I knew that I couldn’t in good conscience vote for George McGovern when I was treated to the spectacle of seeing his chief economic advisor, John Kenneth Galbraith, being compelled to apologize shamefacedly for the candidate’s extraordinary economic ignorance. The editors of the Wall Street Journal find themselves somewhat in that position in critiquing the position of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on legal immigration:
In a radio interview Monday with Glenn Beck, Mr. Walker said “the next President and the next Congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages.†He went on to say, “I’ve talked to folks, I’ve talked to Senator Sessions and others out there.†At the “forefront of our discussion going foward,†he says, must be what legal immigration is “doing for American workers looking for jobs†and what it “is doing to wages.â€
By all means let’s have that discussion on jobs and wages. Because Mr. Walker seems to be taking his cue from Senate hearings Mr. Sessions held recently to spread a whopper: that Americans with degrees in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) can’t get jobs because foreigners are stealing them.
Mr. Sessions is the Senate’s leading crusader against any immigration, legal and illegal, and his latest targets are H-1B visas for skilled workers. Practically speaking, these visas are the only way U.S. companies can bring foreign talent to work in America, and more are going to STEM specialists.
The Senator calls claims of a skilled-worker shortage a “hoax.†But the numbers suggest otherwise: The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services announced last week that it received a record 233,000 requests from American business for the 85,000 H-1B visas available.
The WSJ editors are displaying a bit of economic ignorance of their own. There’s more than one reason that the number of requests for H-1B visas might be so large. It might be, as the editors suggest, that the workers are simply not available. Or it might be that the wage being offered for the workers is below the market clearing price. The editors present no evidence for their position; they merely assume it. I would submit that anyone who has ever worked for a company that requested H-1B visas could testify as to how frequently they’re used as a way of reducing wages. The employers aren’t short of workers; they’re chaffering down wages.
In the technology sector in particular it has been demonstrated so frequently that the industry leaders, e.g. Microsoft, Oracle, etc., are using H-1B visas in just that way that it requires no additional proof.
One bit of evidence that might be produced for the WSJ’s position is if median wages in the U. S. were rising (and median wages equalled average wages or nearly so). That isn’t the case so I think we should be skeptical of the claim.
The editors also say this:
As for jobs overall, in 2010 the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded “there is no evidence that immigrants crowd out U.S.-born workers in either the short or long run.†It also found that the long run effect on the income of Americans is small but positive.
which is a bit of lying with statistics. There’s more than one way that could be true, for example it might mean that the incomes of top managers were rising even as the incomes of ordinary workers were falling.
I want American employers to be able to get all of the skilled workers they need and I’ve produced my strategy for doing that any number of times. Remove any limits for the number of H-1B visas that will be available. Create a central clearing house for jobs for which employers wish to obtain H-1B visas. Let the employers pre-commit to hiring any applicant that meets the qualifications stated in their application. If the employer fails to hire a qualified applicant or if the wage being offered for the position can be demonstrated to fall below the prevailing market wage, deny that employer any H-1B visas for a period of five years. Let all of this be handled administratively rather than going through the courts.
There appears to have been a push at the secondary education level to encourage kids into STEM paths. It will be interesting to see if that works. For example, 7th graders at our middle school take a one-semester class called “STEM,” which from what I can tell is about working with robots and reading science fiction. They also visited the engineering campus at the U of Illinois, where they could see young men from foreign countries getting their degrees. Many of whom, most particularly the Chinese students, have no intention of staying in the U.S.
To me the question is what responsibility do universities, particularly public universities, to see to the education needs of its community? Public finance problems are making the decisions. UC Berkley plans to increase international student enrollment each year, as in-state enrollment declines. They will pay commissions to recruiters for each international student enrolled (something unethical to do for domestic enrollment). It could be that the international students are now subsidizing college for domestic students. But if the problem is that the U.S. does not have enough STEM students, then the educational system is not efficiently achieving this goal, as a certain percentage of international students will go home to family and state jobs. If international students are paying high tuition rates, they are more likely to originate from political and economical elites in their home countries.
They know goddamn well what’s going on. See Southern California Edison’s IT department for a perfect example of what they say isn’t happening.
The one thing they’re correct about is that it isn’t foreign workers stealing the jobs. It’s domestic management fucking their fellow citizens in the ass. Fuck the goddamn management class, and fuck the goddamn Wall Street Journal.