In which I call Bullsh*t on Yglesias

As you know, I am generally a fan of Matt Yglesias.  He is a very smart and prolific guy, but sometimes his lack of actual real world experience catches up with him.  This post on illegal immigration in which he tries to argue that undocumented workers have little negative effect on the wages of the workers with whom they compete is one such instance.   (Ezra is quite wrong about this too.)

How do I know that I am right and Yglesias is wrong?:  Well, perhaps because I live in the actual world of people who work with their hands for a living (Matt probably knows a waiter or two) and I have seen the incredible damage that those who employ and exploit illegal immigrants have done to the labor markets in which my clients operate.  In those areas of the construction market in which undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America form a substantial amount of the available work force -- brick laying, tile setting, drywall installation, cement finishing, pipe insulating, and some aspects of carpentry and iron working -- wages barely increased during the incredible construction boom of the late 1990s through 2007.  My clients struggled to obtain even cost of living type increases despite full employment and in some instances, labor shortages.  Now that the construction market has gone bust, the massive presence of this easily exploitable work force is just destroying the market for labor in these craft areas.  In the past year, I have negotiated wages cuts of $2, $4, and $12 -- yes, $12 -- an hour for various groups with whom I work.  And no, none of these guys was getting rich to begin with -- they had wage and benefit packages of between $28 and $32 an hour, enough to put about $21--26 an hour in their pockets and to have decent health coverage and modest pensions.

In these trades, if you could secure 2,000 hours of work a year (not always easy in weather sensitive trades), you would make $40,000 to $52,000 a year -- a bit better if you could secure some decent overtime.  (Overtime at time and a half is generally paid for more than eight hours a day or Saturday work, with double time on Sundays and holidays.)  So essentially one could have a modestly middle class lifestyle with these wages and benefits, assuming you could find reasonably priced housing, which can be a challenge here. 

Employers using undocumented workers in these trades are typically paying them from $10 to $16 an hour and treating them (illegally) as independent contractors.  In other words, no benefits, no tax withholding, no Social Security, no workers' compensation, no unemployment insurance, and, of course, no overtime.  (And yes, I've brought lawsuits on behalf of such workers and seen this up close and personal as well.)

This is where you find yourself offering employers an $8 an hour wage cut, with an additional $4 cut off of the fringe benefits (leaving a subpar health plan and crappy pension benefits) and the employers telling you it is not enough. 

Basically, these labor markets have been destroyed by unscrupulous employers and a work force that is cowed into submission by its illegal status.  (A similar thing has happened in the meat packing industry.)  As a result, the prospects for a decent standard of living derived from these trades is rapidly receding. 

I am somewhat reticent about writing this sort of thing, because I never want to be identified with nativism or any hateful attack on immigrant labor.  I understand that these guys (and they are all men) are just trying to better themselves and their families.  They are not trying to harm anyone and I will never play the Lou Dobbs role and paint them as the enemy.  My clients continue to try to organize them, but they are a difficult group, particularly given the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has stripped them of any labor law rights.  (I am very much in favor of immigration reform to try and ameliorate this problem.)  

But please, don't tell me that they are not bringing down wages for other workers.  It's just not so. 

Comments

[Corvus9]

Sir Charles, I think it is vitally necessary, for the longterm health of the progressive/liberal agenda for those of us (such as yourself) who are more knowledgeable on a particular issue to call bullshit on the more vocally prominent or activist among our ranks. One of the biggest problems with forming a coalition is ts that, as various interest groups within the progressive pantheon bunker down, on their own particular issues, they embrace erroneous arguments and viewpoints for the expedience of their interest that are ultimately harmful to the ends of others. This not only divides the various liberal causes, it also, ultimately, makes each cause weaker, as if cannot count upon support from possibly sympathetic groups with alternate primary aims. The various liberal tribes need to realize that they need to confront the unpleasant truths and run counter to their proclaimed goals and learn to work around and adapt to them.

It's somewhat ironic that it was the response of other liberal groups to the social backwardness of Labor that lead to the splintering of the New Deal coalition, because I think without a doubt, as much as the cultural theorist types like to talk about intertextuality, that Labor has done the very best job in recent years at attempting to bridge these divides, perhaps because they place such a high emphasis on solidarity as a first principle.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

SC - this is a post that I can identify with because I work almost exclusively in other countries. My profession in the US is history. As such I have to comply with a myriad of laws some of which are so arcane that they are still uncertain after more than 15 years. But I insist upon keeping it all legal and above board for one simple reason, if it were not, I would be imprisoned.

From my perspective, the situation is the US is just the opposite. But totally ignored and unenforced. That is to say that employers are by law responsible for assuring they hire legitimate workers, but since no one ever questions their hiring, instead they can exploit the illegals as much as they want.

There is another canard thrown around quite a lot that there are jobs ordinary citizens will not do. Having worked at post hole digging for $3.00/hr for a full 3 months to pay for one semester of education and to have worked 3 nights a week as a waiter for 4 years getting a bachelors degree at $1.00 per hour, I can testify I think that it is simply not true that no one will do these jobs. It might well be true that many realize they simply cannot afford to do such jobs.

I am one of the elite that in a good year might make as much as $135,000, and in a bad year or two or three might make absolutely nothing. Having been a few times shoulder to shoulder with the ditch diggers, I think of myself as one of them, perhaps unjustly because at time I can exceed any promise they might imagine. Yet, I do not have to imagine their uncertainty, and the precarious state of their existence, I have shared it from time to time.

It seems to me that the key thing here is the moneyed few are incapable of understanding the rest of the world. If we do not stand together, we can only stand alone.

[ikl]

I've got mixed feelings on this issue. In fairness, Yglasias didn't claim that immigration didn't have a negative impact on wages in all sectors, just in the aggregate. But this post is just confirmation of my intution that it is very difficult to imagine that massive immigration, and in particular illegal immigration, doesn't exert downward pressure on wages in some sectors. It is very hard to see how it could be otherwise in light of very basic economic principles. This doesn't mean that large scale immigration of unskilled and blue collar workers is necessarilly a bad thing on the whole. But there are definately winners and losers and any hard-headed analysis has to confront that head on. That upper-middle class folks are likely to be net winners should not one at least a bit suspicious of the sort of facile claims made in the Yglasias post. On the other hand, of course, there is a lot to be said for immigration from poorer countries as an anti-poverty program. So this is a hard issue.

[bend]

I don't see how your tone is called for here.
Like this shit:
How do I know that I am right and Yglesias is wrong?: Well, perhaps because I live in the actual world of people who work with their hands for a living (Matt probably knows a waiter or two)
If I were MattY I'd stop reading right there and tell you to go fuck yourself.

[joel hanes]

I dunno, Bend.

I read and enjoy MY, and comment regularly on his blog.

But it's often pretty obvious that Matt has never done physical labor or factory work for pay, and doesn't understand the realities of that kind of employment.

It's also pretty obvious that he's no outdoorsman, and hasn't much real experience with life outside the big cities.

[Corvus9]

I think anyone who goes to Harvard for undergrad, and claims to hold anything in the way of liberal sympathies, understands that occasionally they deserve to get some shit tossed their way for being "out of touch."

So, yeah, this time I agree with joel.

[Delicious Pundit]

I was Googling "the surplus army of the unemployed" (because Uncle Karl's diagnostics still seem to have some power; they should never have given him a prescription pad however) and came upon this post by John Emerson, also in response to Matt Yglesias

I note in MY's current post his alternative is much more redistribution. Good idea, and I am no Nostradamus, but it seems unlikely to happen at the present time.

[Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle]

Sir Charles:
You forgot one other of the homebuilding trades: roofing. My cousin made good money doing it one summer while in HS 15 years ago. Needless to say that he would never be able to do it today. Of course, you and everyone here knows why. And yes, you are correct. It does drag down wages. It's obvious to anyone with a clue.

[MR Bill]

I am that guy in some of those trades. I you don't think the illegals have pushed down the wages, particularly in construction, you just aren't paying attention.
And now everyone is an independent contractor..

[Sir Charles]

Bend,

Sorry you didn't like my tone, but I will stand by it and lay this out more explicitly -- I think Matt lives in a world -- and I know enough about his background to feel this is fair -- in which he can look at a graph and make pronouncements in the aggregate as Joel suggests, because he does not have friends who make their livings laying brick, setting tile, etc. This is a completely abstract issue for him and he has no concrete reality -- pun intended -- to suggest to him otherwise.

On the other hand, I am very close with -- have worked hand in hand with for 25 years -- people who have earned a barely middle class lifestyle at these trades. They are watching that dream slip away due to policies that allow for this kind of exploitation to take place and it is devastating to them.

[low-tech cyclist]

I followed the chain of links back this morning, from Matt to a 2008 post of Ezra's, to a 2006 article in the NYT.

Ezra, I'm sorry to say, did a bad job of making clear what the article did and didn't say, making the conclusions of the research cited in the article seem more general than they were. And Matt added a layer of generality and blurring from there.

The research cited in the article seems to be about high-school dropouts and unskilled labor, such as poultry processing and strawberry picking. Unless the NYT article itself is misleading, the research says nothing at all about the effect of illegal immigrants on wages in skilled and semi-skilled crafts such as the construction trades.

At any rate, the first step towards a remedy is obvious: legalize the immigrants. It's their vulnerability to deportation that makes them so easily exploitable. They can't organize, they can't even demand the benefits that the law supposedly requires they receive. Their ability to do these things would help them get a better wage - and the better a deal they get, the less they undercut the wages of non-immigrants.

There'll need to be an education campaign with this, but it's not like this is rocket science. People on our side should be able to distill this to a 30-second commercial that could be played on country radio stations, that the average listener could easily grasp.

Other things we should fight for are fully covering agricultural workers with the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act, creating some better legal standards for when an 'independent contractor' is really an employee, putting some real money into actually enforcing the labor laws we've got, and saddling employers with the legal consequences of hiring illegals.

[jack lecou]

Sorry you didn't like my tone, but I will stand by it and lay this out more explicitly -- I think Matt lives in a world -- and I know enough about his background to feel this is fair -- in which he can look at a graph and make pronouncements in the aggregate as Joel suggests, because he does not have friends who make their livings laying brick, setting tile, etc. This is a completely abstract issue for him and he has no concrete reality -- pun intended -- to suggest to him otherwise.

The thing is, you come across as unduly harsh because Matt isn't necessarily wrong.

There's clearly a difference of perspective here-- you are looking at personal stories of people you have worked with/for, and the obvious impact you see on a couple of particular industries. So you can certainly say that Matt isn't being sensitive enough to those workers, or doing enough to say how we help them in particular.

But... That's all you can say. There's no actual contradiction between the statements "there's no harm in the aggregate" and "some particular groups are hurt". And when it comes to discussing policy for an entire nation of 300 million, it's really the aggregate that matters, not the parochial interests of any particular subset. Matt's general approach is the more correct one.

You say he can do this "because he does not have friends who make their livings laying brick, setting tile, etc." It may well be true that he doesn't have such friends, but I'd hope that he would make his pronouncements either way. The big picture perspective is important.

And of course in this case, it doesn't seem that it makes a difference. The policy prescription/right thing to do--amnesty/legalization--is pretty much the same in both the big and small pictures.

[oddjob]

This article ran in the Boston Globe about a month ago. It's about a related topic that's highly relevant to the points Sir Charles is making:

The recession has been more like a depression for blue-collar workers, who are losing jobs much more quickly than the nation as a whole, according to a new report by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies.

The study estimated that the nation’s blue-collar industries have slashed one in six jobs since 2007, compared with about one in 20 for all industries, leaving scores of the unemployed competing for the rare job opening in construction or manufacturing, with many unlikely to work in those fields again.

Andrew Sum, the center’s director and author of the study, said the rate of job losses suffered by blue-collar workers matches the plunge in overall employment during the Great Depression, when the nation as a whole shed about one in six jobs.

“These guys used to be the backbone of our working middle class,’’ Sum said. “The really scary thing is they have no jobs to come back to.’’...

Read the whole thing.

[litbrit]

The thing is, you come across as unduly harsh

Oh dear, we're not going to start in with the criticisms of lefty bloggers for being so vituperative and nasty, waaah, also, too, are we?

I mean, for Christ's sake, this economy is unduly harsh, and the conditions that have contributed to it, including the bloody anvil-like downward pressure on wages caused by the hiring of undocumented, off-the-books immigrants, are fucking unduly harsh.

Sir Charles just explained to everyone, in plain English, that he regularly has to try to explain to his clients that PAY CUTS are the least unduly harsh option in what can only be described as a no-win situation for American workers already facing cost-of-living increases, spiraling health care costs, and all too often, loss of their own goddamned homes to foreclosure.

I'm fortunate to not have to wait tables and tend bar these days. But honestly, people who've never spent a few years, at least, doing hard manual labor like construction really need to sit down and listen to those who have on this matter.

"Loud" and "unduly harsh" and "strident"--all the same terms, incidentally, that were used to criticize women for wanting equal rights, back in the day--might make people uncomfortable. So what.

We've tried genteel for decades now, but the deregulating and wealth-polarization has continued apace.

Bravo, Sir C. If harsh is what's called for, then harsh is what I, for one, shall be. Who's with me?

[jack lecou]

Oh dear, we're not going to start in with the criticisms of lefty bloggers for being so vituperative and nasty, waaah, also, too, are we?

I'm just saying save the vituperative for those who actually deserve it. Sir Charles and Matt are on the same side, as far as I can tell.

Sir Charles just objects to...Well, I'm not sure. He claims Matt is wrong, but he didn't actually show that. I think Sir Charles' perspective on immigration is great. But Matt's is important too.

[Corvus9]

Yep. I didn't take Sir Charles as being harsh, or at least only being harsh in the way you are harsh to your friends. Kind of a, "Dude, I love you, but shut the fuck up."

But still, litbrit is right. Workers have a right to be hostile.

[Corvus9]

So hey, is anyone else watching the summit?

[litbrit]

Adding here: I do understand the whole "looking at the big picture" analysis, and I still say, Matt and others are missing the point.

The trades affected by the hiring of undocumented workers are not "a couple of particular industries."

Well, Sir C was referring in particular to those manual trades whose workers he represents, since he can speak to their plight with well-informed authority. He also mentioned the meatpacking industries, another huge sector affected by wage erosion. But let's consider some other so-called blue collar jobs that are affected by this issue:

Restaurant workers (waiters, chefs, line cooks, busboys, etc.)

Hotel workers (waiters, maids, janitors, security, bellmen, maintenance, etc.)

Factory workers and manufacturing (from electronics to plastics to furniture, what's left of this industry after so much of it moved offshore).

Garment industry workers (again, what's left of the industry after much of it moved offshore.)

Childcare and elder care (from agencies that hire undocumented women to be nannies, and pay them next-to-nothing, with no benefits, while charging parents a premium for "screening" that rarely happens, to nursing homes--Florida is FULL of them--that hire undocumented immigrants to care for the elderly and incapacitated.)

That's just off the top of my head.

It's just wrong, wrong, wrong, all of it.

ARRRRRRGH. Now I'm feeling unduly harsh, and it's nowhere near happy hour.

[jack lecou]

Kind of a, "Dude, I love you, but shut the fuck up."

I took it that way too. Except I can't figure out why Matt should shut up. He's right, or at least nothing Sir Charles said shows otherwise.

I work in unions too. I see the kind of shit Sir Charles is talking about all the time. Workers should absolutely be angry about all kinds of things.

What they shouldn't be angry at is statistics.

And, as far as immigration goes, it's important to make two points: 1) more people aren't going to hurt us, 2) what IS hurting us is the ability for people to abuse "illegal" workers. Matt made #1, Charles made #2. There's no conflict here.

[low-tech cyclist]

jack lecou says: "What they shouldn't be angry at is statistics."

No, they should be angry about the misuse of statistics.

Statistics that indicate that unskilled high-school dropouts aren't affected by illegal immigration nearly as much as they are by other large-scale trends are being used to give the impression that a much larger group of people at the lower end of our economy isn't substantially affected by the effect of illegal immigrants on wages.

I'd also have to ask whether the research has analyzed the effect on wages when a particular class of jobs gets taken over by illegal immigrants. From the NYT article:

For instance, the availability of foreign workers at low wages in the Nebraska poultry industry made companies realize that they had the personnel to expand. So they invested in new equipment, generating jobs that would not otherwise be there. In California's strawberry patches, illegal immigrants are not competing against native workers; they are competing against pickers in Michoacán, Mexico. If the immigrant pickers did not come north across the border, the strawberries would.

But when hotel workers or nursing home workers can be hired at effectively below-minimum wages because the workers can be deported if they get uppity, that's gotta have some effect, especially right now when a lot of the non-immigrants who might could be working those jobs are now earning zero because this economy isn't creating new jobs.

If it were, there'd be an argument that the money saved by employers of the illegals is creating new jobs somewhere else in the economy. BUT IT'S NOT, and there's no more to be said.

I'd like to know if Matt or Ezra knows if the original research considered things like this. I bet they don't.

[minstrel hussain boy]

bravo chuck.

you weren't even close to being unduly harsh. from my perspective down here on the border (8 miles from mexicali) i get to see the human costs every single day.

i belong to a group which tries to keep water stations in the desert stocked so that folks won't die of thirst as they try to cross. most of them would rather have stayed home, these journies are undertaken out of a desperate hope.

the question that almost is never asked is cicero's:

qui bono?

the answers to that will point you straight to the motherfuckers in this cockup.

or, my idea for a solution for the meddlers who keep coming up with brilliant ways to "close the border."

desajunes solos. para el amor de dios, por favor.

[jack lecou]

No, they should be angry about the misuse of statistics.

Statistics that indicate that unskilled high-school dropouts aren't affected by illegal immigration nearly as much as they are by other large-scale trends are being used to give the impression that a much larger group of people at the lower end of our economy isn't substantially affected by the effect of illegal immigrants on wages.

Maybe so, but I doubt that was Matt's intent. It remains a true fact that wages for unskilled workers, on average, are not strongly affected by immigration.

It's of course also true that the negative impact of the abuse of immigrant labor is being most keenly felt by a lot of blue collar workers in a certain historically important sectors, and it's a thing worth pointing out.

But the latter fact doesn't make Matt wrong or naive or something when he mentions the first fact.

Also, "You don't have the friends I do" is a fundamentally cheap argument. What exactly is the idea here, other than misdirected anger? Suppose Sir Charles took Matt under his wing. Took him down to the union hall to talk to some hard up plumbers and bricklayers. Took him to dinner at one of his friends houses to see how much the family was hurting. What's the expectation? That Matt comes back and say "Geeze, I was wrong, I know the data says immigration doesn't affect wages in the aggregate, but it totally affected those plumbers I met the other day, so there must be something wrong with the data and I was wrong to point it out."

I hope not. It's IMPORTANT to point out that more immigration isn't going to hurt us in the aggregate. What drives opposition to immigration is not a subtle understanding of the structural issues involved coming from people that are specifically angry that immigrant carpenters and plumbers and hotel maids are being abused in order to depress wages in the entire trades. People who understand that this is a problem that could be fixed relatively simply with stronger labor laws and better treatment of immigrants.

No, instead, the argument against immigration with the most traction is based on the "common-sense" assumption that more people are somehow just going to just crush the economy completely, depressing wages universally while bringing no benefits or jobs with them, so we have to keep 'em out. The way to counter that is with statistics like Matt's. You're never going to get the immigration reform we need to fix the situation for blue collar trades if you don't let Matt make arguments like he did.

If it were, there'd be an argument that the money saved by employers of the illegals is creating new jobs somewhere else in the economy. BUT IT'S NOT, and there's no more to be said.

This is the same argument Republicans use to say that the stimulus isn't working, and it's not a good one when they use it either. Zero net jobs created is not the same thing as zero jobs created. If there are jobs created from this effect, then in the downturn logically they would simply be having the effect of blunting jobs lost through other mechanisms. It'd be absurd to expect them to cancel out the downturn entirely.

[scott]

Statistics are as valuable and valueless as the facts that their framers choose to look at. I think the comment stream above illustrates that there are valid questions about the incredibly broad conclusions that MY drew from them, and SC pointed out their limitations based on his detailed, specific, and long-term personal experiences on this issue. Denigrating SC's take on this to mean "hey, it totally affects this group of plumbers I know" is exactly the kind of cheap-ass trick that you're supposedly railing against but actaully exemplifying yourself. Kudos!

[jack lecou]

Denigrating SC's take on this to mean "hey, it totally affects this group of plumbers I know" is exactly the kind of cheap-ass trick that you're supposedly railing against but actaully exemplifying yourself. Kudos!

To be clear, the substance of this post was fantastic. It was the direction and framing that sucked.

Introducing it with something like "Matt's being too broad. He might be right about the big picture, but there are definitely a lot of people who ARE affected by this, like the blue collar tradespeople I work with" would have been one thing.

That wasn't the road Sir Charles took. "Matt's WRONG because he doesn't have the life experience I do" was a cheap (and fallacious) argument.

[big bad wolf]

the wage reductions that SC refers to are very recent. it may be that these reductions, which are likely occurring in a number of locations and jobs, will show up in more up-to-date aggregate statistics and show matt's take to have been overly optimistic.

[jack lecou]

Well, now I'm probably just being argumentative (insert winkey smiley here), but I don't think the mechanisms SC is talking about are especially recent. I understand him to mean that the recession has precipitated some particularly dire cuts recently, but the immigration pressure itself has been going on a long time. In particular, he noted:

In those areas of the construction market in which undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America form a substantial amount of the available work force -- brick laying, tile setting, drywall installation, cement finishing, pipe insulating, and some aspects of carpentry and iron working -- wages barely increased during the incredible construction boom of the late 1990s through 2007

That sort of long term depression should be something that's going to show up in the numbers already.

[big bad wolf]

the mechanisms are not particularly recent, but the actual decreases in wages---as opposed to a very small rate of increase or flat wages in the period 1997 to 2007---appear to be and may undermine matt's more optimistic take. SC's contracts and contacts may be indicative of a trend that will show up soon in the aggregate data. ;)

[jack lecou]

the mechanisms are not particularly recent, but the actual decreases in wages---as opposed to a very small rate of increase or flat wages in the period 1997 to 2007---appear to be and may undermine matt's more optimistic take. SC's contracts and contacts may be indicative of a trend that will show up soon in the aggregate data. ;)

Well, first I should point out that I'm not sure there's a complete overlap. Matt's first chart was actually about unskilled high-school dropouts, which certainly isn't always the same as skilled tradesmen.

With that caveat, Matt's data should indeed reflect stagnant wages, not just actual decreases. His chart showed, if anything, a positive correlation between wages and immigrant population.

On the other hand, if wages generally stagnated where immigrants were present, then they must be stagnating relative to something, i.e., they're rising elsewhere. You'd be able to see that pattern in the data just as easily as wage cuts.

[big bad wolf]

i agree that the skilled union labor is not the same as the unskilled labor matt is talking about. i am not sure that is at all promising, for two reasons. first, it may be that unskilled wages had dropped about as far as was practically possible---people still have to earn enough to live somewhere. second, it may be that we are seeing the wages of skilled labor being pushed down toward their lowest practical level.

i also think that wages can be stagnant as measured against themselves; that is the wages remained the same in constant dollars, when in the past they had risen. what SC tells us is that there are now real wage decreases. that is concerning, although as matt would point out there is lots of FREE MUSIC out there, which i guess should make up for lower wages .

[jack lecou]

i agree that the skilled union labor is not the same as the unskilled labor matt is talking about. i am not sure that is at all promising, for two reasons. first, it may be that unskilled wages had dropped about as far as was practically possible---people still have to earn enough to live somewhere. second, it may be that we are seeing the wages of skilled labor being pushed down toward their lowest practical level.

Yeah, I think that would have been a more interesting conversation to have. It's not the actual point that SC made, at least that I can see.

Also, not that minimum wage means much, but I would point out that Matt's data still shows average wages hovering a few bucks over that. There's also regional variation, just not variation well-correlated with immigration. So I don't think the "already low as they can go" is exactly the answer. (Possibly something more like "low wage tradespeople pushing skilled tradespeople's wages down toward the 'unskilled' level".)

i also think that wages can be stagnant as measured against themselves; that is the wages remained the same in constant dollars, when in the past they had risen.

I don't think I understand. This is a causation argument, so you need some kind of differential to measure against.

If wages have been stagnating over the last decade or two in both high and low immigrant areas, then we have no basis to blame it on the presence of illegal immigrants. You need some data that shows they are stagnating at least a little less in low immigrant areas. That would show up in the data already. (Which it might well be for skilled trades.)

[big bad wolf]

SC says that the wages have stagnated in the trades in which the immigrants most predominate. so the other trades, not other locations, would be the comparison, i think.

[litbrit]

And I didn't even mention the employment sector in which my family--well, husband--has several decades of experience: agriculture!

Small farmers have to jump through all kinds of hoops. If he were to hire someone whose social security number does not match up with his name, which becomes evident quickly since he pays every Friday and calls in the FICA and social security taxes that day, too, he'd get a letter from the SS people the very next week, asking him to please send that employee down to the nearest SS office with his card so as to clear things up. The few times that happened, we never saw the employee again.

In short, it's just about impossible for a small business to hire undocumented laborers, because everything is on the books.

HOWEVER, large farmers (as with large hotels, construction sites, and so on) are able to pay their workers under the table and "bury" the attendant cash outlays as petty cash, general reimbursements, etc. And that's exactly what they do.

MB is spot-on: the human cost to immigrant laborers and American laborers alike is staggering and immoral. Unethical corporations can use the intimidation factor--"You don't like your pay or conditions, we report you to the immigre guy and send your ass home!"--and at the same time, keep American workers' wages artificially low, especially now, because they can say, "Well, I can hire others who'll work for less" and then do just that. With impunity. WITH IMPUNITY.

Do you gentlemen really believe that some nice batch of official recorded statistic-y numbers will neatly refute these truths? Really? Here's a hint: you need to start with the word UNDOCUMENTED and work from there. It kind of pulls the rug out from underneath all those studies and graphs. Sorry.

(Back later, then; I'm a horrible typist when I'm doubled over laughing.)

[scott]

Agree with litbrit. In methodological terms, I have some problems thinking these statistics capture the real-world dynamics of this issue as comprehensively as MY and jack seem to think they do. So when Sir Charles tells us that his actual job involves dealing with this issue on a regular basis, I think we ought to be pretty receptive and factor that in with a lot of weight. If someone is asking me not to believe Sir Charles's lying eyes and instead to believe their pie chart/bar graph, which may or may not be based on complete information, sorry, I ain't going to do it. I'm especially not going to do it after the last two years witnessed the massive failure of economists and sociologists, who ventured to tell us with breath-taking confidence that they were able numerically to capture complex social phenomena and build accurate socioeconomic models with which we weren't supposed to disagree. (Remember the infallible efficient markets hypothesis? the quants telling us that we couldn't have a real-estate bust? The Great Moderation beloved by Bernanke that eliminated the boom and bust cycle? Good times!) Numbers have limits and have to be guided and informed by common sense and empirical experience, which Sir Charles was gracious enough to provide. Thanks, SC!

[big bad wolf]

well D. i don't know that i believe in truths; facts, yes, but facts and truths are not that same, though what are posited as truths may take off from a factual basis.

that said, i feel bad that i have obviously been unclear for my intention was to be supportive SC's take.

[litbrit]

bbw, I know we're all on the same side here. I'm sorry if I'm coming off so argumentative about this, but it's an issue near and dear to my heart (as with most things, *big sigh*. I think I got Dick Cheney's share of human conscience on top of the normal ration assigned to someone my size, leaving him with none whatsoever and me with too much, but as usual I digress). It's just that there's scientific studies, wherein the variables are usually strictly controlled and the outcome is therefore reliable within an acceptable degree of error, and there are the kind of meta studies so beloved by Ezra and Matt, the variables of which come from one or more outside sources which themselves rely on humans gathering data from other humans, not to mention humans *not* gathering things from other humans because there is no official record of those humans, if that makes any sense. And that's why there is this big discrepancy between that which is gleaned from official data--Matt's post--and that which the people in the real word are telling you is actually happening (C's post).

Open thread upstairs!

[oddjob]

The first time I encountered the concept of a meta study was while I was in grad. school.

I'm still not comfortable with it. Survey data collection is challenging enough in the first place. Combining data from different surveys conducted by different parties has always struck me as more than a bit strange.

[Sir Charles]

Hi guys,

Sorry I've been in an arbitration all day arguing that certain work should have been paid at overtime, rather than straight time. Seriously. Now happily in this case the workers I am representing are very highly skilled and well paid. Incidentally, their wages went up by $15 over five years during the height of the boom, while I was struggling to get 75 or 80 cents an hour for my clients in the basic trades.

Jack,

I was certainly tweaking Matt and I stand by it. As highly as I think of him as a blogger, he's a guy who could get out of his insular world a bit.

The problem with aggregate statistics is that they bury a lot of things that are going on in important parts of the economy. These statistics are also missing out on the post-2007 devastating downturn in the high end blue collar professions. The types of jobs that once provided skilled, high school educated men with a decent standard of living are under huge pressure from the exploitation of undocumented workers and the collapse of both construction and manufacturing. I don't think you can try and sell a progressive program to working class men without at least acknowledging that basic fact. Telling somebody in that position that in the aggregate it's not such a big deal, when they have had their wages cut by 7, 12 or 30%, as in the examples I've cited above is not a particularly compelling argument.

Although I understand that anecdotes aren't data, understand that my office represents hundreds of thousands of unionized workers located in all fifty states. These are primarily in the construction and industrial sectors. Within these groups is a hierarchy -- those in the most highly skilled trades, especially those that require licensing are much more insulated from the downward wage pressures. But those in the basic trades that I have discussed are just getting killed. (Another peeve of mine with Matt is that he denounces licensing of this kind, not understanding that it plays a vital role in protecting both consumers and tradesmen.)

On the flip side, I've brought several class action FLSA cases on behalf of groups of Hispanic workers who were most likely illegal (I never ask) and who were being grossly exploited. I really feel for these guys -- they work their asses off and they are getting totally used. But I have not been able to get anywhere with these cases because the plaintiffs keep dropping out of the cases (no doubt due to imtimidation). There are some vicious people in the immigrant community who prey on their countryman and who are very effective in preventing them from asserting their rights.

Calvin,

I did forget roofing, in part because unionized roofing has been so dead here for so long that is has fallen off my radar screen. I think the trade has been absolutely obliterated by the phenomenon I've been discussing.

[Crissa]

Of course, it's just the basic that even though there is an impact at some point - like labor here - doesn't mean the regions' average wages stagnate.

Immigrants then spend those dollars to build communities from the ground up, which really does benefit the community as a whole.

But is the immediate wage impact of the immigrants because the contractors are cheating or because the immigrants are here illegally?

[oddjob]

Both

[oddjob]

I'm only a layman with no particular special expertise in the matter, but it seems to me that as long as immigration laws make rulis no one is willing to enforce (Congress's refusal to fund the relevant enforcement agencies in a manner that would make enforcement a given is most telling), this profoundly dysfunctional mess is a given, and it is also a given that those who benefit from flouting the rules will do so.

[Sir Charles]

Crissa,

You're right -- if the contractor goes from earning $200,000 a year to $300,000 a year, while his two bricklayers go from making $50,000 a year to $25,000 a year, the region's average wage increased by nearly 17%. Somehow that is not making me feel better.

And I'm afraid your notion of immigrants building communities from the ground up sounds like a way of romanticizing poverty and exploitation. (I know that is not your intention.) The reality is a little uglier. Here's a recent example -- a school system in Virginia wnats to build a school. They could hire the local reputable contractor with a long term track record who pays his employees (also local) a living wage and benefits, or they can hire the low bid rat bastard contractor from North Carolina. Naturally the school board chooses the latter. His illegal work force travels to said community, live six to a room in a cheap motel, and send the bulk of their subpar wages back to Mexico or Guatemala. Neither the contractor nor the employees pay state or federal income taxes on the money paid to the employees, nor do they pay Social Security, Medicare, or state unemployment taxes. The employee are not covered by workers' compensation and they lack health insurance.

The local community gets almost no multiplier effect from its tax dollars. The bulk of the money is sent elsewhere, the guys on the job won't be around once it is finished, the local work force is unemployed and drawing unemployment, whose coffers are left unfilled by the contractor in question. A local employer who helps create wealth in the community is rendered uncompetitive and the school board now thinks the cost of a school is x when it really should be y. If one of these employees gets hurt on the job (and safety conditions on such jobs are often appalling), the local hospital gets stuck with the tab or the employee doesn't receive needed care.

This is not theory -- I've seen it in action and it is an incredibly destructive mode of operating. But this is happening on a massive level throughout the country, especially in the South and the Southwest.

[Gene O'Grady]

I've missed most of this discussion and am coming in late with a couple of my personal hobbyhorses, but

(a) One of the things that most pisses me off about Yglesias, whom I generally like and admire, is his perverse definition of what skilled labor amounts to. It ain't limited to what you learn at Harvard. Having been in both positions, I'm pretty sure that a construction laborer, let alone an HVAC guy or a plumber or an electrician, is no less skilled than the typical marketing manager. And having worked in the old AT&T in what are now called by the ugly name of call centers, let me assure that the lower middle class largely ethnic and minority women who made up those staffs had a large range of skills that people with the Indian accents and made up names just lack. The big boys have just decided that the rest of us don't deserve that level of treatment.

(b) I distrust aggregate studies of the labor market, and not just for statistical reasons. I've also worked in an office in a large corporation that was in the middle of collecting, using, and sharing that data and it was obvious that the data was shaped to meet the preconceptions of the corporate officers. Obviously the BLS is better, but even there I used to look at their numbers and realize that in the positions I was in (varieties of semi-skilled office work) no one made what the surveys said they did.

I remember looking at Arthur Schlesinger's memoirs and seeing that he took off on a trip ca. 1940, when it must have been a lot harder to travel, to see the country with Bernard DeVoto. Yglesias needs to do something similar.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

So isn't the question really "who benefits"?

First of all hiring illegals takes away from the saftety net for all, unemployment insurance for example. Social security. Insurance is based on pooling risk.

As pointed out above by someone whom I cannot find at the moment, the small businesses or family farms cannot fool the government, but the big corporations? No problem.

The other thing that is so odd here is that no one seems to notice that wages in general for those in the lower four quintiles of income have been essentially static for more than a decade. Yet over that same period the cost of everything has gone up substantially. Was anyone reading this blog paying $3.00 a gallon for gasoline in 1998? Maybe if you lived in Africa or Europe.

I am not opposed to people seeking a better life, so I have a degree of empathy for the illegals, but the fact remains they are putting themselves into the situation of working illegally. And the fact also remains that their willingness to take that risk, because it is relatively small, is seriously eroding the basis of the legitimate citizens of the blue collar middle class.

Who benefits? The corporations who can institutionalize their illegal policies and avoid any serious consequences while increasing their profits.

There are further impacts. Illegal immigrants are as a general rule undereducated in almost every respect. Therefore they are pliable and easily manipulated by coercion which they are abundantly familiar with.

They are simply afraid to take part in the overall scheme of american democracy because they know they can be easily denounced. The same applies to those who come from even more remote regions under the absurd auspices of visas for so called skilled workers to fullfill the shortage of natives to meet demand.

Round and round it goes, the multinational corporations have no concern or interest in the viability of the nation from which they suck their life blood. Their only concern it to suck more out until the drained corpse is unable to provide more sustenance, they think they will then move on to new pastures. But it is doubtful it will turn out that way.

The culture of profit at any cost is rapidly coming up against the laws of nature. And nature cannot be fooled.

[litbrit]

As pointed out above by someone whom I cannot find at the moment, the small businesses or family farms cannot fool the government, but the big corporations? No problem.

KN, that was me, wife of a small businessman and family farm-owner. ;-)

Sir C, this: The local community gets almost no multiplier effect from its tax dollars. The bulk of the money is sent elsewhere, the guys on the job won't be around once it is finished, the local work force is unemployed and drawing unemployment, whose coffers are left unfilled by the contractor in question
...is spot-ON. And its veracity is underscored, in our town at least, by the long lines at the Western Union outposts and Post Office on Friday afternoons, as workers wait to send wire transfers and postal money orders, respectively, to Mexico and beyond.

There are further impacts. Illegal immigrants are as a general rule undereducated in almost every respect.

KN, agreed. To give just one example of the negative effects on the community that folks might not consider but are nonetheless real: consider undocumented workers who are here for a while and manage to earn enough to buy cars. They are taken advantage of by local junk-car lots, who sell them barely-functioning old rustbuckets that surely violate every safety and EPA standard at this point--I don't know how they get around the paperwork and registration issues, and perhaps I'd just as soon *not* know--and charge far more money than the things are worth. Then, there is the issue of insurance. What insurance?! There won't be any, is what. So if and when the "new" car owner gets into an accident, he'll often flee the scene--abandoning his car, even--because he's terrified of being captured and sent back home. This happened to R when he was in Southern California several years ago and he and his associate were in a sandwich-style accident on the 405 wherein the guys in front slammed on their brakes and the guys behind *them* slammed into *their* car, and the drivers and passengers of both cars, fore and aft, leapt out and ran for the woods. This left R, now with a few broken ribs, and his associate, standing alone with two abandoned cars and their own wrecked one when the police and paramedics arrived; the associate's insurance, alone, had to cover all the repair and medical costs, even though he was not at fault, and the state had to cover the costs of towing the two abandoned and now-wrecked vehicles and clearing the highway.

Had these gentlemen--who are undoubtedly here only because they want a better life than the one they left behind--been properly integrated into the system, documented as participatory citizens-in-the-making, paid living wages so they could afford decent, non-polluting cars with functioning brakes, as well as drivers' training and licenses and (at least) basic auto insurance, the costs of that accident would have been more fairly distributed, if indeed the vehicles' working brakes had prevented said accident in the first place.

These are the real-world consequences of our current system. And of course, the ones who pay the costs are not the guys at the top--no way. We need to allow immigrants who want to live and work here a way to do so legally, with dignity and with the protections from exploitation and responsibilities to society related thereto. It will benefit everyone--American-born and otherwise.

[janinsanfran]

Where I live, undocumented workers -- with few protections and no labor rights -- simply ARE the low wage working class. They are there in hotels, residential construction, janitorial, etc. I worked construction for 15 years and did okay. Could not be done now.

If we don't legalize these folks and extend the rules to them, we can forget there being any rules about what our employers can do to us.

[oddjob]

If we don't legalize these folks and extend the rules to them, we can forget there being any rules about what our employers can do to us.

Yes. The alternative is to live in a police state where the authorities have enormous search access in order to determine that everyone who is here is authorized to be so, whether as a citizen, legal alien, or visitor with valid visa.

[minstrel hussain boy]

at a border angels protest a couple weeks ago one of the organizers, while standing in front of a particularly ugly section of the border fence said:

senor obama, tome abajo esta pared.

(mr. obama, tear down this wall)

[KaceyJ]

And this is why the Conservatives will continue to win. We are too busy arguing with each other. Meanwhile Obama will be a one-term president, health care will not pass and our immigrant intake will surely decline. That's it. I give up.

[Sir Charles]

KaceyJ,

I don't think there is anything wrong with arguing on our side. Yglesias and I agree on much -- indeed he and I were recently villified in tandem by some other members of the lefty blogosphere for admonishing a spirit of greater pragmatisim. I critique him because I like him and I want him to be better.

I think that Obama is likely to be relected by a pretty solid margin. 2012 is a long way away. (Check Reagan's 1982 numbers if you want reassurance.)

I don't know what will happen with health care, but I still think it may well pass.

Immigration will probably decline while the recession persists on the employment front, especially given the state of the construction industry.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

Litbrit - Thanks

We hear from politicians all the time how small business is responsible for most job creation so they need tax breaks, less regulation etc. etc. but almost invariably such measures really benefit huge corporations far more than they impact small business. I think what small business needs more is a level playing field. There are so many issues that bear on this that it is staggering.

I don't want to bash immigrants but I think it is clear that illegal labor here has done immense harm to the middle class and even more harm to those who subsist somehow below the arbitrary lower bound of middle class. By the same token our drug policies in the US have done enormous harm to many of the countries from which these desperate immigrants come. I can't speak with any authority because I studiously avoid any political curiosity in any foreign country in which I work, but I have worked in Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, and Brazil for long periods and I can tell you that drug trafficing, because it is illegal, is a huge cancer in all of those countries. I can only imagine what Mexico must be like.

So there is a kind of impolite balance there. Mutual harm infliction under the guise of political peace.

While litbrit's knowledge anecdote is no doubt applicable in many many cases I was actually trying to imply something very different. Your average Peruvian who finds his way to the US to try to cash in on the stories of the good (but precarious) life to be had in the US has no grasp of how a representative democracy is supposed to work. They have no grasp of what a social contract is (except in the cosa nostra sense), not so much as a inkling of what our constitution even says let alone what it means, and on and on and on.

This one issue is coincident with many others at its edges but I think is among the most important in some ways. As long as there exists a black market in labor all laborers will suffer. That is apparently the intent of the policies that have brought about the current dire circumstances. Why almost half the people who live in the US cannot see this and yet are amost uniformly adversely affected by it, frankly defeats me.

I have no understanding of labor laws and actual politics of labor but I do recall that several decades ago I read a book called "Clarence Darrow for the Defense" in which were recounted more that a couple major trials involving the conflict between unions and management. It, along with a lot of other life experience changed me from having a very narrow and simplistic view of the world. I am still changing.

Oddjob -

We already live in a police state. The Republicans, before their convention arrested a number of protesters who were *planning* how to make enough noise to get some media attention during the convention. No one in the MSM even noticed this abridgement of freedom of speech.

NSA? Their goal is to filter everything. They probably have better than 95% coverage.

19 people get on airplanes and commit heinous acts of terrorism that 'no one ever thought of'. Therefore the government has the right to arbitrarily and without any probable cause at all search hundreds of millions of people per year. There need not be any stated objective to the search. IOW, we are looking for whatever we find.

Should I go on? I'm not trying to be argumentative, I am just howling in the wilderness. Literally.