Who would replace immigrant workers? | Tim Rowland … – Herald-Mail Media

In the summer of 1835, a band of 400 unemployed semiskilled men in Washington, D.C., known as the Mechanics, roamed the streets, drinking heavily and looking for someone to blame for their misfortunes.

Their plight was exacerbated by the nominally free work performed by slaves and free blacks. The Mechanics were agitated at the sight of black men going to work every day, doing jobs that they felt were rightfully theirs. Rather than blame slave owners or the institution of slavery itself, the Mechanics blamed the slaves, and went on a two-week rampage, destroying African-American schools, churches and restaurants. Only when they burned a brothel did greater Washington decide they were carrying things too far.

Labor issues are always complex, and even labor and wage theory advanced by the best minds can, in practice, turn out to be flawed. But as we push more immigrants out the door, a few matters are worthy of consideration.

Those who agitate for a higher minimum wage should actually be pleased. Reducing the supply of labor will drive up the cost of work, meaning that wages at the lower end of the scale will go up. Conversely, opponents of raising the minimum wage who support deportation are at cross purposes. Apparently, the obvious still needs to be stated: You cant suppress wages and the labor force simultaneously.

Perhaps youve noticed that some of the loudest voices for deportation have now grown silent as it occurs to them that they will need to financially compete for workers. If they can get workers at all.

We have long complained that immigrants are taking jobs from native American workers. Now, well get to see if thats true or not. It stands to reason that at some wage point, American workers will agree to harvest lettuce and pick chickens. But that didnt happen in the post-war South, where certain work, such as hoeing cotton, was branded as slave work and more than a few poor whites thought it better to go hungry than to labor in the furrows where black feet had trod.

This meant that those in need of labor had to get creative. Sheriffs arrested black men under the slightest pretext, or no pretext, and threw them in jail where they were effectively sold out to corporations and forced to work the fields, mines or foundries. This form of what Douglas Blackmon of the Wall Street Journal called neoslavery endured for 80 years after the war.

It remains to be seen what will happen when todays industries face the inevitable shortage of bottom-rung labor. Those who wish to see an end to the welfare state might argue that able-bodied people now on the dole would have a choice: do the work or lose your benefits.

This is an understandable position. Unemployment benefits should not be so high that they discourage a person from getting a job; but withholding benefits altogether and forcing a person to accept wages that do not pay for food, shelter and clothing is a form of slavery unto its own.

And it has yet to be worked out how populations of unemployed can be moved hundreds or thousands of miles to where the work is.

No matter what, we will see the effects of deportation in the prices of some of our most basic products, such as produce and poultry, and in the cost of our most basic services, such as landscaping and roofing. For years, business has covered its eyes and ears when hiring its a two-way unholy dance, as immigrants here illegally get work and companies receive artificially cheap labor. If carried out as advertised, President Trumps deportation plan will put a serious crimp in this practice.

It is possible to have fewer Latinos in this country, if that is the goal. But it means the price we pay for many items will go up. And, paradoxically, it will cost us a pretty penny in tax money for the privilege of paying a higher price for these goods and services. Forget the wall deportation alone is not an inexpensive proposition.

And finally, notice that the Social Security Administration receives $12 billion annually in contributions from undocumented immigrants and their employers, money that will go to retired Americans, not to the immigrants who paid into the fund.

Frankly, undocumented immigration sounds like a very good deal for Americans and, at best, a tenuous proposition for the immigrants. So, if the champions of deportation really want to promote racial purity, they should be honest with the American public and just say so. Because from an economic standpoint, the arguments just dont hold up.

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Who would replace immigrant workers? | Tim Rowland ... - Herald-Mail Media