The underlying assumption seems to be that illegal immigration costs Americans jobs. I can see where it's tempting to assume that, but is it true? Has Freakonomics studied this, for example? How do we decide if it's true or not?
I don't think it's the case that an illegal immigrant can knock on a door and say to the employer, Hey, why don't you fire that guy over there and hire me instead? The employers who hire illegals are hiring workers first, I presume, and they're hiring based on who knocks on the door and asks for a job. I don't believe they hang up a sign saying we only hire illegals.
Now, are they hiring illegal immigrants because no Americans are knocking on their doors? Maybe the demand for jobs is outstripping supply, and the illegals are getting jobs that would otherwise have been unfilled. Or maybe the illegals are pricing themselves so low on the labour market that Americans are being crowded out. Either scenario is plausible and until there is data showing it is one way or the other, all we have are emotional arguments.
Are there studies showing that the majority of illegals are working at less than the avg wage in the relevant sector? Because if that's not the case, you cannot make the argument that they are stealing jobs. Until we have meaningful economic data showing what is actually occurring, we're just guessing.
Even if illegals were being paid what is being offered to Americans, and the wage would be equal to what an American would be paid if the illegal wasn't competing, the fact that there are more people applying, some of them illegals, means that Americans are losing jobs to illegals from other countries.
Now the fact is illegals are being paid less. So Americans are really being blocked from even competing for those jobs.
The fact is the wages paid to anyone is based on scarcity of prospective employees. The more applicants, the lower the wage. So since there are more applicants due to millions of illegals, that forces wages down and replaces Americans who would otherwise get the job.
Speaking of scarcity and the cost of things reminds me of the joke of the old lady who went shopping for chop meat.
So the old lady goes to the butcher, and asks, "I need one pound of chop meat. How much is it?"
The Butcher responds, "Well, we charge $5 a pound but unfortunately, we're all out of chop meat today."
So the old lady leaves and walks to another butcher and asks, " I need one pound of chop meat. How much is it and do you have any?"
"Oh," says butcher #2. " We have loads of chop meat. And it's $7 a pound."
"$7 a pound," says the old lady irately. "The other butcher only wanted $5 a pound."
"Well." says butcher #2. "When we're out of chop meat, we only charge $3 a pound."
