The immigrant didn’t take your job away, the leadership did.
If a little boy had an ice cream cone, and I took it away from him and gave it to a little girl, why the fuck should he be mad at the little girl?
Great analogy I think I’ll use this
You have some issues against little boys ?😂
No, I just like little girls
Wait…
This became obvious to me when I was young and learned that nothing happened much to the employer who was hiring the illegal immigrant.
It was always the immigrant’s fault, somehow, that they are being exploited. And they were the ones punished, not the people exploiting them.
Hey now, have a little faith in the system. They might have received a token fine that was less than what they saved by using illegal immigrants in the first place!
Peri & Card (2010) and later Ottaviano & Peri (2012) used U.S. Census data to demonstrate that low‑skill immigrants raise the marginal product of low‑skill local workers, while high‑skill immigrants boost the productivity of high‑skill locals. Their estimates show positive wage effects for locals in the same skill bracket.
Alessandro Caiumi & Giovanni Peri (2024) found that immigration increased wages of less‑educated local workers by 1.7‑2.6 % over 2000‑2019, with no significant crowding‑out of employment.
The Kauffman Foundation reports that immigrants are 1.5‑2 times more likely than locals to become founders of high‑growth firms. These firms employ local workers at rates comparable to local‑only firms, adding to overall job creation rather than subtracting from it.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2017) concluded that “the overall impact of immigration on the wages of local workers is small and mixed, with positive effects for many groups and negligible effects for others.”
Simulations (Alessandro Caiumi & Giovanni Peri, 2024) consistently find that immigration raises total factor productivity (TFP) by introducing diverse human capital and fostering knowledge spillovers.
Higher TFP lifts the entire production possibility frontier, meaning the economy can produce more goods and services with the same amount of labor, to the benefit of all.
Tl;dr: The zero sum displacement narrative diverges from macroeconomic reality.
People believe in capitalism. They believe that the capitalist hiring the cheapest labor, cutting every corner, and keeping every penny is playing by the rules. They are blameless.
The immigrant, however, less so. If they are “illegal”, then they didn’t follow the rules and need to be corrected! But even if they are “legal”, they’re still “supposed” to be second in line.
If the rules are just, who made them, and how they are maintained? Not under question.
who’s
No, don’t you see? You’re saying immigrants are basically slaves to capitalism right? Well, why can’t I own slaves? That’s the real problem here. — Racists
One exception; when that immigrant is the capitalist that screws you over (Musk for the most prominent example)
counterpoint Space Karen
Aren’t the jobs being “taken” by immigrants ones Americans don’t want to do? How tf that make sense
“Jobs Americans don’t want to do (at the price point the business is offering)”
So its hard to get an IT professional to work at job at $15/hr in the US. Easier in Southeast Asia. Consequently, we outsource a ton of IT work overseas.
Similarly, construction work is dangerous and exhausting. Hard to find young people to do the work at a $25/hr price point, until you start importing a bunch of very desperate 20-something migrant laborers.
I pay based on experience/skill. Immigrant or not. I cant hire illegal immigrants for the jobs I work on. Oh and I hate you for using Jim for your political opinions.
But I do know some companies that have used illegals and I really dont like that… its not good for everyone involved.
Would he have been laid off if that immigrant wasn’t around?
Would he have been laid off if the capitalist didn’t chase a profit?
Probably not. So both are what caused the situation right? Totally fair to be annoyed at capitalism and immigration if those cost you your job imo.
The immigrant didn’t cost anyone their job, try to put the corpo boot down for a second and think. The capitalist cost you your job, because they can exploit someone else better than you at both of your expenses. You lose a high paying job, and immigrant gets less rights and a lower wage than someone with your privilege would have. The capitalist could afford to hire both of you with decent wages and benefits, and as a worker you know there is plenty of work you could use more people to help with.
The immigrant did not attack you and steal anything from you, they were looking for an opportunity to provide for themselves and their family just like you when you were looking for that job. They weren’t in the board room when the execs decided you were too much of a problem legally and financially.
Edit: User started editing their posts and is just parroting the same phrase over and over and not answering questions to further the debate. Either they’re hopelessly clueless and knee-deep in the corpo propaganda or they’re just really bad a trolling. Not worth debating further, imo.
I mean it’s both, the corporation pushing for profits and the actual person you lost your job to. It’s not like I was saying the immigrant was malicious in their actions or anything.
You are saying that, though. By saying both of them are at fault, you are implicitly stating that the immigrant did something wrong in this scenario. By your logic, you also did something wrong by applying for the job. It is highly likely the person before you was also being paid more and you got the job for less, making you exactly the same as the immigrant in this scenario.
How exactly, and be direct, did the immigrant wrong you here by seeking employment? Again, they do not know the background that you specifically were cut. The capitalist does, however.
Malicious would mean immigrants are doing it with the inention to cause harm. I don’t think even the capitalists are in it to be malicious, they’re just (and only) thinking of prorits.
If someone is sacked in order to get you hired for the job of course you’re partly at fault. Sucks even more if you’re helping in pushing the wages down. If I was part of that problem then yeah I’d be at fault but neither is true in my case.
See now you’re all over the place. You just blamed capitalism and immigrants both for this scenario, and now you’re backtracking and saying both are neutral.
You’re avoiding my points and not answering the question. How exactly did the immigrant wrong you in the above scenario?
That’s just getting pedantic about the meaning of “fault”.
Take the immigrant part out.
Two, 6th generation USA homegrown workers, one from California, one from Texas.
Job is in Cali, min wage 16.50/hr, leave out living expenses.
Texas min wage is 7.25 so Texan tells employer he’ll take 10/hr because he needs money.
Is it the Texan’s “fault” a Californian job was taken, or is it the mechanism (or lack of enforcement) that allowed him to be hired in the first place, for less than state required min-wage, that’s the underlying fault?
You can try to get pedantic about the meaning of “fault” I suppose, but to me that’s just a distraction to skip the point, and enable vilification of Texans.It’s partly the Texans fault. Outsourcing is another pickle but it is more active on the job takers part if they had come to California and then taken the job. Outsourcing, it’s more passive and harder to do anything about.
Nah, not for me. He’s just a guy who needs a job.
I don’t blame AI for simply existing when it takes our jobs either. It’s the employer who chooses to use AI instead of humans that is at fault.
My job was outsourced overseas, twice, so yeah.
Not all jobs can be outsourced. But yes that sucks too.
It’s amazing what you can do when you break a workflow into tasks and remove the need for a specialist.
You can take ten people making $80k and pay 18 people $30k, calling it entry level work. Some of those tasks are cheaper to buy as goods and services from overseas.
Often the quality suffers but they don’t really care about that.
The point is to increase profit, not to deliver a solid product or to have a great place to work.
To start the process, you wait until the work itself drops off and then project losses. If the endeavor fails or profits stagnate, then the market itself is to blame.
upvoted because there’s an implication in the main post that the worker who blames migrant inflow as a race issue
- The government is not going to curb the capitalists hiring methods
- Unions are hard work and not guaranteed to have results
- Electing a government tough on migrant work is the easiest path
Edit: will this have a knockon effect on other facets of the economy (cheaper services: car repair, retail, landscaping, etc.), oh absolutely, but this was the path available to you
I think a lot of leftists ignore the actual issues immigration can cause to the working class because opponents of immigration include also racists. It’s kinda stupid imo, there’s legit concerns over capitalists supporting immigration in order to get cheaper labour and to weaken unions.
I am a leftist, I absolutely believe that the working class should have stronger rights, and that union action is the best path forward to keep the capitalists in check…
…I’ve just seen this fail too many times to be called a viable path, because the capitalists can simply hire cheaper labor.
Germany has strong unions. Germany is also a very racist country. I know how this sounds, but I think there is correlation.
Data collected in the heat map suggest that stores with low racial and ethnic diversity, especially those located in poor communities, are more likely to unionize.
Sounds like an issue of joint correlation. It makes sense that homogenous communities are better at building unions. Building solidarity with people who are different from oneself is more work than with people who are similar.
And it’s been found that exposure to different people and cultures reduces racist beliefs, so it also makes sense that homogenous communities would be more racist.
So the causal feature would be homogeneity, and the correlation between racism and unions would be effects.
agreed, but the result seems to be the same: stronger worker rights to countries hostile/unappealing to migrants
I don’t care because I’m not a racist.
Yet somehow still ignorant.
I like the implication that it’s only immigrants of a different race to you that can move to another country. Doesn’t make sense to me but I think the idea is interesting
Yes, because I define how racists think /s
Yes, who knows if they are racist against their own race too lol
Seems like you think that very well known thing doesn’t exist.
I mean you made this about racism when no race or anything was brought up. I’m just having fun with that kneejerk reaction
Opposition to immigration is about race. You can stop pretending.
Would the tribes have been slaughtered if your grandfather stayed in fucking England like he shoulda?
Uhm, where do you think I am from and why
