This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
CBO on Migrant Workers
I came across this slide from the Census Bureau.
When you do the calculations on births/deaths/migrant workers you get the following results:
Annual births: 4.5mm
Annual deaths:2.9mm
Net change: 1.6mm
Net new migrant workers 790,000
From this one gets the total increase in population at ~2.6mm. Fully one-third of that growth comes from foreign immigrant workers.
I was surprised to see how big the migrant worker side of the equation
was. That comes to 66,000 a month. If you follow the monthly Non-Farms
Payroll report you know that there have been many months that we don’t
create that many net new jobs.
Our friends at the Congressional Budget Office just happened to have issued a report on this subject on Friday. Catchy title:
A slide that I thought was interesting shows just how much money is leaving the country from those foreign migrant workers:
The total came to $66 billion in 2009. That is a very big number. Of the
$31b that left the shores to go south of the border $20b ended up in
Mexico. Asia was the beneficiary of $17b of inward money flows. Of that,
$3.2b went to China. China manages to suck the blood out of the USA
every which way. We send them our money for interest on our debt. We
send them money for everything we buy from them. And those who come to
work here send back a few billion more.
Allow me to “play” with these numbers a bit. I believe that the vast
majority of the money going to Latin America (31b) is from undocumented
workers. The same is true for the $5b going to Africa. I will assume a
conservative estimate that only 50% of the $17b going to Asia is from
illegal workers (9b). I will be generous and exclude all of the money
(total 15b) going to Canada, Europe and the Middle East (there are many
undocumented workers in this set). My conservative estimate is that
~$45b a year is leaving the country from undocumented workers.
A question is, “How much of an illegal workers pay is being sent back home?” My answer to that is: “Somewhere between 0 and 50%".
Call it 25%. This means that a worker sends home one week of wages for
every month that they are here. I actually think the percent number is
lower. It is hard to get by in America with just three weeks of wages a
month. The savings rate for Americans is less than 5%.
If you accept my (conservative) one week in four argument then you can
conclude that the total wages being paid to these workers is ~$180b a
year (4 x 45b). That is a very substantial amount of money.
The average legal worker pays 7% in Social Security and other FICA
taxes. The average Federal tax rate is about 20% and the average state
income tax is another 5%. It comes to about 33 cents on the dollar.
Put that together and you get lost tax revenue of ~$60b (180*.33). I
think this is a pretty good estimate given that I excluded the $15b
going to Europe/Canada and 50% of Asia. But I will ‘haircut’ this
estimate down to $50b a year. That still is a hell of lot of money.
-A ½ Trillion over the next decade would be very welcome.
-$50b a year would solve all of the state’s problems if the money were committed to them over a long period of time.
-$50b a year would be a hell of a down payment on the energy infrastructure build out that we so desperately need.
-$50b a year would turn Social Security into a perpetual “pay as you go
system”. We could forget about any funding shorts falls forever.
-$50b a year would go a very long way to bring our educational system back up to par.
What would you do with an extra $50b a year? Let’s face it, we need this money and it would be very helpful if we had it.
The bottom line is that America needs immigrant workers. We also need
the tax dollars that come from the wages that are paid. We don’t need to
have all this money just leak out of they system while the social costs
of illegal workers stay in country.
This is America’s Black Economy. It stares us in the face every
day. For the life of me I can’t figure why we don’t confront the
problem. But notice that neither the Republican nor the Democrats have
even raised it as an issue for 2011. They are too busy fighting over
budget cuts, yet there is a big bucket of money right at their feet.
We don’t need to solve the broad immigration problem today. That is a
very complex/emotive task. We should start the process by making sure
that illegal workers pay their taxes. Just like the natural American
workers do.
»
- advertisements -
Someone should see if there's a correlation between High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Diabetes type II here in the USA.
California Hispanic or Latino of Any Race enrollment went from about 26% in 1981-82 to over 50% today. The future population of California is certainly trending towards mostly Hispanic.
Most of this group, many hard working, lack the education to compete globally at the current US living standard.
Add in the non-Hispanic population that would likely be rejected for a manufacturing assembly job and perhaps only 15% of the population is capable of competing globally to support the current US living standard.
Buffett's relatively glowing outlook aside, a decline in living standards is coming to a community near you.
This is by design. Open the floodgates to illegal immigrants to depress wages and living standards for all Americans and prop up the ponzi Social Security system.
As a Californian resident I can tell you the plan has worked perfectly.
Bruce: I'm not sure that I can add anything to the conversation which hasn't been said. So I'll just say that you live up to your reputation of a "must read" author with this piece. Thanks for posting your article.
Read this:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/03/immigration-isnt-the-problem
An excellent point, and a subject unto itself. Thanks for bringing it up.
See also my comment on NAFTA above.
Aah yes - gimme dat ole time xenophobia
Thanks for the article Dr. Goebbels jun.
The problems are endless. Wages in the building trades, already hurting, are being driven below minimum wage. You don't like that? The Mexicans will.
It is well known, and bitterly resented in the Mid-Atlantic that the illegals can ignore any and all traffic laws, permit laws, etc. Anything less that murder and the cops are simply not interested. Where can I get that deal?
Where can I get the deal that gets rid of said illegals, and the folks that hire them (knowingly or not) get slapped with meaningful punishment?
Sure, Snookie....that's why local governments are taking it upon themselves to enforce Federal immigration law.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/113219-va-action-reflects-growing-s...
Exactly.
These people work their fucking asses off doing shit that is beneath you and me. Who's going to wipe your ass when you're 88 and paralyzed in a wheelchair? Who's going to lift your sorry frame into the shower? And clean up your drool? And pick you off the floor when you're too weak to get into bed? And clean your piss sheets? Is that on the guidance counselor's "hot jobs" list? Who's going to harvest all of those crops whose value is sent through the roof by speculators playing with borrowed money? If you're here and you're working, then who are we to deny them medical treatment when the melanoma starts? Is planting shit and harvesting it beneath you because you work in a steel and concrete jungle? Look, I agree that the borders should be tightened. But if you're already here and working your ass off for $15K or whatever annually, that $15K comes from a company who should withhold 7% and pay 7% for this person and this person gets a seat at the table. SS could be fixed for a long time if we just put that 14% on the TBTF bonuses and clawed it back to the folks who make the shit we eat and clean up our elderly. As a ton of other posters have indicated, this is NOT where we need to focus our efforts as anger at immigrants is wrongly placed...the only ways to close a deficit are to increase revenue AND decrease spending and anyone who believes in trickle down should take a careful look at their leg after a long hard piss because that's what trickle down really means. As long as we have politicians funded by TBTF and seeking jobs for life we are fucked. Period. Game over. Rant and rave and cry and do whatever you want. We've abandoned the people and sold out to the almighty dollar and any retard who tries to tell us how we don't need more revenue (TAX INCOME) is on dope.
Right On !!! "Everything's fucked up and nobody goes to jail."
Matt Taibbi - Why isn't Wall Street in Jail - rollingstone.com
"These people work their fucking asses off doing shit that is beneath you and me."
Speak for yourself.
Guess you haven't been in a factory lately, or tried to work construction (concrete, framing, masonry, roofing). Neither are beneath me or my son, but just try to get a job as a white person.
Good job! Blame the Mexicans for the lack of jobs due to most of the manufacturing being sent to Asia. Damn wetbacks! If it weren't for them I'd be able to get a job making shirts or fenders.
This whole issue is nothing but a distraction. And a damned successful distraction too. The guys that are picking your pocket are in Washington and New York, not Mexico. Rush has what, 9 Maybachs? that he's bought with the money he's been paid by the Power Elite to distract you away from the real criminals.
The urban elites don't know or care that decent jobs are simply gone. The rest of us can live just fine without New Yawk or DC. Can they say as much? Food for thought.
Evidently you haven't been to many stage 1-2-3 Care centers lately have you?.
You want to know who's doing those shitty jobs, and damned glad to have them?.
African Americans.(and they do a damn fine job).
The other jobs,construction,hotels,motels,fast food,food services,are where the Hispanics are doing the bulk of the work.
Again, the word is ILLEGAL.
I do not care how hard your ass works, you chose it, if your ILLEGAL, then your ass should not have that opportunity.
Do it right,become an American, assimilate, or stay the hell home.
We have WAY more issues to deal with than doling out free care,and citizenship.
Your President is illegal. How can you credibly believe that the people making your rulesare legitimate?
The INS doesn't seem to care whether they're illegal or not. Ever drive faster than the speed limit? Then you're an illegal too.
Lol, your vision is so biased by the Bin Laden lens, creature created by western oil imperialism. Just look at what the new generation of young moslems in the age of Internet feel about Islamic mumbo-jumbo, feudal aged beliefs that the europeans junked three centuries ago. They have shown that now their agenda has changed. It's going to spread like wild-fire across the moslem countries all the way to Indonesia. Can't stop progress once the blinkers are off. It'll happen in Iran in the next five years. Just look at what their youth want. The ayatollahs are going to run. Cos Iran has won its freedom thirty years ago. The new generation will want to grow like the rest of the world.The tough one is Pakistan cos they've been so f***** by US military running their country by surrogates since 1958, then siphoned into the USA-USSR confrontation in 1979, and lo and behold the ISI-CIA laid a shitty egg, the Taliban! Now we wonder why this local excretion of fundamentalist hate is so toxic along with that other Kermit Roosevelt invention Iran, and that other CIA surrogate pearl, the mother of all fundamentalists, Saudi Ali Baba lord of US oil patch. Very clear, the first victims of all these shenanigans hoisted on locals are the locals themselves, now thawing out after 50 years deep freeze. So forget Islamic threat. The LOCAL roller coaster will rub it out anyway, PROVIDED your govt. doesn't make the picture confused by ensuring that the fundamentalists ARE also the patriots as they hate US intervention. Just like in Ho Chi Minh days the commies were the patriots and won for that very reasons against the USA. Look what the commie govt. achieved! Nothing, except freedom (huge) but only poverty. So much easier to get things done when you don't shove it down people's throats or up their red and rosy. If the USA wants to stay lead player in spite it's current melt down in say ten years or twenty years having paid the piper his due, it must keep the multi cultural model. Skin color is the last of your problems if you have the culture to keep the flame of progress alive. USA does. Just get lean and humble again. Then come back into the game. Like the rest of the world. Keep your eyes on the ball!...
I think for the most part your comments were right on target--and well written. I have a 6th sense feeling that you are correct about the young--much like after the Reformation and the Catholic Church. 10 years should tell the tale. I think the west will see a vastly changing Islam.
Milestones
Good argument. However islamist activity still seems pretty high
2 million Egyptians have other ideas
No one named, "Kermit", should be permitted within a thousand kilometers of a government policy lever.
Falek,
Even though English doesn't appear to be your native language, I like your way of expressing yourself.
I would like to sneak you into the back door at the White House and let you sit in the Oval Office and run things for a few weeks.
I admit this one had some bad ones...oops.."secretion"...well, well...lose my thread.
Usually I like your articles, but you really want to blame all the little brown people for our problems? Even if they were taking 100 b out of the economy, that's nothing compared to what "american" companies hide overseas every year.
But thats the good old american tradition isn't it. It's never the wealthy or the corporations that are screwing us over, it's the italian, mexican, chinese or name your other favorite little brown immigrant that's doing it.
I would argue that it is a contributing factor to the overall economic problem.
No sane person would argue tens of thousands of illegal immigrants engineered the Fed's interest rates or are responsible for the massive over leveraging at the top of the economy.
The issue is at the state and local level. As another commenter pointed out, the cost at Dallas Parkland was 700 million. Even for Dallas, that is a LOT of money, representing an unfunded local mandate that is costing far more in local revenues than the illegals contribute. Add in things like uninsured motorist claims, schooling, gang problems, etc., and the effect on the people and the local economies - it adds up.
As long as "things economic" were rocking along seemingly OK, it was affordable.
Now?
Economics, like politics, is local. And the home folks are hurting.
You can do all the arguing that you want, but you're flat ass wrong. Immigrants tend to be younger than the average non-immigrant. Aging societies tend to have more difficulty balancing their budgets due to the social costs of the elderly. Look at Japan or most of Europe if you would like confirmation. Young workers, regardless of whether they're legal or not, support the old retirees. It's as simple as that. Younger workers support me (I'm retired). Most Mexicans immigrants are young.
From a brief passage thru the southwest, seeing all the new $500,000 homes either occupied by ten 'families' or abandoned and falling into disrepair, the illegal immigrant may have been prime suspects in the Subprime, no-doc loans that found their way into Lew Ranieri's worst nightmares.
And with that both Greenspan and theBernank are complicit.
Go ahead and call me nuts.
Excerpt(s) from "The Big Short":
"In Bakersfield, CA., a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000/yr and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $724,000."
"By May 2007, however, there was a growing dispute between Howie Hubler and Morgan Stanley. Amazingly, it had nothing to do with the wisdome of owning $16 Billion in complex securities whose value ultimately turned on the ability of a Las Vegas stripper with five investment properties, or a Mexican strawberry picker with a single $750,000 home, to make rapidly rising interest payments."
"'Who takes out a home loan and doesn't make the first payment?' asked Danny Moses, putting the matter one way. 'Who the fsck lends money to people who can't make the first payment?' asked Eisman, putting it another."
You're b!tchin' about a few termites on the property, while arsonists in 3-piece suits have just lit your World on fire!
"Go ahead and call me nuts."
Only if you insist. <BG>
Interesting observation. Thanks.
I was reading blogs at tax.com, and I was floored that there was only 84 individual income taxes filed claiming income of over 1billion, obviously organized captial isn't reporting income that way, it's held in tax haven's thru trusts
the solution is never the same as the problem. the solution is for the Mexican government to partner with DEA to bust up the drug cartels. The immigration problem isn't what you think it is either, 300 million ambitious restless Gringos looking for land and a fresh start, to the south of them plenty of arable land, a coastline, a friendly indigenous people, and only about 90 million of them, all wanting something more than a single light bulb in each house and one car for an entire village. the real immigration problem is Americans going south, to build infrastructure, highways, utilities, law and order. Something can be worked out here.
"the solution is for the Mexican government to partner with DEA to bust up the drug cartels.'
The gringos are the ones with the drug problem, bud.
In reality, the "Mexican Government" in the guise of border patrol, local police, and drug agents all depend on bribes to augument their income - How do you think these underpaid warriors in the WOD build their incomes ???
If you can find a copy, read "The Underground Empire" for a basic understanding the root of the problem.
And the difference between this and Congress and the rest of the federal gov't. is?
precisely.
and that is why, in my opinion, drugs should be legalised - all drugs, not just alcohol and nicotine.
kills the profit margin and stops the waste of time and money waging this nonsensical "war on drugs"
cleans up the product, cuts drug-related crime.
could help the Afghanistan situation too.
will it be done?
of course not.
How then, will the CIA fund itself? The US Govt is soooo stingy with the largess!
right on, the CIA is partnered with the drug mafia's, and governments, that's why so many countries like Panama still use the $ for their local currency, black op drug $ laundering
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=yhs-avg&type=yahoo_avg_hs2-tb-web_us&p...
+++++++
And the DEA's job is to keep the price and profit margins high and eliminate any "illegal" competition.
Wall St. banks have always thrived on narcodollars. It's the "illegal" competition's drug money that needs to be confiscated and divvyed up. It's a dirty business, but it beats working in the fields picking tomatoes.
Yeah Bruce, let's make sure they pay their stinkin' taxes, cuz that's what's gonna solve the problems the collapsing empire is facing...feeding the looters in the government and their bankster masters. Dem brown and yellow peoples ain't paying their fair share!!!!
In New York harbor we have this statue of liberty that is inscribed with the words “Give us your tired your hungry your poor”
The point I’m making is that this has been going on for a long time like it or not. What flips my burger is how TPTB exploit this at our misfortune.
Oh and snowball, yes the boss got hard workers for very little and made gobs of money. That’s not what I was getting at. The point is that social security is being used for everything but SS and tonns of money is unaccounted for. So I repeat!
Know your enemy………… Machiavelli 101
The waves of immigrants from Europe were pretty well counted and most were legal. We might have changed their name from "Prolostich Kowolski" to "Peter Kowl" but they were counted and committed.
The waves coming from central and South American and the the porous southern border are not counted, not legal, and come and go like the seasons as does the money and everything associated. There isn't much benefit for them to become legal, and there is no long boat ride back to Europe. They can go back and forth and have the best of both worlds.
U.S. corporations, businesses, agriculture, politicians, churches = win.
Average legal U.S. Citizen = loses.
Didn't "WOP" stand for "without papers"? Legal or not, they made America a better place, especially in the eating dept.
And they didn't bother to demonize the Huns, Pollacks, Wops, or Micks at all. Uh huh.
"No Irish need apply"
Sure, sure. I think that it was Chief Joseph who could not count how many settlers were going through the territory of his people.
What did the local Native-American Chief say when he saw the Mayflower and its contents? "Oh no, boat people!"
It's a b!tch when you don't have Border enforcement NOR a rational Immigration policy!
"The Mexicans are saving our collective Carnitas in this regard."
They may be in that regard, and their culture is conducive to creatively producing innovation so they can employ themselves into prosperity?
Hardly....Native Mexicans haven't the cajones to eradicate their own sick ass corrupt government and right now it would appear that drug cartels have the upper hand.
Also, illegal aliens are not motivated to become Americanized.
Good point. Unlike us here in America, who have an honest, transparent government working for the benefit of the middle class every day. Silly Mexicans!
We have a real problem indeed and absolutely no doubt there, however it still does not change the massive problems that illegal aliens presents to the American citizen population.
Ok, now off to a gun show I go....