Rep. Jarrold Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that oversees immigration, acknowledges an immigration crisis, but not the one most of the 14 million out-of-work Americans who say they want a job might think.
In a floor speech urging his colleagues to pass H.R. 6, Rep. Nadler said:
Madam Speaker, we do have a crisis in this country. The crisis consists of a shortage of workers.
American workers across the country would be justified in asking when they should expect their raise. In a labor shortage, the advantage goes to workers, who can negotiate better jobs, better wages, and better working conditions.
Tight labor markets push employers to consider more diverse candidates, invest in training programs, and extend recruitment pipelines to underserved communities. Black unemployment is almost as bad today as it was during the Great Depression.
There are 100 million working-age Americans who are not in the labor force. Recent history tells us that millions will re-enter the workforce when the labor market gets tight enough.
Rep. Nadler is a powerful elected official whose reasoning has been captured by Ponzi demography. His speech on the House floor was devoid of labor economics fundamentals like the law of supply and demand. In their place was this:
The crisis consists of a shortage of workers. As our population — our birth rate goes down, as our aging goes up, we have fewer and fewer workers. And since economists tell us that the number of workers is what produces prosperity, this is a crisis for the country.
Given that tight labor markets advantage wage-earners and loose labor markets advantage the investment class, one might ask "prosperity for whom?" But there are even more concerning questions.
In order for immigration to maintain the current working-age share of workers to retirees, Nadler would need to quintuple immigration, which would push America's population beyond 700 million by 2060. Under Nadler's Ponzi scheme, Congress would perpetually have to increase immigration until the numerical limit surpassed the total population of the globe.
Now, H.R. 6 hardly goes that far. But the American Dream and Promise Act is but one part of President Biden's bill to more than double immigration. Democratic leaders have indicated that they intend to pass as much of Biden's bill as possible by breaking it up into smaller pieces. H.R. 6 is just the tip of the pyramid.
JEREMY BECK is the Director of the Sustainability Initiative for NumbersUSA
