Bloomberg
President George W. Bush, addressing the nation on his immigration-overhaul plan last month, declared that granting temporary visas to immigrants would merely give them a chance at ``jobs Americans are not doing.''
A growing number of economists challenge the contention that Americans aren't willing to take on those low-end jobs; it's kitchen-table economics, not the sweat factor, that keeps them away.
These economists' studies indicate many Americans want those jobs -- they just can't afford to take them because of declining pay and benefits. And they say the influx of immigrants has helped drive down compensation in occupations such as the needle trades, landscaping and restaurant help.
``The idea that somehow you have a need for people to do jobs that Americans won't do is just insane,'' says George Borjas, an economist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has written extensively about immigration and wages. He says that as immigrants flow into an occupation, ``the wage goes down, and you go do something else.''
Posted by Tyne at June 27, 2006