Wednesday, February 27, 2013

High skilled immigration

- Bipartisan consensus on STEM labor shortages - the first sign of a problem with the idea:


-

- Daniel Costa of EPI on STEM labor shortage claims

9 comments:

  1. What madness. What family would borrow $250K for an undergrad degree, knowing that you were competing with a Government intent on driving down your wages?

    Supply and demand appears only to work in one direction. Apple could pay more and there would be more STEM students but paying more is banned, now, by the Constitution

    A.H.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/economics-increased-immigration

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just became aware of Nowrasteh yesterday - still figuring out what I think of him.

      Certainly I'm not making a fixed pie argument, and as far as I know Costa isn't either (just getting a sense of him now too).

      I'm making a "there is no labor shortage" argument.

      Delete
    2. Daniel, there is always a shortage of labor---i.e., of employees who will work want employers want to pay.

      This bill, specifically, is about what employers want to pay. They want people who will come to the U.S. and work for what they want to pay. It is the ultimate crony capitalism piece of legislation of all time.

      I don't want to pay a market rate, I want to pay less than the market rate, so I will import people who will work for less than the market rate. It really is that simple.

      BTW, why are you wasting your time from the Koch brother pr organ at CATO. Would be better to look for needles in a hay stack

      A.H.

      A.H.

      Delete
  3. Think of it as promotional advertising for US education.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The "first" sign of a problem.... ?

    Surely you jest. People have been growsing about pay, promotion, and employment prospects in STEM fields since the 1960s. Objection to admiting immigrants specifically to fill "vacancies" in STEM fields dates back to the 1970's -- the IEEE used to be very vocal about this topic. Plus, since this current recession began, there's been a fair amount of grief expressed about the very low job prospects for long unemployed or unemployed elderly (40 years old or up) STEM workers.

    So this is more like the 12,345th sign of a problem. Or do you mean it's the first time ever in all of history for an American lawyer, businessman, or politician to admit STEM workers have employment issues? That's probably true.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very true. It is a major sign, then :)

      Perhaps I should say the first thing that should raise concerns when watching the video is that Rs and Ds agree and want to do something about it.

      STEM workers are like STEM employers - they've all got interests at stake. But certainly policy has erred on the side of STEM employers lately and the STEM workers case is closer to correct IMO.

      Delete
  5. Push Stem wages up high enough and I would brush off my calculus and physics textbooks and give up the practice of law.

    ReplyDelete

All anonymous comments will be deleted. Consistent pseudonyms are fine.