^^^^^^
I would also like to ask to whom would the majority of that increase in wealth go? I would argue it wouldn't be to the people doing the moving. It would be to the people driving them to move.
I would also like to ask to whom would the majority of that increase in wealth go? I would argue it wouldn't be to the people doing the moving. It would be to the people driving them to move.
An immigrant will capture a much smaller share of the value they generate, otherwise why use them, than a native born citizen.
This means that while theoretically 'wealth' is increasing it is increasing in such a way that those who are in the position to pay wages keep more of them and those in the position to receive them get much less.
In short then what's the point of an average in a power law distribution which by definition does not have a defined average?
Or to put it even more dumbly would you rather live in a world of 100 units of wealth distributed between the 5 quintiles as [80.0, 16.0, 3.2, 0.64, 0.128] or one of 20 units distributed as [6,5,4,3,2]. For 2/3rds of the people in the world the second would be better.
Why not use them, if they're more qualified?
The only reason why employers can fleece immigrants in US today, is because immigrants are effectively "locked in" - e.g. if you're on H1-B, you can't change employers without going through a bunch of paperwork; and if you get fired, they just kick you out of the country. Which, obviously, means that you can't negotiate from the same position of strength as a native. But remove those, and why do you think an immigrant would demand to be paid any less? We're not stupid.
Because you're poor. An Indian in India makes 1/20th the wage a US citizen makes in the US. If they get 1/15th you have just received a huge raise and are happy.
Besides, why would someone take 1/15th, if they can have the whole thing? I mean, by a similar logic, you'd expect people in US readily undercut each other at 1/2th, 1/4th etc in a race to the bottom. But we don't.
Listening to the dumps some of my co workers live in I can see why median hourly wages have not increased in the last 40 years.
This is political economy 101. One of Malthus's suggestions for reducing the mortality rate was getting exotic materials to become staples of life so food wouldn't be the limiting factor of population.
You don't get to discount China/India/etc.'s growth as "inevitable catch-up growth" on one side of the equation, yet fully count it on the other side.
As a consequence, I support reverse-mercantilist trade policy, foreign student education and practical training, outsourcing, and tech transfer, especially for countries like India which both have a lot to gain and are strategically highly aligned with the US (I acknowledge that China is now a more complicated case), to the extent that Americans can continue to bear these things. (Canadians and Australians seem to be fine with continuing these practices indefinitely, while also letting a pretty high number of skilled nonwhite foreigners from poor countries settle permanently.) And I violently oppose the grossly inefficient mass-low-skill-immigration policy that threatens to turn Americans, Germans, and others against the overall project while accomplishing so little.
You seriously think poor people's quality of life hasn't increased in the last 50 years?
Go drive around "working poor" neighborhoods right after Christmas and see how many huge flat-screen TV boxes are curbside waiting for "big trash day" (small hint: a lot) or see how many people don't have smartphones.
I would argue that Wallyworld did more to bring up the standard of living for poor people than the last 50 years of social engineering but I know how much people like the downmod button...
I'm actually curious what quality of life metric you're judging by that's declined in the last 50 years?
And, btw, I wasn't proposing some new measure of Quality of Life through the size of the living room TV but using it as an illustrative example of technology becoming more accessible to more people at lower costs. Same with the smartphone reference, having the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips seems like a quick and easy way to improve one's lot in life.
I do wonder if people would complain if Walmart managed to decrease housing and healthcare costs using their aggressive bargaining tactics like they've done with generic prescription drugs?
--edit--
Forgot a requisite huffpo link praising Walmart for prescription drugs prices (whoops, wrong link the first time around) --> https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-a-london/a-way-to-save-b...
The quality of food Walmart sells is abysmal. The pressure Walmart put on food manufactures to drop prices played a significant role in the malnutrition and obesity in the us. TVs and smart phones are a very small part of Quality of Life. Having fulfilling work, good health, and a clean environment are more important aspects that Walmart worsen.
Making food less expensive is bad? Never really understood that argument but maybe it's just me...
There are studies on the percentage of income a family spends on food today vs. some time in the past (with "time" depending on whatever study you look at) and it has steadily declined. Less money spent on food == more money to spend on some other necessary thing to live a quality life.
Also, I'd put more blame on the USDA[0] for "obesity in the us" than Wallyworld selling people what they want to buy. People grow up believing in the Food Pyramid and end up becoming overweight through a "well balanced diet" dreamed up through regulatory capture.
[0]https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-bailor/obesity-epide... -- note: #1 result on the google for "food pyramid obesity" is the huffpo so it has to be true...
Making equivalent food lower cost is good. Reducing food quality to reduce price is bad.
Perhaps the hedonistic acquisition of inessential physical goods is not necessarily commensurate with a higher standard of living?
While there has been progress in the past 50 years, there has certainly also been much regress. When measuring the advancement of a civilization, it seems something other than the pervasiveness of bigger, cheaper screens for reruns of Baywatch (et al.) should be the yardstick.
If you were to strip everybody in the Forbes 1000 list of their US citizenship (someone like Singapore or Monaco would surely step up to provide them with a valid passport), relieve them of IRS personal income filing duty, but allow their money to stay in the US economy, the economy would look the same and act the same. But the income disparity numbers would look much brighter.
If every American shopped on Rakuten vs Amazon, bought Samsung vs Apple, searched on Yandex instead of Google, banked at Barclays vs Chase, took a Didi vs Uber, if every hedge fund manager was based in Zurich vs Greenwich, US income disparity would not be so jarring, as the wealth would accrue elsewhere, exporting the income disparity with it.
Would the US economy be better off?
I'd be careful making assumptions about the reasons people don't agree with you.
Taking the grandparent comment: "Supposing this is true, does it matter, if the overall size of the pie increases? Isn't everyone better off? Would you rather the poor stay poor so that the rich don't get richer?"
I don't disagree with this point because I believe economics is a zero some game, I disagree with it because it's wrong (it takes "everyone being better off" for granted), and I will be on guard to oppose any other initiatives (say, open borders) suggested by a group that thinks like this.