[arcseco]

>Adding people to the economy also tends to increase the aggregate demand for labor.

I agree, but the contention is the lag between growth in demand and new immigration. More people will consume more and increase aggregate demand, this we agree on. Most new immigrants don't add a lot to domestic consumption especially if they come from a background of relative poverty. So finding that balance is important.

Just to state, I am more for increasing immigration for people with advanced degrees, but when it comes to low skilled immigration I feel that as a nation we owe it to our poorest to look out for their interests as long as wages remain stagnant for their income strata.

[learc83]

We don't know what the impact of low skilled immigrants is on aggregate demand or on wage growth in the short term. Studies done on low-skill immigration are inconclusive. Google, the Mariel boatlift studies for example. Some studies show a decrease in wages, some show an increase, and some show no impact.

Generally this indicates that the effect is too small to overcome statistical noise.

In the long term however, we have good evidence to support that immigration of all kinds is a net benefit to the economy.

> I feel that as a nation we owe it to our poorest to look out for their interests as long as wages remain stagnant for their income strata.

And if immigration is likely beneficial long term, and the short term impact is unknown or at least too small to easily measure, then decreasing immigration isn't necessarily looking out for their interests (or the interests of their children).

Automation will likely play a much bigger role in wage growth over the next decades, but no popular politicians are calling for an ban on self-checkout lines.

[sheepmullet]

> And if immigration is likely beneficial long term, and the short term impact is unknown or at least too small to easily measure

What’s the evidence that it is beneficial in the long term?

We have had decades of flat wage growth and large l increases in cost of living.

In the short term it’s clearly negative when you take into account not just wages but increased pressure on housing and infrastructure.

[learc83]

>What’s the evidence that it is beneficial in the long term?

This is the consensus view among economists. If you do some searching it's going to be hard to find anyone outside of far right ethno-state proponents who doesn't believe that long term immigration is a net benefit.

"Economic analysis finds little support for the view that inflows of foreign labor have reduced jobs or Americans’ wages. Economic theory predictions and the bulk of academic research confirms that wages are unaffected by immigration over the long-term and that the economic effects of immigration are mostly positive for natives and for the overall economy." [1]

>In the short term it’s very clearly negative when you take into account not just wages but increased pressure on housing and infrastructure.

This is not very clear. If you take it to the extreme, sure there is some amount of immigration could cause enough such a strain on housing supply and infrastructure that it would be a net detriment. We don't know what the number is, and there is no consensus view that we've come anywhere close to reaching it.

[1] http://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-ef...

[sheepmullet]

> This is the consensus view among economists.

Economists are the modern day equivalent of seers reading tea leaves.

> who doesn't believe that long term immigration is a net benefit.

1) Well the first problem is they are lumping all long term immigration together.

Yet it’s clear that not all immigration is alike. For example:

“the estimated fiscal burden of immigration is five times higher for native residents of California than of New Jersey”

2) The second problem is the focus on wages instead of total economic gain:

“They find a small but positive effect, equal to about half a percentage point, on the average wages of native workers”

And they go on to state the key reason for the lack of wage decline is because native workers are pushed out of lower skilled jobs and go into jobs that immigrants lack the skills for.

They aren’t taking into account the additional costs (whether they be additional study, higher stress, lack of flexibility, etc) to the native born.

E.g. A half percentage point pay rise from a new job is a financial net negative if I have to go to college to get the new job.

3) The third and biggest problem is they give no indication that the kind of immigration the US has is sustainable.

For example can natives continue shifting to communication heavy and education heavy roles without limit?

And if they can’t the article makes it clear that immigration will likely result in wage decline:

“both studies find that earlier immigrants experienced wage declines, on average, of 4 to 7 percent” [from new immigrants competing for their jobs]

Edit: Worse still they don’t even compare low skilled immigrants to the next best alternative. It reeks of bias.

[intended]

No- economists are the people with compasses, when the question usually are “can you help find my keys.”

Econ models are good, but their pretty useless to normal people.

For example In this scenario the reason that economist say that immigration is a net positive, is because those immigrants also need

Food Water Clothes Shelter

So the addition of those people ends up increasing total demand.

Econ is brought up to win arguments, while policy is hidden away.

The fact is that wages will go down because automation is crushing it and firms now have the ability to set prices for the market.

Immigration is a convenient concept, but ultimately useless in diagnosing or dealing with the problem.

Problem is America has a lack of good jobs, humans are hard to retrain and most of your welfare and support systems have been systematically gutted.

[learc83]

>Economists are the modern day equivalent of seers reading tea leaves.

So the experts are useless because the data is just too complex to make accurate models, but the data isn't too complex for you to use to make accurate predictions?

Or are you saying that the expert consensus is wrong because it's a product of ideological bias, but your conclusions are correct because for some unknown reason you are free from bias?

[sheepmullet]

> but the data isn't too complex for you to use to make accurate predictions?

> but your conclusions are correct because for some unknown reason you are free from bias?

Who said my predictions would be better or free from bias? I also can’t read the tea leaves!

Instead since there is a great deal of uncertainty we should treat immigration as a risk management game.

Low skilled immigration can clearly have major costs to our society and from all available data provides a very limited upside.

And once you invite people into your country it is extraordinarily difficult and in many cases immoral to kick them out.

Basic risk management techniques tell us don’t take high risk low reward actions that you can’t back out of.

[smileypete]

> In the long term however, we have good evidence to support that immigration of all kinds is a net benefit to the economy.

How is that working out for Sweden at the moment?

[learc83]

1. Sweden has had one of the best performing economies in Europe over the last few years.

2. You realize you were replying to a statement that said "In the long term"?

[smileypete]

Several studies have been made on immigrants net contribution to the public sector. With the low immigrant unemployment rate and a smaller share of the total population, the studies concluded that immigrant net contribution to the public sector was either negligible, neutral or slightly positive up until the 1970s. With increasing unemployment rates and a larger share of the total population, this was shown no longer to be true in 1999 by Ekberg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden

[learc83]

None of what you said addresses the effect of immigration on the economy as a whole in the long term...at all.