Pro-Amnesty Politicians Now Admit that Immigration Pushes Down Wages

Dear John,

For our entire 26-year history, NumbersUSA has stated that Big Business and their allies in Congress were trying to undermine American workers by importing ever-more immigrant workers to drive down the price of labor.

In other words, these folks think you and your family earn too much money, and they want to bring in cheap foreign labor to replace you or beat your wages down.

USUALLY, these anti-worker members of Congress would try to deny the charge. So, would you believe that some leaders in Congress are actually ADMITTING that they want to address inflation by bringing in new waves of immigration to PUSH DOWN THE WAGES of their own constituents? Get it? Increasing the number of foreign workers will increase the competition among workers for jobs so that employers won't have to raise wages to fill them.

This week Newsweek published an op-ed exposing the whole thing:

"Leading Democrats just admitted that immigration depresses American workers' wages - and now they're arguing that's a good thing...

"Citizens lose between $99 and $118 billion in wages each year to illegal immigration, according to Harvard University economist George Borjas. Giving millions of foreigners legal work permits would allow them to compete head-to-head against Americans and legal immigrants, for that matter in all sorts of fields, leading to even larger wage losses...

"Inflation, which just reached its highest level in 40 years, is certainly a problem. But making it harder for workers to win raises which are already not keeping up with the soaring cost of goods and services will only worsen the plight of tens of millions of families. In other words, Democrats' talking points in favor of the bill are actually some of the strongest arguments against it!

-- "Democrats' Plan to Fix Inflation: Squeeze Blue-Collar Americans"
Mark Thies, Newsweek

Senate leaders like Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are claiming there aren't enough Americans working, and THAT'S the reason prices are going up! NOT COVID-related plant closures, NOT Congress' own spending. Instead, this group of Senators and Reps are saying working Americans, whose small raises are not even keeping up with rent hikes, are to blame.

"Not enough people are seeking jobs... As a consequence, that drives up the cost of doing business and the cost to the consumers. If there are more workers doing their jobs, it's deflationary."

-- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL),
Latino Rebels online news

It sounds like Sen. Schumer WANTS American wages to go DOWN! Rep. Jimmy Gomez helped drive home the point Sen. Durbin was making:

"If you have more people that are allowed to work in this country, then there's gonna be less of a tight labor market"

-- Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA),
Latino Rebels online news

Can you imagine politicians promising to shrink their own voters' paychecks? Didn't they promise to bring prosperity to typical voters, not just incredible wealth to the elites? BOTH parties have too many politicians willing to sell out their constituents; Seventeen REPUBLICAN senators recently wrote to Pres. Biden to increase the number of temporary-worker visas!

America's voters need someone working for THEM to demand better from their elected officials!

NumbersUSA Action is paid for by contributions from members like you... so YOU'RE who we work for!
Will you donate even just $3 to help us keep working for you?

It used to be respectable among economists to talk about labor shortages. Back in 2016, the Washington talking heads were insisting we were at full employment, and the economy couldn't grow any further without inflation. But the economy kept growing as SEVEN MILLION people returned to the job market before the pandemic gravely harmed the economy. We didn't need to rely on importing more foreign labor.

Our workforce still is not even back to where we were before the pandemic hit. The employment rate is still down 1.5% from 2019. Millions of workers are unemployed, underemployed, or simply have dropped out of the labor market.

Over the past six economic quarters, wages haven't come close to even keeping up with inflation. In industries that would be most affected by amnesties and increased immigration, inflation-adjusted wages have fallen so sharply that they're scarcely higher than they were decades ago.

John, of course there are lots of reasons for inflation. The prices producers pay for their components are up over 20% in the past year. Copper, steel and even automobile prices are up 50% since Election Day. Lumber and Oil prices are up over 250% since Election Day. But retail workers' wages are up six percent... before inflation. Most wages haven't even gone up THAT much. So let's not blame the poor person behind the check-out counter.

Ironically, there are some areas of the economy in which surging levels of immigration are probably causing worse inflation. Housing prices are increasing at faster-than-ever rates. That's despite more new housing construction than in any year since 2006 and the fact that wages for construction workers have been flat for the last fifteen years.

More immigration means more demand for housing, schools, expressways, public transportation, water, sewage treatment and natural resources.
That causes MORE inflation, not less!

It's true that with unpredictable shutdowns and health scares, sometimes workers are unavailable. But importing millions more workers, especially unskilled ones, isn't going to help. Not when wages are falling, underemployment stubbornly persists, and millions of people have dropped out of the job market because wages are so low, it doesn't make economic sense to go to work. But as the old expression goes, if you want to use a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And too many folks in Washington want increased immigration above all else. That's why the Senate leadership has continued to try to add massive amnesties in the Build Back Better bill.

"If we want to fight inflation and lower costs, the best thing we can do is to pass Build Back Better,"

-- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY),
Washington Post, Dec. 10th, 2021

So where do Senators Schumer and Durbin get their ideas? Maybe Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Bloomberg and the usual cast of billionaires. Here's what Zuckerberg's FWD.us advocacy organization has to say:

"As the United States continues to experience historic labor shortages contributing to inflation and driving up costs for families,... [The Build Back Better bill] could help address these shortages and curb inflationary trends."

-- FWD.us

We can't match Zuckerberg and Bloomberg dollar for dollar. Thankfully, we don't have to. What we need to do is expose the Members of Congress working for them, and let them know you know. It takes much less money... but it does take some.

Whenever people in Congress have tried to pass a massive amnesty, we've organized our members and defeated them. We've won every time this century, with millions of faxes and emails every year, tens of thousands of phone calls, and attendees at Town Halls in districts across America.

Our analysts study the legislation, assess the impact, and inform our members with millions upon millions of Action Alerts, Town Hall notices and newsletters. Our unique system makes sure we get the right message to the right activists to send to the right members of Congress. Last year alone, we sent almost 2,000 entirely unique email alerts to various groups of our members. This added up to about 100 MILLION individual emails sent!!

This is an amazingly cost-effective way to help our members' voices be heard in Congress... but it still costs some money.. We need your support.

NumbersUSA Action is paid for by contributions from members like you... so YOU'RE who we work for!
Will you donate even just $3 to help us keep working for you?

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Be well,

Dan Marsh
Information Systems

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