Economist's New Study: Immigration Is A Factor In Jobless Recovery
One of the key factors cited by Northwestern University Economist Robert J. Gordon for why our economic recovery isn't lowering the unemployment rate is the competition from immigrant workers. His new study is being referenced in the weekly column by Newsweek's Robert Samuelson. But no sign yet that political leaders in Washington might try to help unemployed Americans by reducing immigrant labor competition.
Samuelson notes that corporations are sitting on vast piles of money but aren't investing the money in ways to put 25 million U-6 unemployed Americans back to work. He suggests that the biggest reason is that corporate executives draw a much larger percentage of their compensation through stock options than through direct pay, relative to the past.
But he further describes the results of Prof. Gordon's new study:
"Gordon cites weaker unions and more competition from both imports and immigrants as subverting workers' bargaining power.
The United States currently has about 40 million foreign born living here. That is a huge amount of imported job competition.
And your U.S. Congress has insisted during two years of jobs depression that the federal government continued to import 75,000 permanent working-age immigrants EVERY MONTH.
The 40 million includes 8 million illegal workers which the Obama Administration has made clear it will fight in almost any court to ensure that they keep their jobs.
All of these facts, according to Gordon and Samuelson, add to the conditions that make it unlikely that the 25 million Americans who can't find a full-time job will be successful any time soon.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA