or paying taxes. I punched some numbers and figured that an illegal gets about what comes to in the ballpark of $20-$30/hour in free benefits when they exploit our schools, hospitals, prisons, and social services the way they do. Reallocate all those wasted dollars back into the workforce and raise wages for Americans. I am sure you'll find plenty of Americans that would work for $25 an hour.
I have to agree that corporations are running our country. If the government was tougher and put CEO's in prison for hiring illegals or shut down large corporations at the drop of a hat, we wouldn't have the problems we have. Profit and domestic labor will come together at an optimal level the day CFO's, CEO's, and VP's start caring more about their country and fellow citizen than a yacht, mansion, and multi-million salary.
On a side note, my father was at a gas station filling up a few weeks back when a foreigner pulled in and hit my dad's car. The illegal didn't have insurance, so my father has a damaged car and will have to pay to $800-$1000 out of his own pocket to get it repaired. All the illegal did was say, "Me sorry. Me so sorry," in broken English. What a crime.
Yes, illegals cost more than they are worth - in terms of services like welfare and WIC, schooling for their children, and especially healthcare that we, the U.S. citizens, pay for. Not to mention more crime, and the ruin of our neighborhoods when 20 people pack into a small house, which, also, happens to be illegal (only a certain number of people per sq. footage allowed).
Who else is going to do it? Farm owners won't pay a lot of money for a simple job like that. And I think its probably about 80%.
40%...it does not matter. What matters is that the work Illegals are doing can be replaced by millions of American workers...DO NOT FORGET that when illegals are GONE there are that much less services/food/etc. that will not be needed, the work they do is expendable. America has got to stop buying into the big lie that we cannot do without them.
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