It means he can't get a job as an engineer. He has the education, but since it was from a university in Iraq, his degree was essentially worthless in 'Murica.
The problem is that credentials are only valued by employers if they come from an institution that they recognise and respect as giving a high quality education. But that's an exclusive, not an inclusive, list; They need to either vet each institution themselves, or (more frequently) depend on a government agency to do it for them. But governments have little incentive to do the hard work of vetting foreign institutions, unless the foreign government in question has a reciprocal arrangement in place.
An awful lot of third world degrees will not get you a US job that needs that skill.
Reality: The economy has for years been geared to ensure a labour surplus (unemployment), as a means to prevent wage rises.
But it's more than that. It's also an artificially limited supply of labor. There's a much greater supply of labor available, not only from outside the country, but also inside, because many non-citizens in the country are artificially prohibited from employment. Such artificial restriction on the supply of labor also creates a shortage of labor. So the labor shortage is more than a mismatch between what wage is offered and what wage the job-seekers demand. It's also the artificially low supply of labor due to exclusion of immigrant labor.
Largely because "current labor" is kept artificially low by the exclusion of immigrants from the workforce, which isn't necessary.
Not if raising the wage means no profit for the additional hiring at that higher labor cost. Where higher wage really is the solution, employers are already doing that, raising the wage as needed to attract new workers.
What's important is that the option to increase immigrant workers would result in the needed production increase (and reduced shortages), which is the socially-beneficial result we should desire. The wage level would not "fall" as a result, but you could argue that it might not increase as much as some Left-wing ideologues demand. But the socially-beneficial need -- the greatest good for the greatest number -- would be the increased production, no matter what effect there is on the wage level. There is no economic essential need for the wage level to be propped up higher, even though it's politically popular. The essential basic social need is to have higher (efficient) production, regardless whether this or that particular special-interest class gains. What's important is the general benefit to all, to all consumers, not the benefit to any one select class at the expense of others.
Excluding immigrants from the workforce is their priority. (Their specialty is not "complaining," but taking action to ensure that immigrants are excluded.)
This indicates that the Left's crusade against the immigrants is not to deport them, but just to make sure they cannot work. Obama's higher number of deportations was less significant than his stepped-up enforcement of laws to exclude them from the workforce, to make sure that immigrants (which they love) are excluded from participating in the economy.
translation: keep immigrants illegal, vigorously enforce laws to exclude them from the workforce, and vehemently punish the hated employers (but don't "scapegoat" them) trying to survive by circumventing the bad laws which artificially reduce the supply of labor to the detriment of the economy and the whole population.
www.judiciary.senate.gov
I wasn't yet born yet during WW2 but immigrants certaintly were not a mainstay of anything during that time. The Japanese families were put in camps and women did the factory work. I was alive during the 1960's-70's and would say also that immigrants were not much part of an industrial revolution during that time either. At least where I grew up (midwest).
I don' think immigrants had anything to do with America becoming economically great. It was a different system of government originally set up which allowed a much greater freedom for individual liberty than existed anywhere else, especially Latin America.
Why don't you think that immigrants helped make American great? I would agree with you that Indigenous Americans are incredible people; but we didn't do it all on our own.
That is just economic ignorance. If a shortage of labor causes wages to rise, that is because firms know that the extra hours purchased create more value for the firm than they cost the firm. Furthermore, firms will also have greater incentives to produce without labor. The only way your argument makes any economic sense is if there is no slack in the economy which would mean there is no shortage of labor either.
From an economics point of view, a shortage is always caused by a below market-clearing price. There is nothing in the market now that prevents employers from inducing more people to work by paying sufficiently higher compensation. Nothing,
This is the same labor market we have had for decades. For someone who espouses economics, you don't seem to grasp the basics.
If that is the case, then there would not be a shortage of labor at the current wage if employers are rational.
"Where production should be"? That is your value judgment, not an economic criterion.
More economic nonsense. Increasing the supply of labor will reduce labor compensation either from its current level or from its level without the shortage.
Adding another foreign non english speaking culture to an existing indiginous population (that barely gets along as it is) is your answer to create harmony and unity? That sounds rediculous. Show me any examples throughout the history of mankind where this has worked.
Standard leftist error.
Whatever jargon you use to describe it, there's a need for workers to do jobs that are going vacant, causing disruption that hurts consumers and drives up prices. And there's a supply of labor to do those jobs which is being artificially suppressed, which could fill that need which otherwise will not be met. Immigration is a legitimate source of labor, traditionally, though it's true that bigotry and xenophobia has suppressed that labor supply many times, but always for the worse. Exclusionism and artificial suppression of free choice generally makes the economy worse, not better.
It's fine for them to do that, competing and finding better terms. But that's no legitimate reason to artificially suppress the labor supply. Employers who can offer better terms and maintain profitable production are doing so, but declaring war on them by artificially restricting the labor supply only makes the whole economy and all of us worse off. Suppressing production by driving up their cost because you hate employers is not the solution to anything. The solution is to set all producers free, employers and job-seekers, to make their own individual free choices, to seek his/her own "better deal" as they individually choose, rather than the government interfering to impose artificial terms onto them, such as dictating wages or prices to them, or arbitrarily excluding someone in order to artificially suppress the labor supply.
They already do that when it's necessary to improve production, but that's not for outsiders to dictate to them. The company knows what is the best production level, because they have to pay the cost for it. Those who pay the costs are the only ones qualified to make those decisions.
Both the employers and employees are fodder, pressed into service for the benefit of consumers.
Then why is this continually being denied to them? The need for these workers has not been met, because the legal status is denied and needed work doesn't get done. Though, fortunately, there is circumvention of the bad laws in order to meet the legitimate need for these workers, or some of the need. But other need goes unmet and consumers suffer the consequences (from shortage of migrant workers). What legitimate purpose is served by inflicting this damage onto consumers and the companies trying to serve them?
The "decent" wage is whatever the worker and employer individually agree to, each exercising his/her free choice. Employers have to increase the wage and terms as necessary to attract the needed workers. For outsiders, like government, to interfere and dictate these terms only makes everyone worse off. What is gained by artificially restricting production by imposing arbitrary terms that don't benefit society? The best terms, for everyone's interest, is whatever the workers and employers themselves agree to individually, without interference from Leftist ideologues pretending to know what everyone's income should be, or Populist fanatics pretending to know who "belongs" here and who does not.
At another board, people were aghast at $19 an hour for a worker at McDonalds... and I was thinking that I haven't made $19 or less an hour in over two decades! I couldn't imagine trying to live off of what I made over two decades ago. People in the US have been successfully programmed into buying into the corporate nonsense (I'm being polite).
