Unless you have actual evidence that suggests or shows that the labor shortage would disappear if the current non-citizens were permitted to work, your argument is nonsense.
"your argument"? Here is The "argument":
more immigrant workers = more production takes place, counteracting the current shortages which consumers are experiencing due to shortage of workers, or reduced production recently, maybe due mostly to the pandemic. Increasing the supply of labor (rather than artificially restricting it, as we're doing) is a logical part of the process to correct what has happened to cause these shortages.
There is no argument that something will "disappear" -- the argument is that consumers will be made better off by the production being restored to what it was earlier (or closer to it), by resuming needed work which is not getting done but which could be done if the labor supply was not kept artificially low due to unnecessary limits on immigrant workers. If you can't understand that increased work results in increased production, then you need to learn basic vocabulary, before trying to tackle economic theory.
What has happened might be called a "labor shortage" or some other term. Whatever it's called, the damage from this reduced production can be corrected by allowing more immigrant workers, to correct a pattern which is doing damage to all consumers, i.e., to the whole economy, making everyone worse off.
You can argue that consumers must be punished until employers are forced to increase the wage levels, but the truth is that wages have already increased, and there's no way to prove what the proper wage level has to be. Probably over 5-10-20 years the reduced production level and higher wage level would settle in -- some reduced profit level and higher prices for consumers. There's no reason to believe this would be better than the alternative of allowing more immigrant labor, which would correct the shortage problems much sooner.
Dictating a certain artificial increased wage doesn't automatically solve what's wrong, or produce a better social outcome, because in some cases the labor simply is not worth that extra price -- i.e., reduced production is the more profitable response, not higher wage, and producers always choose the more profitable response, based on the normal principle of profit motive, which is a legitimate principle -- Economics 1A. Whereas automatic forced higher wage because of popular clamor is not a principle of Economics, even if a majority favor it. (Example: suppose a special tax on all left-handers is favored by the majority (being right-handed) -- is that therefore best for society, having popular appeal to the mindless masses? Of coursed not.) But each person being free to make his/her own individual free choice -- to demand a higher price (seller), or to shop for a lower price (buyer) -- is a basic principle of Economics.
We need to stick to the basic principles of serving the whole society -- all consumers, rather than the instinct to pander to a screaming mob which scapegoats employers and immigrants, because the nativist-minded mob only understands its instinctive hate for newcomers and dirty capitalist pig-employers regardless of what's good for society generally. Artificially curtailing immigrant workers suppresses the basic principle of allowing buyers to shop for a lower price, thus making the whole society worse off, i.e., all consumers are hurt because it drives up the prices they must pay as a result of the mob's demand for artificially higher wages = higher production cost.
laughing dog: employers want more work than current labor is willing to offer at this wage.
Largely because "current labor" is kept artificially low by the exclusion of immigrants from the workforce, which isn't necessary.
This is the same labor market we have had for decades.
Yes, in the sense that for decades there has been a damaging policy of restricting immigrant labor, to the detriment of consumers. The number excluded has always been too high, and the economy, all consumers, have suffered from this artificial suppression of the labor supply. What's different today is that this bad policy is doing even more damage now, in the current economic environment. So the previous bad policy is even worse now -- hurting more consumers -- than in the past when the need for labor was not so extreme, when the jobs were filled more easily to get the needed production done. So the problem of unmet need, or reduced production, has gotten worse than it was before.
For someone who espouses economics, you don't seem to grasp the basics.
Nothing prevents you from stating the basics. But so far you are only pandering to the petty nationalistic nativistic argument that immigrant labor must be curtailed in order to prevent anyone's wage level from being threatened. You're right that this curtailment of immigrant labor is not necessarily new. In the Sept. 14 hearing
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/me...ucial-to-bolstering-our-health-care-workforce , it's pointed out that the bad immigration policies date back to the 1990s. Nothing in your "basics" gives any reason why these bad anti-immigration policies should be continued. Your argument for something that does harm cannot simply be that we've been doing these bad policies "for decades" and that "the basics" of economics require that bad policies going back that far have to be continued no matter what. Where is it stated in "the basics" that it's always best to continue something bad as long as it has been going on "for decades"?
Basic economics suggests that a shortage will result in market forces to raise the market wage until there is a match between what is being offered and what employers wish to buy.
Not if raising the wage means no profit for the additional hiring at that higher labor cost.
If that is the case, then there would not be a shortage of labor at the current wage . . .
Of course there would be and is such a shortage, due to the recent change caused by the pandemic, which cannot be corrected only by increasing the wage level, because the higher labor cost would reduce the profit level for the same production as before. So instead of this higher cost and lower profit, companies reduce the production rather than increasing the wage. Whatever the factors are that have caused the shortage (or reduced labor supply), it should be obvious that one proper response to it is to increase the number of immigrant workers, to offset the reduced labor supply. To deny this is to judge that consumers ought to suffer the current harm of reduced supply and higher prices and often empty shelves. Only if you have a value judgment that this harm to consumers is something good, something all consumers deserve, can you judge that it's wrong to admit more immigrant workers to curtail this shortage of labor or this reduced production.
. . . if employers are rational.
They always do whatever is necessary to maintain profit as high as possible. This definitely means to reduce production in some cases, such as when costs go up, or supply of anything is disrupted.
Where higher wage really is the solution, employers are already doing that, raising the wage as needed to attract new workers.
But in cases where the higher labor cost drives the profit down too low, what basic economics suggests is that employers will simply reduce production, or keep it reduced, as long as the extra production would not be profitable. But a greater supply of lower-cost labor could be available if immigrants were not excluded, which would reduce the shortage and increase the production needed; so, making this labor illegal is what causes the shortage. Increasing the supply of immigrant labor, rather than restricting it, is a legitimate way to get production back up where it should be.
"Where production should be"? That is your value judgment, not an economic criterion.
Economics does not preclude a legitimate value judgment, that the production should return to where it was before the pandemic, without the disruptions we've been experiencing. Nothing about basic economics excludes all value judgments. You can question the value judgment if you disagree with it, but not because it conflicts with economic criteria.
If you wish, you can judge that it's good for consumers to suffer, and this is your value judgment. But otherwise it's almost an
a priori principle of economics that consumers should be served. E.g., anti-price-fixing laws are based on the value that companies are supposed to compete because it's good for consumers. So it's virtually axiomatic that whatever makes consumers (100% of the population) better off is always good for the economy. But if your value judgment is that the population (all the consumers) should be made to suffer, in the interest of serving a narrow interest, such as propping up someone's wage level, or pandering to a particular mindless mob, then go ahead and state that value judgment. My value judgment here is that it's good for the production not to be disrupted by shortages if there's a way to keep the production going, such as before the pandemic, or to restore the production to the earlier condition before the shortage crisis.
laughing dog: None of the options in the poll really address that reality. Each option will either cause wages to fall (adding immigrants) or . . .
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.
More economic nonsense.
Increasing the supply of labor will reduce labor compensation either from its current level or from its level without the shortage.
Whose "compensation"?
Yes, somewhere someone's compensation might decrease, or probably would in a few cases, even though most wages are being pressured upward (and would continue to be) because of the labor shortage (which would not "disappear" overnight). So then the argument against allowing more immigrant workers is that all uncompetitive workers must be absolutely guaranteed against any wage reduction. So we must adopt a wages religion which dictates a propping-up of all wages no matter what? even for the least competitive? There is nothing in science or logic or economics or philosophy which requires that all wages must increase and never be allowed to decrease no matter what. No, in some cases it's OK for someone's wage to fall.
Rather than such a Higher-Wages-For-All religion, the only religion should be to make all consumers better off, or to increase the general standard of living for all, or increase the general welfare. Not to single out one segment of the economy -- even if it's the majority -- and insist that everyone in this category must experience an income increase at the expense of anyone else, or anyone of another category.
It's not wrong if some workers experience a wage decrease, if those workers are uncompetitive or their value has decreased. Anyone whose value decreases (maybe due to competition, possibly even to higher labor supply) should experience a wage decrease.
