> Why is immigration tied to lower wages?

Obviously this can greatly vary. In America, immigration is tied to lower wages for lower tier jobs like chefs, construction workers, factory workers. I don't know enough to state immigration's effects on high tier white collar jobs like software engineering.

> Obviously this can greatly vary. In America, immigration is tied to lower wages for lower tier jobs like chefs, construction workers, factory workers. I don't know enough to state immigration's effects on high tier white collar jobs like software engineering.

Can you show evidence this really happens even within lower wage jobs? Folks point out that not only are immigrants much less expensive labor for communities (in that there are qualified individuals arriving pre-trained and as active adults rather than locally trained and nurtured children), and that they tend to take different jobs than the native population does in most cases.

This is a surprisingly common take on the literature, with an unlikely consensus among both the conservative and radical left, libertarians and conservative libertarians, and even many on the conservative side.

The service industry is a particularly good example of how immigrants arriving into an economy tend to expand the economy to make room for themselves (they themselves need to contribute to the additional demand on the local services industry) rather than displacing the existing infrastructure.

> This is a surprisingly common take on the literature, with an unlikely consensus among both the conservative and radical left, libertarians and conservative libertarians, and even many on the conservative side.

I hate asking but mind citing some sources?

Economic consensus is that labor pool operates on supply/demand, so greatly increase the supply through immigration will reduce demand and therefore reduce salaries. This part of the reason for why doctors have such high salaries: their supply is limited because only X number of people can become doctors each year and demand is very high.

Saying that an increased supply of workers does not affect highly commoditized jobs like cooks and construction works is an unusual claim and I would appreciate a source so i can review their arguments.

If people move to the city they work in, they would not only be workers but also citizens. Thus increasing the supply of workers. But also the amount of consumers. It's a two way street. Importing work force that only work during the day and then leave is however bad I would say. People that are sick are also a toll (that's expected to yield return someday, future investment).

That is just my uneducated take on it.

When I search for the terms immigration wages I get the following sources:

https://www.sns.se/en/archive/effects-of-immigration-on-nati... https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

Racism is not bound by facts - see our current administration.

We're debating "replacement rates" and immigration because it turns out only people who are currently in power benefit from a party that maintains the status quo. This leads to that party gripping the status quo reigns ever tighter, and in turn to most non-majority people voting against them. Well, turns out a lot of the minority are immigrants, so the status quo faction now yammers about "replacement rates" and wants to keep immigrants out - because they're aware they can't hold onto power under a democratic system that allows immigration.

And so, racism and fascism takes hold, and facts are jettisoned for the benefit of holding on to power.

You're a) expanding the labor pool with b) people willing to work for less money than the locals. How you think that doesn't drive down wages is beyond me.

You're making a positive proposition in the domain of economics. You're obligated to show evidence of it if you can, or at least propose a mechanism people can debate. It's entirely feasible to do so.

But good luck with that; I think the data shows that it's not a very pronounced effect.

> But good luck with that; I think the data shows that it's not a very pronounced effect.

Yes, you're right, H1-B visas and offshoring have done wonders for the average US software engineer's wages.

It doesn't (necessarily) drive down wages because immigration expands the size of the market, there are more people to buy from and sell to.