The utter incongruity of U.S. immigration and economic policies has been brought sharply into focus by the “Great Recession.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that politicians in D.C. are working to correct the problem; but at least it makes it more difficult for them to defend policies that are manifestly detrimental to American workers. With job creation “lower than expected” month after month and with 51.7 million Americans of working age (18 to 65) without jobs, one would think a top priority would be immigration reform that benefits American workers. Sadly, this is one “jobs initiative” the American public hears little about from their elected leaders and President Obama’s job creation speech to a joint session of Congress utterly failed to address any aspect of the problem.
The current unemployment situation is the worst America has faced in over 30 years. But knowing that the unemployment rate is 9.1% does not really convey the magnitude of the situation. U.S. News & World Report has released “15 Stunning Statistics About the Jobs Market.” Below are some of the lowlights.
• The total number of jobs (nonfarm) held by Americans in August was 131.2 million. In January 2000, total employment was 130.8 million. That means that there are fewer 400,000 more jobs in the U.S. now than there were a decade ago, while the working-age population has grown by 28 million.
• The number of workers currently employed as a percentage of the working-age population in August was 58%. In December 2007, it was 63%.
• There are 11.5 million fewer job holders today than there were in 2007.
• 25.4% of teenagers are unemployed.
• According to Gallup, 18.5 percent of the total workforce remains underemployed.
Isn’t time for politicians to consider that bringing in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers every year might not be in the interest of American workers?
4 Comments
I think there’s a big difference between legal and illegal immigrants. While there are numerous problems with illegal ones, legal immigration, if properly cultivated, can be a key ingredient in economic development and recovery. It can be a key source of long-term economic vitality, particularly in urban areas experiencing population loss, shrinking labour pools and growing numbers of retirees.
Sorry Tom but when 10’s of millions of American’s are out of work the federal government needs to put a halt to illegal and LEGAL immigration.
By historical standards allowing well over a million legal immigrants a year is a massive number and is just as harmful and possibly even more so than our illegal immigration problem.
Both have the effect of drive down wages. Illegals tend to displace poorer workers and legal immigration tends to displace ad drive down middle class workers and wages.
Until the real unemployment rate is down to under 6% immigration should be halted…ALL immigration.
I live in the state of Florida, everywhere you turn there are hundreds of illegal immigrants in our state. There are families of 6-10 people living in one household, they are trashing our communities and crime is on the rise. Every lawn service job, fast food restaurant and construction job is hiring illegals putting our children out of work. All medical jobs are hiring only those people who are bilingual making it hard for my daughter to get a job in a field where she has experience. The Government needs to send everyone here illegally back to where they came from and we need to close our borders. My husband and I are retired and seriously looking to move out of this area which has been taken over by the illegals. It’s a shame we do not feel safe in America anymore. Our own Government as abandoned us for their political gain. God save us!
What’s sad is that it is happening in most all parts of America, not just border states anymore. They say illegals pay tax, well, here where school is funded by property taxes, if you have 4 families with 7 kids in one rental single family home, they are NOT paying anywhere near their fair share. When the news shows the pitiful crying illegal immigrants saying “we’re people too” I say “yes, you are – but that doesn’t mean you can come here illegally and bring our quality of life down to the lowest common denominator”. Not without a fight, anyway.