Well, I think this needs more examination, but I'm not the one to do it. Ohio's manufacturing/industrial base has been crushed during the same time period. California's economy did much better, I believe. To claim this difference in wages as a refutation of the claim that immigration is an important factor in depressing wages among the unskilled is simply a fallacy. At most it shows that there are other factors as well.

Why do you think Americans are screaming about immigration, while the leftwing and rightwing in this country cover their ears and stamp their feet in favor of "amnesty" and "open borders?" Read the next issue of Time magazine's survey of voters attitudes.

Some inflation of wages would be a good thing, and can be paid for by a decline in profits - not higher prices. Remember this; in perfect equilibrium, corporations and businesses compete until the last unit of production produces no profit at all - ZERO. That's what Supply and Demand equilibrium means.

I think what astonishes today is that the fruits of the modern world were supposed to spread through the spread of knowledge and technology and trade in goods. Instead we find that jobs are being parcelled out by a clique of international corporate weenies who are lining their own pockets in the process. The masses of people who are wage-takers are powerless.

This is creating growing turmoil in all developed countries - witness the outsourcing and immigration debates taking place everywhere (and not just in developed countries, either.) People who felt like they were just a cog in their societies find it's worse. They're disposable, replaceable, and mere chewing gum on the bottom of corporate weenie shoes.

When 10 million new immigrants (legal or not) with low skills enter the US labor market, wages stagnate for many more than 10 million Americans. There is a "demonstration effect" that effectively keeps a lid on all low skilled jobs, not just those directly taken by immigrants.

One of the most persistent problems in American life is the persistence of poverty. So we will solve this by importing more people? We reduce poverty by importing lots and lots of poor people?

I don't believe the Minimum Wage question gets at any part of a solution. You can't raise a family and pay rent on $5.15/hour today, or $7.15/hour if you raised it tomorrow.

You can't strengthen the bargaining power of existing labor when you import 10 million cheap willing workers to take the jobs over which labor would bargain.

The strongest social safety net is a job paying $20/hour or more, earned while workers are working and raising kids. Social Security is an insurance policy for old non-workers like me.

One of the most useful tools for government policies is the "zero based" review - why are we doing A or B? Why are we encouraging immigration? Do we need more people, or better workplace technology? Are we giving up on stimulating the imaginations and skills of Americans, and turning to the foreign poor instead?

Maybe we need to deal with the American people around us, instead of abandoning them to a permanent underclass.

I could be wrong, but the "income gap" and income and wealth inequality will never be solved by throwing more people at the problem. New people displace, and consume, as well as produce.

Remember the "two Americas" theme of John Edwards in the last election? It resonated with me. We are advocating the very divisions in American society that, as (moderate) liberals, we seek to heal; and doing so with the cynical cooperation of the corporate Fat Cats.

My neighbor on one side is losing his job because his factory work moved to China, my neighbor on the other side has lost his commercial painting business to illegal immigrant workers. A guy who fixed my roof this week said he lost a $14/hour job and was replaced by a Mexican, and now he gets $10/hour fixing roofs. A young man who cut up some fallen trees last week said he lost his good job when his factory closed and he can only get $8/hour in a Quicklube shop. He has two kids.

The US labor participation rate has been declining while private sector employment has hardly risen over the past six years. The reason is that the Supply curve for labor is being constantly shifted, such that wages, especially in the lower quartiles, are flat. This discourages official participation by Americans in their own labor market.

If most economists are in favor of free markets, why not recognize that by "shape shifting" the Supply curve for labor with mass outsourcing and insourcing of labor, we have changed a free market for American workers into a controlled market for corporations and businesses?

If labor prices rise to "clear" labor markets, Americans would work, and the benefits of productivity would be more fairly spread across the citizens of this country. This would reduce the "income inequality" that is so often noted by economic analysts.

The lofty indifference of our American elites, supported by larges swaths of the intelligentsia, towards their fellow US citizens struggling at the bottom of the economic heap is astonishing. Poverty and lack of opportunity is only to be fought if it's in Mexico? Or India? Excuse me?

There is always a Great Gatsby out there who has sneaked up out of poverty into the ranks of the economic elite, but even they too often forget what it's like to live in the wage-taker's world. What's been going on is that the channels and means of economic and social upward mobility are more rigid and less available during the past few decades. Part of that is the selfishness of the elites protecting their advantages. Part is mass uncontrolled immigration.

Corporate America’s GOP have joined with nutty leftwing “liberals” of the Democratic Party. Both are hoping to profit from mass immigration at your expense. The nutty leftwing believes, vainly, that illegal’s who get amnesty will vote Democratic. That is a pipedream, since most immigrants have ultraconservative social values.

I’m a moderately liberal Democrat myself, but at the end of the day, my liberalism is reserved for Americans and neighbors. “Charity starts at home” is a perfectly ethical position for any American to take in my opinion.

I've treated some other "facts" about immigration in a parallel thread:

Immigration "facts" debunked

My focus is on the effects of NAFTA and the weakening power of labor due to the decline in unionization.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

I am just curious where the factoid "Ohio remains mostly free of illegal immigrants" comes from. When I lived there, years and years ago, there was a vibrant migrant farmworker segment. I have no idea what percentage of those workers were "illegal", but I always assumed some proportion were. Have things changed so much?

All jobs, almost without exception are threatened by employers finding someone willing to do the work cheaper.  Obviously, the jobs that require the least on-the-job training are most threatened.  It doesn't require immigrants, legal or otherwise for this to be true.  That is one of the reasons unions are necessary.  With a union contract, a contract that is enforced, those jobs are no longer threatened.

The downside of removing employer's ability to replace workers with cheaper ones is that eventually the employers products may have to be over priced for the market to cover the labor costs.  For many years this effect was eliminated by improved productivity due to better equipment and processes, and that seems to have been forgotten now.  Gaining the improved productivity requires investment in equipment and training, and fewer and fewer  employers seem willing to make that investment.  

Changes in tax policy are one way to encourage a rethinking by employers, so that once again our industry can afford higher labor rates without passing along higher product prices.  But, the first step will have to be stronger pro-labor laws. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Why is the writer for the NY Times allowed to get away with making unsubstantiated claims to back up a point like that? Ohio doesn't have a significant illegal alien population or problem? That's simply not true. Anyone can google on the subject to see that not only is there a huge illegal population in Ohio, but that there have been arrests of illegal immigrant importation rings there, one of which was a temp agency that was recruiting these illegals from Mexico and border state strongholds.

Yesterday in my state, a labor union leader released videotaped evidence of illegal aliens brought in to work on government military housing by a Texas based roofing contractor. They are being paid substantially less than American workers and subjected to unsafe conditions, such as working in windy conditions without safety harnesses, they have no benefits.

Those on the left who rationalize amnesty and guestworker programs are ignorant of what they are advocating for. Whether it's George Bush's or McCain/Kennedy's plan that ends up in place, it's nothing more than a new corporate welfare, with illegal aliens being used as were the strike breakers of old.

The best route to harm reduction is not limiting illegals, which is difficult and expensive in terms of personnel and time, but enforcing laws against illegal employment.
The illegal that is caught gets put in jail for a while, and deported. The employer that is caught gets a modest fine. There's your problem. Current talk looks too much at the users and not at the pushers.
It is both immoral and foolish to expect the illegal to stay on his side for our benefit.

Specific industries and sectors most definitely suffer from wage defalation because of the ability and willingness of businesses to exploit illegal immigrants.

I've been working in the restaurant industry for 23 years. I know what I've seen in kitchens across the country from Seattle to Massachusetts. I buy food that is artificially cheaper today than it has ever been because of mass production, free trade and, of course, exploited labor.

You can cite studies to your heart's content. The truth is often much simpler than disecting methodology.

Trade policy certainly has created an economic mix that has eliminated decent paying industrial jobs, but when you look at the service sector, the upwards wage pressures of higher consumer demand have been offset by something. What could that be? A glut in labor is the most obvious answer.

Donald,

Thank God someone who actually knows something about economics wrote in. Please keep commenting.

Working in the high-tech and manufacturing sectors in So.CA I see much of the same thing.

On the high tech front, companies circumvent paying good wages by hiring H1-B employees(SEAsian high tech workers) who work much more cheaply than than their American counterparts. So American high tech workers face a double threat: off-shoring or imported low cost substitutes.

In the manufacturing sector wages are either down or stagnant. Why? companies are allowed to hire illegals and get away with paying them minimum wage or just above it. 10-15 years ago the same job would pay $10-$12 hr now its $7.00 hr. The low pay and rotten benefits keeps many Americans from taking these jobs.

The construction trades have taken the worst tumble of all. According to one recent report wages are now where they were in the 1960's when accounting for inflation. Why? A massive pool of laborers willing to work dirt cheap and with no bennies.

What gets me as a American is that we have liberals like Newman aligning themselves with the worst of corporate America and attacking the middle-class and blue collar American worker by pushing cheap labor policies.

With friends like Newman who needs the GOP to stab us in the back and turn us into corporate serfs.

My point was only that the difference in what happened to wages doesn't allow an inference to the relative weight of the factors, given the seriously divergent economic histories. I'm for all the stuff you're for, Nathan, but if illegal immigration weren't holding down wages, I don't know why agribusiness, meatpackers, etc. would be so bound and determined to keep it coming. Do you?

Nathan wrote: Here's the reality-- immigration is a distraction [emphasis mine], cooked up by conservatives to take the focus off of their opposition to the minimum wage, their cuts in jobs programs and training programs, and from their ruthless tax policies that have driven inequality.

Bingo!

I just got done lambasting Steve Gilliard for flinching and losing his focus on the things that really matter.

Things like:
Bush&Co have plans to use nukes in Iran, generals are coming out against Rumsfeld as a proxy to oppose this administration and its policies, our Constitution is in shreds, our country is marching toward fascism, people are being tortured, maimed, and killed for the great American way and the best people can do is argue about the stuff paraded in front of them in the media.

Too many people are incapable of staying focused on the puppet-masters who keep trotting out this kind of divisive frikking bullshit EVERY SINGLE TIME they need a diversion. They say "look" and most everbody does. No wonder we have the government we have, it's citizens are out to lunch gossiping instead of being learned and vigilant.

NeoLotus

********

- Making judgements without intellectual justification is prejudice.
- We do not act rightly because we have virture, we have virtue because we act rightly.
- To know a truth well, one must have fought it out.

You think the statement about wages absent unions is not valid?

We are on different wavelengths. Of course I agree that without minimum wage laws and unions that the current bottom edge of legally paid wages would be lower. (This statement is not as true as it was 30, 40, 50... years ago, though.)

With you.
The tricky part is changing things. The fastest, and most moral, way is to punish employers.
Dems should also be pushing for labor protection in the form of conditions and wages since if they are good jobs, Americans like my son will take them. (I have a good job).

I'm not sure why you think I'm not compassionate to refugees of any country. Haitian refugees probably deserve even more consideration than most other Latin American refugees because of US responsibility for undermining stable governments there-- something I've written about quite often over the years, as recently as in January. Part of the reason US has little standing to block immigration to the US from a range of countries is that we are so responsible for undermining decent governments or stable economies in so much of the hemisphere -- and in many other places around the globe.

However, since Josh doesn't pay me for my posts here, you unfortunately can't find someone willing to work for less on my job here :)

Thanks for your reply. Locally here in Minnesota, I have seen Roach fromtheCatholic Church prominently supporting the immigrants. (I am glad he is doing that). In all honesty any support he or the local Catholic leadership has been giving to raising the minimum wage has been invisible or at least stealthy. Are you quite certain the religious leaders supporting immigrants have been calling for raising minimum wages? I certainly have the impression that certain liberal pundits like Krystof love the immigrants but never write about falling real wages.

"Immigration has been one of the tools that have been used to depress wages for less-skilled workers over the last quarter century. Many of the “low-wage” jobs that cannot be filled today, such as jobs in construction and meat-packing, were not “low-wage” jobs thirty years ago. Thirty years ago, these were often high-paying union jobs that plenty of native born workers would have been happy to fill. These jobs have become hard to fill because the wages in these jobs have drifted down towards a minimum wage that is 30 percent lower than its 1970s level."
That is a quote from economist Dean Baker, from his new blog,Beat the Press.

I think it's important to show solidarity with immigrants. And I object to the right wing inflamming this discussion with racism. But, even while we sympaphize with immigrants I think we need to remain clear headed about the various roles immigration plays on keeping wages down. It may be a large or a small factor in comparison with economic globalization and other factors. But common sense, basic economics and my own experience in my own community tells me that, for all their positive contributions to our society, immigrant workers also play into our low wage-stagnant wage economy.

Jeff Faux, over at epinet.org has some suggestions for a North American New Deal- a possible way to work together with Mexico and create prosperity for all.

I don't know in Minnesota, but in many communities like Los Angeles, the Catholic Church has often been one of the most prominent groups supporting higher minimum wages and supporting union demands for better wages above that level in union organizing drives.

Hi Tom, The point you make about minimum wages is not correct, in part. It sets a minimum floor wage for legal workers, that's all.

The true point is this: a law can't be very effective in replacing labor markets where the supply and demand for labor both uses wages to set market rates. If jobs are increasing, and labor is fixed, then jobs will pay more to attract workers. If workers can be replaced with a horde of immigrants, each eager to work at any price, then jobs will pay less. That's what's happening.

%5.15 is the minimum wage. You could raise it to $10 an hour and it would be barely enough to keep the lights on for the average family. So fighting for a slightly higher minimum wage is doing nothing to increase wages in the broadest sense, or doing much more than keeping some workers from starving.

Henry Ford paid his workers $5 an hour when he opened his Model-T plant over half a century ago. Are you proud of today's minimum wage? Ford said, in a revolutionary statement for a rich guy, that he wanted his workers to be able to afford the products they were making. Thus began the keystone industry of this country, till the advent of computers.

If you stabilize the supply of labor, normal market forces will cause wages to rise across the board. Profits for corporations, which are at 75 year highs, will fall to accomodate the need to pay workers. But a boom of broadspread prosperity would follow that would meet or exceed the good times during Clinton's era. Everybody would get what they were worth.

I see unions as a good thing, a counter force when bargaining with greedy executives. With an unlimited supply of cheap labor pouring over the borders, what leverage do unions have? None. That any union would support mass uncontrolled immigration is pathetic, but it's happening today.

Likewise, I find it hypocritical of the Catholic Church to support illegal immigration and higher wages at the same time. Why doesn't the Catholic Church preach birth control and set up clinics in Mexico? Because they're importing parishoners into their shrinking memberships in America. "Let somebody else pay," is the hidden message.

And our wages are suffering. Uncontrolled immigration and outsourcing of jobs are two sides of the same coin. Wages are lower for electrical engineers and computer programmers than they were a few years ago. Purchasing power for workers comes from borrowing against equity in their homes, rather than from their workplace. This is called "impoverishment" last time I checked. Economists call it "dis-savings." That's the opposite of the creation of wealth.

My response is simple -- apply real financial and criminal sanctions against union-busting as the solution, instead of targetting the low-wage immigrants themselves.

This is the point-- low-wage immigrants filling low-wage jobs is the result of corporate acts of union-busting. If you want to understand what drove union-busting in the meat-packing industry, I recommend the Academy-Award winning documentary, American Dream, which highlighted the destruction of the union in Minnesota. No immigrants were involved, just hard-ass anti-union corporate tactics (and some bad tactics by union leaders themselves). The emergence of immigrant workers in the industry largely followed the breaking of the union and the lowering of wages.

No offense, but fighting for health care and EITC are like saying: "Let's fight for higher costs for taxpayers so that industry doesn't have to pay a living wage to workers."

The "liberal" prescriptions for poverty and lowskilled workers suck. Only a fair fight over wages will make wages rise, not a fight over costs that workers would normally be able to afford, if they had decent salaries.

The EITC is well-intended, but a subterfuge planted by Corporate America into the tax code. It allows corporations to pay sub-standard wages, which are then subsidized by the innocent public.

Miminum wages, I comment below.

(Everybody's Grandma came off a boat sometime, mine included, it was a rhetorical device to mention Grandma's at all.)

And yet unions in those industries, meatpacking (UFCW) and construction (Building trade and Laborers especially), are strongly supportive of legalization precisely because the only way they can build a united front against employers is if all workers have free speech rights in the workplace. The problem is that US law de facto makes it legal for an employer to fire an undocumented worker if they join a union -- making them incredibly attractive as employees.

How to determine the wage effects of immigration? My guess is, it is impossible to do. I'm not surprized that Borjas and Katz's 8.2% is faulty. But the real effect may be much larger rather than much smaller.

The most remarkable statistic in the NYT article Newman links is this (IMHO): THe median wage for high-school dropouts is almost constant from state to state! Meanwhile the percentage of illimigrants varies a factor of ten.

It's hard to find any other employment categories that are so constant from state to state. Unemployment usually varies a factor of two or more. Take a look at some statistics www.oesc.state.ok.us/lmi/publications/StateRankings/OKStateRankings2002.pdf
Average income varies a factor of two from $24K to $45K. Median family income varies a factor of two from $44K to $83K. Median wage for carpenters varies over a factor of two from $10 to $24 per hour. Any statistic you can think of has great variations among states.

So what is keeping the median wage for high-school dropouts so constant? Some factor that works on a national scale.

I think the answer is US citizenship. It doesn't pay for a citizen to take a job that pays much less than that, and forgo whatever opportunities to get by without a job.

Let's suppose the arguments of fairness are valid and that, therefore, illegal immigrants don't deserve a path to citizenship. We then have two choices: we can take an uncompromising moralistic attitude or we can try to minimize the degree of unfairness involved.

Suppose we take the uncompromising position, what are the options? Can we realistically deport or imprison 12 million people? What would happen to their families, especially the children who are citizens? I think those who support the moralistic position are obligated to explain how their stance would work in practice, otherwise it is just empty rhetoric.

Now suppose we take the other approach. We seem to have a mix of options. We could deport or imprison a certain percentage that fit some criteria, say length of stay or criminal activity or something else. These groups would still have to be fairly small if rounding them up was to be practical.

For those who are established there are a variety of options as well. We could create a new class of residents with limited rights. Something less than green card holders, for example. These people would then be part of the system, their locations would be known to local governments, taxes would be collected, the degree to which they could be exploited would be diminished and reliable statistics about their economic and social impact could be compiled. The US already has the H1B visa program as an example of this type of status. Many foreign countries also have a limited resident status as well.

I believe that the uncompromising position is unworkable and even those who feel it is morally unjust to grant rights to illegals should realize this is the only realistic path. Sometimes one has to compromise one's ideals in the real world.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

A new class of residents with limited rights? I thought we fought a Civil War about that. I thought we fought for the right for women to vote. I thought we fought for labor rights. I thought we fought to end segregation. A new class with limited rights? Get that idea going again and there's no end to where it will lead -- backward.

How are we letting ourselves be conned into this game. Limit freedom for some people and you destroy the pillars that expanded freedom for all the rest of us. And for what?

We already have residents with limited rights. For example, permanent residents can not inherit their spouses estates without paying tax under marital exemption provision. Only citizens can get the marital exemption.

The new Medicare provision requiring proof of citizenship or a passport is another example of limiting permanent resident's rights. For that matter so is restricting voting to citizens.

Permanent residents who pay taxes and are part of the social structure of society are already treated differently. My suggestion was nothing new, just a way to formalize things.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

If you didn't see it before here is my attempt to add some actual data to the debate:mmigration "Facts" Debunked

Thanks for the data.

In looking at the data,  I did find the data used to debunk the assertion that immigrants take jobs from americans to be invalid. The source uses unemployment data as a reference point for something that data does not measure.

 Unemployment data only counts the number of people who receive unemployment, it does not count the number of unemployed people. So to say that it has remained constant only means a certain number of people file for unemployment, during those periods.

It does not reflect the actual number of people unemployed, which could very well be rising due to the lack of jobs. You can only file for unemployment if the employer pays into the system and you can only collect for a certain period. Once you no longer collect you are not counted as unemployed.

Which would account for  unemployment rates  not going up during most periods of time covered using unemployment data. It is exceptionally  poor data and could not ever be used to answer the question factually it is purporting to.

One other thing to note is that overall unemployment data rates seldom match the subset rates  for lower working class workers, since their rate is usually far higher than the overall rates. Given that  low wage working class workers tend to be black and HS dropouts and their unemployment rates for any period you list the rates for will be substantially higher. These are also the workers most likely to perform unionized  labor as well.

You would need to correlate the rate for that subset  of workers  with the overall rates you are using in order  to give an accurate portrayal of the unemployment rate for the specific  working class most likely to be affected by immigrant pools of labor. Even still, it would not reflect the permanent unemployed that had been dropped from the rolls, only the numbers collecting umemployment would be shown.

For instance, in LA, where did all the black workers who were doing drywall at American wages go when immigrants took those jobs, and where are the meatpackers who once held union jobs in MN now working?  It is these subsets of workers that you would need to document as being employed. What I beleive you would find is that these people are now working two minimum wage jobs to still not come close to  the union wages they use to earn tht supported their families.

Overall, though,  using unemployment rate  data does not debunk the assertion that immigrants take American jobs, in any way, that I can discern.

Also regarding the assertion on wages and this data:

The stagnation in the wages and earnings of the working class has been going on since before Reagan. The rise in the wealth of the top 5% has grown significantly in the past 20 years. The lower sectors have not.

Again, I do not see how this data in anyway debunks the theory that immigration holds down wages and labor. If the wages remain stagnant due to other immigrants being willing to do the jobs how does this debunk that assertion?  If anything, it shows that it is valid. Given that wages have not increased. If there were not a glut of people to do those jobs at low wages, then it is fairly intuitive that the employer would raise wages simply to get workers. So, can you explain how you feel this data shows that immigration has not hurt the working class? Perhaps, the stagnation would not have gone on so long if there had not been immigrants to do the jobs.

This next data, if anything seems to prove that indeed it is immigrants who are responsible for holding down wages and labor:

The decline in unionization is what is responsible for the loss of earnings power. When union participation dropped wages stagnated. There is a delay in the effect caused by the existence of multi-year labor contracts. Countries which still have strong unionization show less disparity in the distribution of wealth

Here it seems that you finally validate  the assertions  that you are saying the other facts debunk. Which is that the immigrants were the source of labor used to bust unions and thus the loss of wages to the american worker. You further validate this as a reality by noting that in countries with strong unionization there is indeed less disparity in wealth. All of which underscores that union busting in America by using immigrants as a souce of labor has resulted in a loss of wages.

rdf

Here is what was said on NPR on 7 April 2006

.   The nation's unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent in March, the lowest level since 2000, and employers added 211,000 jobs to their payrolls. Economists say growth in service and construction may explain why the unemployment rate for immigrants is lower than that of native-born Americans.

The Labor Department reported strong job gains in various areas last month, ranging from bars and restaurants to hospitals and professional service firms. Job growth was especially solid in the service and construction sectors.

The recent numbers reflect the first time immigrants have a lower unemployment rate than do native-born Americans.

Harry Holzer thinks a factor in the change may be the immigrants themselves. Many are under more financial pressure than native-born Americans and are more willing to work less-desirable jobs. Holzer is a professor at Georgetown University who focuses on low-wage workers.

Usually, people with less education have higher unemployment rates. And -- generally -- immigrants have less education than native-born Americans. But, Holzer says, they are finding more work by focusing on a growing number of unskilled jobs

"The immigrants overcome their lower education levels by targeting sectors where education isn't that important. And there is very strong demand at both the top and the bottom of the U.S. labor market right now."

Labor Department employees compiled the data by calling 60,000 households. In the interviews, they did not ask whether the immigrants were here legally or not.

Unemployment numbers, while imperfect, don't just reflect those collecting insurance. Anyone who is looking for a job is included.

Those are the same people.

People are not registered or counted as unemployed if the are no longer collecting unemployment. The numbers do not reflect the countless individuals who are permanently unemployed or unemployed past a year, who are STILL looking for jobs.

The Borjas study is not complely accepted which was the point of the original article that started this thread.

 Camarota's data is the most comprehensive and it very much correlates with Borjas data, as does Walters and Holzers. As you said let's not overlook these very real issues. Immigrant workers target, as the NPR/Holzer report data also shows,  the low end of the working economy and they are indeed having a disproportionate impact on those jobs  and wages for native born citizens.

Many immigrants now start their own businesses, so they are employed but not "taking" jobs from others. Many are running low capital businesses like push carts or hair dressing, etc.

Businesses owned by immigrants would not be the focus of this discussion, in terms of immigrants displacing the american worker. I consider this a tangent.

One of the unanswered questions is why blacks consistently fall behind in the formation of their own businesses

This is a tangent as well. It also  does not address the data that shows that the unemployment rate for immigrants is lower than that for native-born american citizens. You are also not addressing the very real subset of workers that immigrants displace. The lower working class and HS dropout or HS diploma only workers.

 However, blacks consistently fall behind in virtually all indices on health, economics, education and housing. This is due to the consistently denied, racism inherent in this society. Camarota's report also addresses, how blacks are the least likely 'native-born' americans hired by employers, who say they prefer 'hispanics and asians'.  I would imagine the same factors are at work when it comes to blacks being business owner..the same prejudices prevail in terms of acquiring clients as in being hired, I suspect.