MYTH NO. 2

DACA has taken jobs from Americans.

In announcing the Trump administration’s decision this past week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that DACA “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens.” This myth even has a name in economics: the lump of labor fallacy. It supposes that the number of jobs in the economy is fixed, and that any increase in workers results in unemployment. Yet this notion is easily disproved. From 1970 to 2017, the U.S. labor force doubled. Rather than ending up with a 50 percent unemployment rate, U.S. employment doubled.

If adding workers made the economy poorer, we might expect that people would try to “free” themselves from competition by moving to a desolate mountain and making everything for themselves. That no one does so is an admission that competition is actually good. We depend on other workers, DACA recipients included, to buy the products and services we produce. That’s one reason earlier efforts to restrict immigration did not produce any wage gains.

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frankj1 wrote:

“[T]here’s no denying that many blacks share the same anxieties as many whites about the wave of illegal immigration flooding our Southern border—a sense that what’s happening now is fundamentally different from what has gone on before,” then-Senator Obama wrote in his 2006 autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.”

”Not all these fears are irrational,” he wrote.

“The number of immigrants added to the labor force every year is of a magnitude not seen in this country for over a century,” Obama noted. “If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole—especially by keeping our workforce young, in contrast to an increasingly geriatric Europe and Japan—it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.”

again, not expecting to change minds. But this bleeding heart piece is from a very conservative Libertarian. Surveys show that a strong majority of Americans from all parties and religions support having Congress make this work to keep the winners, pretty much as bipartisan agreement as America has on anything right now.

frankj1 wrote:

that is because we are now a country of men and feelings rather than laws
every amnesty bill will be the last, until it isnt
"think about the chillruns," works everytime
and if you disagree you are obviously a hate filled racist, rich, priveleged, etc...

gummy jones wrote:

I know Frank.

I don't think he actually read this.

The highlighted passage is irrelevant. Yet it's the crux of the authors "point".


Not only does the addition of illegal aliens make finding a job tougher, it also brings down the wages due to simple supply/demand.

To quote a friend of mine: "I know this won't change anyone's mind".
But it's the truth.

tailgater wrote:

Wage stagnation is a fact.

ZRX1200 wrote:

why would I read it?

frankj1 wrote:

that is because we are now a country of men and feelings rather than laws
every amnesty bill will be the last, until it isnt
"think about the chillruns," works everytime
and if you disagree you are obviously a hate filled racist, rich, priveleged, etc...

gummy jones wrote:

Perfectly stated.

tailgater wrote:

you do realize gummy is talking about a Libertarian on the Koch team, right?

frankj1 wrote:

I'll quote him exactly:
"...we are now a country of men and feelings rather than laws
every amnesty bill will be the last, until it isnt
"think about the chillruns," works everytime
and if you disagree you are obviously a hate filled racist, rich, priveleged, etc..."

I don't care if this was an excerpt from the Audacity of Hope.
It's it entirely true.

tailgater wrote:

yet your reaction to gumball's post was to blame lefties even more?
Okay.

frankj1 wrote: