zlacker

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+(OP)
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+C
3.5% is a lot of pressure on housing --which is quite inelastic in demand but also very slow to respond to increased demand.

>>tosser+C
Aren't a lot of these immigrants doing highly skilled and highly paid labor? They don't depress wage growth for low paying jobs. And they actually increase demand for their products.

>>acchow+D7
You're conflating two groups. There are legal immigrants who stay, generally under the sponsorship of a company, and there are illegal immigrants who either come by illegally crossing the border, or by overstaying a legally obtained visa. Legal immigrants do tend to be highly skilled and relatively highly paid, though their wages are often lower than citizen workers in the same field - which can depress wages overall. Illegal immigrants by contrast tend to be involved in low skill and low pay labor, often done under the table.

Personally, I have nothing at all against the illegal sort. Day laborers, for instance, tend to be great workers and good people, happy to put in a hard day's work for a $50 and some good meals. At the same time though, I have to consider that this is really distorting the economy since it drags down wages for all people willing to do this work to that level, which is not really fair to people that want to make a living doing this work but want a higher standard of living, to raise a family, etc.

>>mc32+K1
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+jh
Sorry, I'm confused by your statement, are you saying "at least" 50% of the lower class are immigrants?

>>toofy+ni
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.

>>acchow+D7
Not illegals. You realize that as an illegal you cannot legally work in the states right? You have no documentation, so anywhere paying decent wages would never hire you, because it's illegal and would open them up to fines and other legal issues. The only places that are going to hire you are going to do it under the table, pay you extremely low wages, and basically take advantage of you because you have no power.