Study breaks taboo, suggests that illegal immigration related to productivity slowdown

[expat_panama]

from: Blog: Study breaks taboo, suggests illegal immigration related to productivity slowdown

March 10, 2017 Thomas Lifson

Political correctness has taken another hit in a new study that violates a taboo.

At the heart of the bonanza of that market economies offer their constituents is productivity growth. Only competition in the marketplace can reliably produce innovations that produce more with less on a mass scale. Yet, the rate of productivity growth in the United States has slowed dramatically in the last few years, increasing social and political tensions as people scramble for a piece of the pie in a near-zero-sum situation. Gain-sharing is much more pleasant that pain-sharing, after all.

I imagine that already the term “rrracist!” is being thrown at a new study that points to the increase in illegal immigration as one source of our productivity problems. Marketwatch reports this morning: (hat tip: Ed Lasky)

All sorts of reasons have been trotted out to explain why U.S. productivity growth has slowed so markedly, from mismeasurement to stalling innovation to weak capital investment.

Oxford Economics has a new research note adding another theory: unauthorized workers....

...And who does that benefit, by the way? Not Republicans.

Make no mistake, political correctness is a tool of social and political control.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Being so politically incorrect this article should really kick the ol' hornet's nest. Rhetoric aside, here are the hard facts:

• About 8 years ago the number of employed foreign born was at a decade low and productivity spiked.
• Since than the number foreign born employed's been growing steady to a record high and productivity's ground down to an unprecedented slump
• and it's so bad it's causing inflation and forcing the Fed to raise rates.
• Add to that is the fact that for many decades productivity of American workers is way higher than that of the rest of the world.

As to whether this is proof that foreign workers are wrecking the U.S. economy, that's what this forum's for.

 

[IcebergSlim]

from: Blog: Study breaks taboo, suggests illegal immigration related to productivity slowdown

March 10, 2017 Thomas Lifson

Political correctness has taken another hit in a new study that violates a taboo.

At the heart of the bonanza of that market economies offer their constituents is productivity growth. Only competition in the marketplace can reliably produce innovations that produce more with less on a mass scale. Yet, the rate of productivity growth in the United States has slowed dramatically in the last few years, increasing social and political tensions as people scramble for a piece of the pie in a near-zero-sum situation. Gain-sharing is much more pleasant that pain-sharing, after all.

I imagine that already the term “rrracist!” is being thrown at a new study that points to the increase in illegal immigration as one source of our productivity problems. Marketwatch reports this morning: (hat tip: Ed Lasky)

All sorts of reasons have been trotted out to explain why U.S. productivity growth has slowed so markedly, from mismeasurement to stalling innovation to weak capital investment.

Oxford Economics has a new research note adding another theory: unauthorized workers....

...And who does that benefit, by the way? Not Republicans.

Make no mistake, political correctness is a tool of social and political control.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Being so politically incorrect this article should really kick the ol' hornet's nest. Rhetoric aside, here are the hard facts:

• About 8 years ago the number of employed foreign born was at a decade low and productivity spiked.
• Since than the number foreign born employed's been growing steady to a record high and productivity's ground down to an unprecedented slump
• and it's so bad it's causing inflation and forcing the Fed to raise rates.
• Add to that is the fact that for many decades productivity of American workers is way higher than that of the rest of the world.

As to whether this is proof that foreign workers are wrecking the U.S. economy, that's what this forum's for.

Rule Number 1


NEVER read the "AmericanThinker" for economic insights.....ever.....

There are all sorts of caveats necessary in evaluating the study, so it is at best tentative and suggestive. But to me, the important point is that a taboo has been broken.

ya think?


There are people doing serious work on this question, but you won't find them mentioned at the AmericanThinker...

and with respect to your graph, why don't you do yourself a favor and extend the time line back to about 1970.....

 

[expat_panama]

...with respect to your graph...

Ah, you missed the part of the graph that said fred.stlouisfed.org. Or manbe you didn't understand that this was where the numbers and the .png came from. Nice of you to assume that it was all my doing tho, tx!

...why don't you do yourself a favor and extend the time line back to about 1970.....

--and showing more of the same then you could say that I was wasting your time going back to far and only the recent past is the time period at issue. NEAT!

At any rate this number stuff must be new to you so to catch up here you may want to be aware that the site mentioned only has numbers on foreign born going back to 2007 --as shown. Historic productivity numbers go way back to earlier in the past century of course and you could post them --but once again, why?

 

[Fenton Lum]

from: Blog: Study breaks taboo, suggests illegal immigration related to productivity slowdown

March 10, 2017 Thomas Lifson

Political correctness has taken another hit in a new study that violates a taboo.

At the heart of the bonanza of that market economies offer their constituents is productivity growth. Only competition in the marketplace can reliably produce innovations that produce more with less on a mass scale. Yet, the rate of productivity growth in the United States has slowed dramatically in the last few years, increasing social and political tensions as people scramble for a piece of the pie in a near-zero-sum situation. Gain-sharing is much more pleasant that pain-sharing, after all.

I imagine that already the term “rrracist!” is being thrown at a new study that points to the increase in illegal immigration as one source of our productivity problems. Marketwatch reports this morning: (hat tip: Ed Lasky)

All sorts of reasons have been trotted out to explain why U.S. productivity growth has slowed so markedly, from mismeasurement to stalling innovation to weak capital investment.

Oxford Economics has a new research note adding another theory: unauthorized workers....

...And who does that benefit, by the way? Not Republicans.

Make no mistake, political correctness is a tool of social and political control.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Being so politically incorrect this article should really kick the ol' hornet's nest. Rhetoric aside, here are the hard facts:

• About 8 years ago the number of employed foreign born was at a decade low and productivity spiked.
• Since than the number foreign born employed's been growing steady to a record high and productivity's ground down to an unprecedented slump
• and it's so bad it's causing inflation and forcing the Fed to raise rates.
• Add to that is the fact that for many decades productivity of American workers is way higher than that of the rest of the world.

As to whether this is proof that foreign workers are wrecking the U.S. economy, that's what this forum's for.

Yes, yes, it must be those foreigners, anything that allows us to ignore the failure of our approach to an economic system that only serves a few Lords of our high tech low profile post industrial feudalism.

 

[Fenton Lum]

"What they may not have realized is how dependent the U.S. economy is on immigrant labor. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 26 million foreign-born workers contribute to the U.S. economy, which amounts to close to 17 percent of the entire workforce. Nearly half of those workers are listed as “Hispanic,” and about a quarter are Asian. The agency also found that “[f]oreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations; natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations; and production, transportation, and material moving occupations.” While foreign-born workers earned, on average, significantly less than their U.S. citizen counterparts, that wage gap closed for workers with higher levels of education.

Foreign-born doctors in particular fill a serious need in the U.S., especially in poor communities. The newly launched Immigrant Doctors Project points out that 7,000 doctors in the U.S. hail from the countries targeted by Trump’s ban. “Cardiology and neurology are two of the three specialties with the highest share of doctors from the six targeted countries,” according to the group’s website. Unless Trump has a plan to promote medical education among native-born Americans, it is unclear who will fill this crucial need if the president has his way."
Get Used to It, America: Brown People Are Here to Stay: Sonali Kolhatkar


Highlights from the 2015 data:


• In 2015, there were 26.3 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. labor force, comprising 16.7


percent of the total. (See table 1.)

• Hispanics accounted for 48.8 percent of the foreign-born labor force in 2015 and Asians


accounted for 24.1 percent. (See table 1.) (Data in this news release for persons who are White,

Black, or Asian do not include those of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Data on persons of Hispanic

or Latino ethnicity are presented separately.)

• Foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service


occupations; natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations; and production,

transportation, and material moving occupations. Native-born workers were more likely than

foreign-born workers to be employed in management, professional, and related occupations and

sales and office occupations. (See table 4.)

• The median usual weekly earnings of foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers were $681


in 2015, compared with $837 for their native-born counterparts. (See table 5.) (Differences in

earnings reflect a variety of factors, including variations in the distributions of foreign-born and

native-born workers by educational attainment, occupation, industry, and geographic region.)

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf

 

[IcebergSlim]

...with respect to your graph...

Ah, you missed the part of the graph that said fred.stlouisfed.org. Or manbe you didn't understand that this was where the numbers and the .png came from. Nice of you to assume that it was all my doing tho, tx!

...why don't you do yourself a favor and extend the time line back to about 1970.....

--and showing more of the same then you could say that I was wasting your time going back to far and only the recent past is the time period at issue. NEAT!

At any rate this number stuff must be new to you so to catch up here you may want to be aware that the site mentioned only has numbers on foreign born going back to 2007 --as shown. Historic productivity numbers go way back to earlier in the past century of course and you could post them --but once again, why?

I've generated more Fred graphs than you've had intimate encounters....

You can, and clearly did, choose the time period. You wouldn't need to work hard to convince me that you wouldn't know how, and that you just lifted what you were handed by some crackhead blog like ZeroHedge...

Choose your poison.


At any rate this number stuff must be new to you so to catch up here you may want to be aware that the site mentioned only has numbers on foreign born going back to 2007 -

Do you know anything about coincidence versus causality, sample size and statistical relevance, or the methodology of measuring labor productivity?