The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media
“Postcards from the great American labor shortage: A couple arrives at the Seattle airport after a five-hour flight and stands in line at the car rental desk. People are angry. At the desk sits a harassed employee explaining that he simply has no cars of any kind to rent. Nothing. Why? There aren’t enough employees on hand to vacuum, wash, fuel and process the cars. . . .
“And, as you may have noticed, everything is much more expensive.
“The reasons for this are multifactorial. Plunging demand for cars during the pandemic, for example, induced the industry to slow down its production. It takes time to ramp back up. The inflation we’re experiencing is partially a result of the government flooding too much cash into people’s accounts, compounded by COVID-induced supply chain shocks and the disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“But the one factor we discuss too little is immigration. . . . . But we’ve long had people thronging the Mexican border. What we haven’t seen in many decades is a serious decline in the number of legal immigrants-a decline that is a big factor in all the things Americans dislike about how things are going right now. . . .
“Trump began his squeeze on immigrants in 2017 with a ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries and followed up with drastic reductions in the number of green cards issued, the number of refugees admitted (a shameful policy choice) and the number of legal immigrants processed. . . .
“Where is the outrage that we are turning away highly skilled immigrants who could make the difference in our competition with China? Wouldn’t an ‘America first’ policy capitalize on our desirability as a destination for the talented instead of slamming our doors? Wouldn’t we be welcoming those who will create the key technologies for the future, like artificial intelligence? . . .
“But Trump distorted the Republican party into a xenophobic, blinkered cult that wrongly sees immigrants as a drain instead of a boon. So the question Republicans must answer today is: How do you like this immigrant-starved America? How do you like the shortages, the inflation and the poor service? Because this is what comes of nativism.” – An ‘America First’ Immigration Policy, Mona Charen, The Bismark Tribune, 8/9/22 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: Those who warn about a “labor shortage” seldom cite a significant benefit it provides, namely, higher wages and better working conditions for American workers. For quite some time, corresponding with our current wave of mass immigration, the wage levels of U.S. workers have stagnated. This particularly has been the case with low-wage U.S. workers who face direct competition from immigrants.
The principle involved is the economic law of supply and demand. When the supply of a factor is limited (in this case labor), the price for it (wages) tends to increase. In practice it works like this: When employers compete for a limited supply of workers, they must raise wages and improve conditions at work to attract the workers they want.
Many employers will do whatever they can to avoid this kind of competition. They want to keep profits high by limiting expenditures on wages and other outlays. For them, mass immigration is an ideal solution to maximize profits. But for workers, native-born and foreign-born, the consequence is a low wage economy. Low wages cause many of these workers to need public assistance. This assistance is a form of corporate welfare, a subsidy from taxpayers to employers. The decline of immigration under Trump was short-lived, but it was long enough to boost wages significantly for low-income Americans.
The proclaimed shortage or workers is not so dire as its promoters claim. Many Americans of working age have dropped out of the labor force and are not officially counted as unemployed. A high-wage policy of limiting immigration could draw many of these people back into the labor force. A higher wage level could also prompt employers to substitute automation (computers and machinery) for human workers.
Our mass immigration policies harm skilled citizens as well as low-wage and unskilled Americans. We don’t need to import foreigners with skills because we have plenty of talented and qualified people already. Once again, employers prefer immigrants because their numbers depress wages.
Mona Charen seems to think that America First means putting the interests of U.S. economic elites and foreigners ahead of those of most Americans. In contrast, a true America First policy would promote a high wage economy for all U.S. workers—so that even our most unskilled people can earn a decent living. Charen can call such a policy “xenophobic” if she likes. The mass immigration she advocates is Ameri-phobic.