Dare Obasanjo

In addition to the hypocrisy, being anti-immigration is an example of thinking about the economy as a fixed pie where immigrants are stealing a slice from citizens.

In reality, you can grow the size of the pie for everyone via entrepreneurship. The American economy and American people would be worse off if the father of Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin or Satya Nadella were not able to emigrate to the US.

It’s not like founding Google or Apple is a job that an immigrant steals from a citizen.

Dec 30, 2023 at 9:16pmWeb
Show threadSara Joy Dec 30, 2023

@carnage4life the United States really isn't super old and is founded on immigration. It's amazing how little time it takes for people to want to pull up the ladder their own families climbed.

Maybe they fear being treated the way their own forefathers treated the previous inhabitants of the lands.

Show threadfreeformz 🏳️‍🌈Dec 30, 2023
@carnage4life if they wanted entrepreneurship they would fund child care and health care as well as being pro immigration.
Show threadMike Sturm  Dec 30, 2023
@carnage4life This is so true. Immigrants are an essential part of America - it is who we are. I also find it strange that many of the same people argue against addressing climate change. In my opinion, investing in clean, renewable energy technologies now will SAVE money and HELP the economy in the long run. Do they want the US to fall behind the rest of the world in technological leadership?
Show threadPepita PepitoDec 30, 2023
@carnage4life it does not even require entrepreneurship: any extra worker added to an economy will usually spend most of their income and thus "recreate" the "job" they just "took". so first order effect is flat, second order effects are more subtle but also mostly positive.
Show threadGibbonDec 31, 2023
@carnage4life imo offshoring is many times worse than immigration which seems to be a net positive. Though it's great for the people/countries getting the work.
Show threadTonyJan 2, 2024

@carnage4life I'm an immigrant myself (twice over, even) & (therefore unsurprisingly) a big fan of immigration. But I have spoken with a good friend who explained to me the argument against, specifically, unskilled immigration to welfare states. I'm going to "steelman" it here.

Consider the example of a family with 3 kids whose parents lack any skills & don't even speak English. If they move to the US then at best one of the ends up working for minimum wage. Is this really a net gain?

Show threadDare ObasanjoJan 2, 2024

@adsouza There are labor shortages across the US because of this type of thinking especially after the drop in workers due to COVID.

I’m on vacation right now and over the past few days I’ve seen bus routes that no longer run on Sunday due to lack of drivers and at dinner last night they only had beer & wine because they were short staffed on bar staff.

So yes, even immigrants getting minimum wage jobs is a net gain. The US is missing 1.7 million workers since COVID.

https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage

Understanding America’s Labor Shortage

Workforce participation remains below pre-pandemic levels. We are missing 1.7 million Americans from the workforce compared to February of 2020.

Show threadTonyJan 7, 2024
@carnage4life That's a fair point but the lack of labour supply for traditionally low-wage jobs has meant that those folk finally saw a long-overdue pay bump in the past couple of years.