The Senator may not realise it, but much of the productivity growth in the US has come from technological breakthroughs of first or second generation immigrants. Short-sighted populism is what I would call this.
Why should an American worker give a damn about productivity? We just experienced a decade with robust productivity growth along with steadily declining standards of living. Improvements to productivity have almost exclusively benefited people who are already wealthy over the past 10 years. This may be slightly hyperbolic, but certainly not by much.
There are opinions being expressed here that American workers have a sense of entitlement, wanting to maintain their current standard of living. Well, what about American capital? Why do they feel a sense of entitlement to make their capital even more valuable via access to ever cheaper labor? Why do they feel a sense of entitlement to keep the standard of living their capital gives them, instead of having it taxed and distributed to others?
Ideologies are not ends unto themselves. The American people believe that driving down the cost of labor is not serving their interests now, and are not compelled by arguments that they should sacrifice their interests in homage to pure libertarianism. If those who think that the median citizen will benefit from increased immigration, make that argument in terms that addresses that citizen's self interest. That is how debate in a democracy is supposed to work.
> We just experienced a decade with robust productivity growth along with steadily declining standards of living.
This sentiment always confuses me. Granted, my experience is limited (memory only serves me for about the last 15 years), but it seems like things are getting better all the time. More people have more televisions, air conditioners, dishwashers, etc than ever before. Life expectancy is steadily increasing, food supply has become more or less a non-issue, etc. In what material dimension are we noteably worse off now than we were 20 years ago? I'm not trying to pick a fight, I'm honestly curious. The only thing that remotely comes to mind is the cost of higher education, which has been increasing in cost faster than wages grow.
> If those who think that the median citizen will benefit from increased immigration, make that argument in terms that addresses that citizen's self interest.
Just because incomes have "stagnated" (which also seems to depend on how you slice and dice the numbers), doesn't mean standard of living has gone down. The constantly decreasing prices of material goods plays just as much of a factor. My wages could be cut in half and I could still afford the same amount of TV screen as two years ago. Granted, not everything gets cheaper at the rate consumer electronics do, but cheap immigrant labor has a huge effect on the prices of stuff you buy all the time, which benefits you as well.
IIRC the areas where things are getting worse, or at least, not getting as good as the GDP statistics would lead one to believe, are:
[edited to incorporate some stuff from downthread]
- people with only a high-school education don't have the same job opportunities as they used to
- the employment sectors with the highest job growth are those that don't pay very well, e.g., janitorial work rather than automotive plants
- a lot of people who want full-time jobs can only find part-time work; people with full-time jobs are working more hours with less or stagnant vacation time
- more families in which both the husband and wife work out of economic necessity rather than choice
- the housing bubble caused many people to treat the appreciation in their home's value as a substitute for saving, and now that the bubble has burst that "wealth effect" is operating in reverse
- cost of health care rising significantly faster than inflation; higher premiums and copays for those with insurance, more economic risk for those without
I think some of these are 40-year trends rather than 20-year trends, but if you drill down into the quality-of-life statistics, I think these are the kinds of things to look for.
"In what material dimension are we noteably worse off now than we were 20 years ago?"
My window was 10 years.
"Just because incomes have "stagnated" (which also seems to depend on how you slice and dice the numbers), doesn't mean standard of living has gone down."
No, it just means standard of living has stagnated, too.
"The constantly decreasing prices of material goods plays just as much of a factor."
We've had a lot of inflation, up until the economy cratered.
Well my question still stands for 10 years. Of course, if the window gets too small it becomes meaningless. Progress is never constant and moderate, there are always bad times and good, as long as the long term trend is upward.
Real wages have stayed pretty flat, but housing costs have skyrocketed, we are working more hours and not getting more vacation, and healthcare remains abysmal.
We should protect people, not jobs. Basic health care for everyone, retraining opportunities, improve education, stuff like that, rather than trying to keep hard working people out.
Interesting. Who invented the transistor? the integrated circuit? Who created UNIX? Visicalc? MS Windows? ARPANET?
Maybe he thinks this issue affects the dearth of high-tech startups in Iowa. Maybe he cares about more Americans than just those living in his state. Sure, it's probably just vote pandering, but that isn't the only possibility.
