As a result, when parts and raw materials are shipped to foreign facilities by parent companies in the United States, they are counted as exports under official U.S. trade figures, even though they reenter the country as imports after most of the added high-value work has been done abroad. I question, though, whether Tonelson adequately deals with two related points. There may be both an immediate job loss and a delayed loss in the American standard of living. This drives down the wages of low-income Americans even more directly than trade policy does. Tonelson touches on the problem but backs away from a full discussion of the impact of massive immigration to this country.
Immigration policy is almost a taboo subject in most quarters.
Perhaps that is because, as Edward Abbey once pointed out, conservatives love cheap labor while liberals love cheap causes. When you increase the supply of immigrants to the low-skilled workforce, inevitably you depress wages and working conditions. Not only are immigrants poor when they come here, they are more likely than the native population to remain poor. Present-day immigrants have less education, fewer skills, pay less in taxes, and are more likely to avail themselves of welfare and other government services than native households are. These facts, however, are seldom mentioned in public.