To those who say illegal immigrants keep the prices down?

Question

I am an American living in Canada (dual citizenship). Here in Canada, we really don't have a problem with illegal immigration, yet our costs of goods and produce are really about equivalent to that of the US, once you take into consideration the exchange on our dollar. I wonder then, why illegal immigrant supporters claim that if all illegals in the USA are deported, the cost of goods to American consumers will go up to such as "$10 per head of lettuce," for example. Here in Canada, we also have fast food restaurants, farms, landscapers, construction companies, etc., and while we don't have the illegal immigrant problem that the USA has, we still don't pay more than the USA does for these goods and services, after you factor in the exchange on our dollar. So, I guess there goes that excuse, eh?

We have lots of farms here and we grow lots of our produce ourselves. We are fairly equivlent to the USA in our economy, so why are we faring as well as the USA even though we don't have cheap illegal labor? You tell me.

Morey, you check the news all you want to and in fact, the only news I have seen here in Canada recently regarding illegal immigrants was two situations of US citizen criminals who tried to come to Canada to escape US justice. You check everywhere you want for news regarding illegal immigration in Canada. In the past several years, the only illegal immigration I have heard of here was Hondurans who cross the border from the USA just before they know they are going to be deported from the USA, and not all that many of them, even. Once here, basically they sell crack cocaine as they cannot access social benefits here as they can in the US, and they also cannot find employers willing to hire them under the table. We have not heard of them stealing SINs here (SSN in the US).
We have identity theft here, but it is usually not illegals and is for credit fraud. This may come, but has not yet.

Slew: I don't know exactly what the difference is between the income of Canadians as compared to that of Americans. I believe our minimum wage is around $8 per hour. If you check on the internet for $ equivalency (Yahoo has a tool for this) you will see that our dollar is not that much different at the moment. As well, I believe Americans pay a large amount of their income for medical insurance compared to what we pay here in Canada, so you need to take that into consideration.

Dark: You are right in that any savings to the employer in hiring illegal immigrants is put directly into the pockets of the employer and not pased onto the consumer.

Answer 1

Without illegal aliens, the price of agricultural products and other goods and services will nor soar.Or be cheaper. The definitive study on this subject is the University of Iowa's "How Much Is That Tomato?" The study concludes that 'since labor is such a small component of the end-price of agricultural products (which includes price to the growers, transportation costs, processing /storage costs, grocers' profit, etc.), using minimum wage workers instead of illegal aliens would increase prices of agricultural products by approximately 3 percent in the summer and 4 percent in the winter ... hardly the making of $10 heads of lettuce, $25 hamburgers, $1,000 per night Days Inn hotel rooms like the pro-illegal alien lobby claims.

Consumers are not benefiting from lower labor costs. Again, it's CEOs and business owners who benefit from taxpayer subsidies for their illegal alien workers. The Big Three automakers say they moved so many jobs to Mexico because their labor costs are 80 percent less than in America. Anybody notice the price of new cars spiraling downward under NAFTA?

So, before you believe the prevalent pack of lies perpetuated by the illegal alien lobby, which makes billions off this government-sanctioned criminal activity, ask yourself who's saying this garbage and look at what they have to gain.
It certainly isn't "Joe average citizen"

TIGER..I live in Arizona and 99% of the illegal aliens work day labor and are paid in CASH .There are no taxes taken out of cash.The only taxes they pay are sales tax on items they buy.
I live in the real world of illegal aliens.If they are getting checks where Social Security etc are being taken out, then I can just bet you they are using a stolen,borrowed,copied,rented or shared Social Security number.The TIN # doesnt give any one the RIGHT to work illegally in the USA.

Illegal aliens absolutely do not contribute more than they cost. Certainly the millions in prison and on welfare aren't contributing a dime to our economy, and the ones who are working often are paid in cash with no deductions for taxes at all. The ones who use fraudulent social security numbers and qualify to pay taxes and social security have so many deductions for dependents that they pay little if any taxes.

Answer 2

Very good point.

Studies say that if farmworkers were paid wages above poverty level here (a raise of 40%) an average family of 4 would pay $10 more a year for produce. We pay a heck of a lot more subsidizing services of people on poverty level wages.

I've been to Canada frequently, and while I noticed the rotten exchange rate this last summer, you are right that the prices are pretty much the same as here.

Answer 3

The idea is that cheaper labor costs brings down the overall cost of products.For instance, if you only have to pay someone the minimum wage rather then two or three dollars more then you can apply the savings to the consumer.Theoretically this actually does make sense from an economic stand point.The average American usually doesn't settle for low wages but if you could find someone who was willing to accept the low wages for the same work you could cut costs.

But, I do see your point.I believe in strong immigration laws.But I also understand the economic reasoning's behind why many border located farms and factories hire and utilize an immigrant workforce.So, I feel that we need to tighten our borders and deport people who come here and are not working for their citizenship and contributing to the economy and government taxes.But I also believe that those immigrants that are hard working and tax paying people are integral to our economy and without them there would be a change in a lot of industry that could be disastrous.

Answer 4

Ok- when people get fake SS numbers and get hired- where does that money go that is taken out of checks for SS taxes? Where is that money being paid to? Employers should check ALL SS numbers and if any looks suspicious or under a different name- Don't hire that person. All SS numbers should be listed with a date of birth. For example, if one guy comes in and he looks 20 and the SS number he presents comes up in the system as a 60 year old guy? Right away that should tell an employer that that number was stolen. Or a made up number comes up? Only SS supplies legit numbers to US citizens.

Answer 5

Not only that, the cost of illegal immigrant worker isn't always cheap. I know for a fact that some illegal cleanning people charge more than $38.00 per hour for a job that could be done better by any americans.

Tiger, quit whining,ok?!. we all know that the illegals are way smarter in smooching out of the tax payer's dollars than just using fake SS# to "pay taxes", give it up already!!

Answer 6

Prices will raise slightly as the illegals are replaced with Americans. The argument that prices will balloon out of control is bull. Companies pay illegals nothing like they would pay a citizen and keep the money they save as profit. The consumer sees absolutely NO mark down in price. Illegals do nothing to help this economy and everything to hurt it. They lower the standard of living for the American work force and flood the market with cheap, disposable labor.

Answer 7

Millions of American Workers have been working for$5.15hr or less since 1997!! Now it finally got raised to $7.25hr but you don't get that because its on a graduated basis until the year 2010!! The actual increase amounts to 17.6 cents an hour!!Are we suppose to be grateful for waiting 12yrs*** for a living {minimum} wage increase? Would you work for 12yrs** to get a 17.6 cent increase in your paycheck? THATS INSANE! Thanks for nothing! Only in America do we get shafted by the people we put in office! May God have mercy on our Senators & Representatives!!!!!!!!!

Answer 8

Nafta. Where do you think you get most of your fruits and vegetable. From the greenhouses near Vancouver. Curious, How much do you net in income compared to America.

Answer 9

Too many people accuse illegal immigrants as a non-paying taxes person,but lets just talk about the situation when an illegal alien work with illegal papers, I am pretty sure that every time they receive their checks, there is a line on their check stub that said:$... for federal taxes, $..... for state taxes, $.... for medical insurance, $.... for medicare, etc. And when all this money it is taken away from their checks, the I.R.S.(In U.S.A.) do not care if their S.S.N. it's legal or not, they just charge them no matter what, but when they wanted to claim the taxes(W 2 form) the I.R.S. office tell them: "Oh, We are sorry but the S.S.N. you are giving us, it is not right, please verified it and call this telephone number."
Plus every time they go to the store to buy any thing,the cashier charge them sale taxes. Why they do not ask them: OH, excuse me sir?, before I can charge you all the sale taxes, may I see your "green card", because if you are an illegal alien, you are not supposted to pay taxes.

Answer 10

What they are saying is that they are not willing to cut their exobitant profit margin, so if they actually have to pay a living wage, they will also boost their profit margin!