IMMIGRATION
Q.
WHO BENEFITS ?
A. BIG BUSINESS
AND LANDLORDS
Migrants kept
down the wages of low-paid workers,
reinforced the gap between rich and poor and boosted company profits. Cheap
labour provides more cheap services for the rich to get their lifestyle at a
premium while nailing an ever-larger swathe of
the workforce to the minimum-wage floor.
[Polly Toynbee, The Guardian]
There is a huge
amount of evidence that any increase in the number of unskilled workers lowers
unskilled wages and increases the unskilled unemployment rate. Employers gain
from unskilled immigration. The unskilled do not.
[Professor Richard Layard, architect of
We conclude that
the economic consequences of large-scale
immigration are mostly trivial, negative or transient, that the interests of
the more vulnerable sections of the population may be damaged, and that the
small fiscal or other economic benefits are unlikely to bear comparison with
immigration's substantial and permanent demographic and environmental impact.
[David Coleman, Professor of Demography,
REINFORCES GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR
There is also a
sizable redistribution of wealth from native-born
workers, who must compete with new immigrant workers and therefore experience
lower wages, to employers. What immigration does is prevent the wage from going
up to take care of the shortage of workers.
[George J. Borjas, Professor of Economics,
Harvard]
The naive
belief, among the liberal establishment, that there is a shortage of labour is
an elementary economic fallacy. The notion popular among the left that
immigration confers economic benefits on the host country is unwarrantable. Large-scale immigration of
labour acts over time to reduce (or check the rise of) wages and to raise
rents and profits.
[Edward Mishan, former Professor of Economics,