The junior senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton, appeared on Fox News Sunday on New Year’s Day and was asked about The New York Times op-ed piece about immigration that had appeared under his byline a few days earlier. The Fox News anchor Shannon Bream asked Cotton whether we need to slow both illegal and legal immigration. Cotton’s answer was unequivocal: “Yes, absolutely. … our immigration system for too long has brought in too many unskilled and low skilled workers which has undercut wages for working Americans.”
Cotton’s idea that a flood of immigrant labor is to blame for depressed low-skill wages is just flaky, writes Ira Stoll. A whole series of other factors have had much greater effects on both the size of the labor force and on wages. The labor force swelled because of both the post-World War II Baby Boom and the increase in women’s participation that was a result of the feminist revolution. What’s next, a call by Cotton to shrink the American labor supply by promoting small families and stay-at-home motherhood?
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