Illegal immigration, which negatively impacts the wages of American workers, is the one issue where low-income Americans are more conservative than wealthier Americans.
A comprehensive Pew Research survey found that “on only one item – perceptions of the economic impact of immigrants – are the least financially secure more conservative than those who are better off: 44% of the least secure say immigrants are a burden on the U.S. because ‘they take our jobs, housing and health care.'”
As Pew noted, “that is considerably higher than the share of the most financially secure (27%) who express this view.”
According to Friday’s jobs report, a record number of Americans are outside of the workforce “while average hourly earnings were down 5 cents in December,” falling by .2%, a month after Obama announced his executive amnesty. According to the Department of Labor, “wages increased 1.7 percent over the 12 months” that ended in December, which was “the smallest gain since October 2012.”
“Economic theory would have it that as the economy grows and the labor market gets tighter, increasing competition among employers would require them to raise the pay of their employees to recruit new ones and keep the old ones,” Business Insider wrote. “That’s just not happening.”
Since 2000, all of the country’s net job growth has gone to immigrants–illegal and legal–according to a comprehensive Center for Immigration Studies report. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who has been the most prominent voice on this matter and the fiercest defender of American workers in Congress, has emphasized that Harvard professor George Borjas “has estimated that massive immigration would cost American workers nearly $402 billion a year in lost wages, while corporations that employ and benefit from immigrant labor would gain around $437 billion in profits.” U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow has warned the Congressional Black Caucus and President Barack Obama about the negative impact massive amnesty legislation would have on the wages of black Americans at the lower end of the economic ladder. And former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin even called on President Obama to be impeached for selling out working Americans by not enforcing the country’s immigration laws.
America has the most generous legal immigration policy in the world, and polling has found that voters would like a pause in even legal immigration to allow for wages to increase and more assimilation.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.