Another Bad Jobs Report -- The Issue Is Not Size of Economy But Quality of Citizens' Lives
New jobless claims in the U.S. jumped last week by 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 464,000, the most since February.
Yet, Congress and the Obama administration allow the importation of at least 125,000 working age aliens every month. And they are doing nothing about the 8 million illegal alien workers still holding jobs in this country.
Yet, nearly all journalists continue to refuse to ever mention the immigration numbers in the same story with unemployment numbers.
So, I was surprised when one reporter this week actually asked me to make the case how our immigration policy could be bad for U.S. workers.
After I explained, the reporter then noted that lots of experts disagree with me and say that immigration is good for the economy, making it bigger.
My answer?
I agree that the economy will be bigger as you add immigrants, but what matters is what happens to individual Americans. And that effect for 25 years has been stagnant or declining real wages for the working-class occupations."
It's not the size of a country's economy but the quality of its citizens' lives that should matter.
I get suspicious as soon as anybody starts talking about "the economy" instead of talking about "putting Americans back to work." I'm not opposed to helping "the economy," but only when the help is directly related to putting unemployed Americans back in jobs and improving the standard and quality of living for average Americans.
The fact is, that the economy can be made bigger and bigger to the great benefit of narrow special interests -- as has occurred during most of the last 25 years. But during that time, the average worker has not benefitted, and often has seen real wages, working conditions and benefits decline.
The President's continuing promises to create new jobs will not help American workers in any significant way unless our federal government stops importing new workers and starts cracking down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants with programs like E-Verify.
Most new job creation this year goes to just handle all the new foreign workers. How does that make sense?
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA