A New York Times article is citing a case in Arizona where a contractor specializing in “high-end” homes has complained that doing without immigrant labor on a current project would add $116,000 to his labor budget of $1.29 million — an increase of 17 percent.
Where will that money go? Into the pockets of American workers. Steven Camarota, of the Center for Immigration Studies, responds, “Why is that so bad?” He added:
In this particular example … someone in the top 1 percent or 1/10 of 1 percent can afford that house, but they’re going to have to pay some more for it. Yet at the same time, working class Americans– bricklayers, concrete workers, carpenters, what have you — are going to make more money. So it seems like a really good redistribution of income from the very top to more middle-income people. That would be good.
The Times, although a long-time self-identified aupporter of labor over capital, evidently has pivoted to the other side, opposing wage increases if they mean fewer Democrat voters foreigners in the work force. Camarota adds:
In general, a larger share of [national income] has been going, over time, to owners of capital. And I think it’s one of the sources of dissatisfaction, indirectly, for the working class. Less immigration then is most definitely good for the working class, including the immigrant working class. . . .
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