zlacker

>>tysone+(OP)
Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and demand.

>>tosser+aH
Illegal immigrants are 1% of the population in the U.S. It's used as a way to divide people rather than an actual serious issue.

>>nickth+fH
Pew Reasearch puts the number at 3.5%, which I think is quite high enough to impact growth. But downward wage pressure at the lowest sectors comes from both legal and illegal immigration.

It would be interesting to see what at short term lowering of immigration would have on wage growth.

>>tosser+RH
3.5% is a lot of pressure on housing --which is quite inelastic in demand but also very slow to respond to increased demand.

>>mc32+ZI
Furthermore those 3.5% are not divided randomly.

On the lowest rung of society, they're at least 50%. The higher you go the lower the percentage, and it drops off pretty fast.

>>candio+yY
Sorry, I'm confused by your statement, are you saying "at least" 50% of the lower class are immigrants?

>>toofy+CZ
No, I mean when it comes to the lowest of the low jobs, like hotel maid in terribly run bad hotel or garbage man, illegal immigrants represent almost a majority.

I don't have exact figures so I'm using 50% like "about half". I suspect though that it's only about half because some of them managed to legalize themselves, and in reality in these very bad jobs there's actually even more than that.