Overall immigration levels to the United States should be reduced to continue the wage hikes that America’s blue collar and working class have enjoyed under President Trump, a new ad says.
The latest television ad campaign by NumbersUSA touts the four percent wage hikes that Trump has delivered to the country’s working and lower middle class over the last 12 months and asserts that in order for wages to continue rising, legal immigration levels must be cut back to traditional levels.
“The economy is moving in the right direction,” the ad says. “But adjusted for inflation, wages in many occupations are still below 1970s wages. And allowing immigration to continue at one million a year, flooding labor markets, could block further wage growth.”
“Isn’t it time to reduce immigration numbers and let wages rise more? Let’s keep giving Americans a raise,” the ad concludes.
Indeed, wages for white collar Americans and college graduates have barely budged despite record low unemployment and a roaring economic recovery. This is partially due to business being allowed to import an army of about 1.5 million low-wage foreign visa workers which middle class professionals are forced to compete against.
A study conducted last year by Pew Research Center revealed that in many cases, U.S. wages today have remained the same since the late 1970s when adjusted for inflation:
After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today. [Emphasis added]
To quickly increase U.S. wages that have flatlined for decades, Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), David Perdue (R-GA), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) have reintroduced the RAISE Act to cut legal immigration admissions to about 500,000 a year and end the process known “chain migration,” where newly naturalized citizens are able to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. — sometimes importing entire foreign villages to the country, as the New York Times has reported.
Currently, the U.S. admits more than 1.2 million legal immigrants every year, as well as hundreds of thousands of foreign visa workers. Meanwhile, there remain more than 12 million Americans who are either unemployed but want a job, underemployed and want full time work, or want a full time job but believe that there are none for them in the current labor market.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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