Why We Need Fewer Justin Biebers and More Low Skilled Immigrants

Singer and teen heartthrob Justin Bieber, a 19-year-old Canadian
immigrant, was charged this week with drunken driving, driving
without a license, and resisting arrest in Miami Beach, FL.

“What the f*** did I do? Why did you stop me?” Bieber asked the
police officer according
to CNN.com.

While Bieber may be providing the United States economy with
millions of dollars in revenue through concert ticket and album
sales, low-skilled immigrants provide just as much of a benefit to
society without the public recklessness. Check
out Reason
Foundation senior analyst Shikha
Dalmia‘s “5 Reasons Why Low Skilled
Immigrants are Good for the Economy”. Here is the original text
from April 2013:

1. Americans are the Customers of Low-Skilled
Immigrants

Most Americans are not competitors of low-skilled immigrants,
they are actually their customers. They buy all kinds of services
from them: House cleaning services, childcare services, landscaping
services, home construction services. If Americans can spend less
on these services, then they have more money in their pocket to
spend elsewhere, which means more jobs created elsewhere in the
economy.

2. Low-Skilled Immigrants are Mobile

Latino and other foreign workers don’t have ties to the local
community and they haven’t invested in property so they can pick up
their bags and leave at any point to wherever they are needed. They
can go to where houses are built in Arizona or pick fruit in
Florida, they can go wherever they want. They “grease the wheels”
of the labor market, as Harvard economist George Borjas has
put it.

3. Low-Skilled Immigrants are Good for
Women

Low skilled immigrants increase the supply of high skilled
workers and these high-skilled workers are often called women. Many
professional women would be forced to spend much more time at home
taking care of their children, cleaning, doing laundry if it were
not for the presence of foreign nannies, Korean dry cleaners or
Chinese takeout.

4. Low-Skilled Immigrants May Cost the Welfare State
Less

A big fear about low-skilled immigrants is that because they are
poor they impose a big cost on the welfare state. But the truth is
that most of them don’t even qualify for most means tests benefits
that Americans do so they may actually be saving
the welfare state money rather than costing it money.
A CATO
working paper from February 19, 2013 said, “Low-income
non-citizen immigrants are generally less likely to receive public
benefits than those who are native born.”

5. Low Skilled Immigrants Create Jobs

 They create more jobs for Americans because they reduce
the cost of a key import in production: labor. When labor costs go
down, more businesses can form, when more businesses can form,
there are more jobs for everyone–including Americans. The fact
that there is someone else to do menial work like pulling weeds
means that Americans can do relatively more value added work. For
instance, their English speaking skills become more marketable in a
diverse economy with lots of immigrants who don’t speak
English.

Dalmia appeared
last month on Capitol Hill to talk about the importance of low
skilled immigrants. If you would like to read more articles and
videos from Reason on immigration click here.

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