Written by Todd McMurtry, Covington
Editor:
Your recent article, How hiring legal immigrants works in NKY by Nathan Granger failed to address many of the more complex issues in today’s employment environment. It is well known that about 20% of the US born adult working age population has totally dropped out of the workforce. (https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/why-are-prime-age-adults-opting-out-of-work/). There are many opinions about why this has happened. Certainly, Covid sidelined quite a few. But reputable research groups also argue that the unending flow of legal and illegal immigrants has so depressed wages that Americans simply will not work for what legal and illegal immigrants will. It is well documented that the H1B visa program imports foreign born workers who are in essence indentured servants working for half of what Americans are paid for the same work. Business loves all of this cheap labor; importing more of it is what business wants. So, to read the business side of this issue as spelled out in this article, without any balance as to what working Americans want, is little different that reading propaganda.
