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Generic Defense – Can’t Solve Consumer Confidence
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- Generic Defense – Can’t Solve – No Middle Class
- Generic Defense – Wage Decreases Irrelevant
- Generic Defense – Temporary Workers don’t fill jobs
Generic Defense – Can’t Solve Consumer ConfidenceMiddle class will never be the same, confidence, housing, and savings prove Froomkin 2010 Dan, Huffington Post Online, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/23/7-things-about-the-econom_n_433688.html The full effects of the crash of 2007-2008 on the lives of regular Americans has yet to be fully appreciated. For most members of the middle class, their sense of financial well-being was largely based on the size of their 401(k)s and their equity as homeowners. After the collapse of stock prices and with the steep drop in home prices, many may never feel the same way again, or spend their money as confidently.While 401(k)s have somewhat bounced back, about one in four homeowners now actually have negative equity -- are "underwater". A recent study by Barry P. Bosworth and Rosanna Smart for Brookings finds that American households lost $13 trillion in wealth between mid-2007 and March 2009, or about 15 percent in all. That decline badly hit baby boomers just as they're headed into retirement. And middle-income families whose head is age 50 or younger actually have smaller net incomes today than in 1983. Meanwhile, many American families spent much of the last decade (or two) living beyond their means, piling up debt on their credit cards, or "bubble borrowing." Two University of Chicago researchers have found that the housing bubble hugely increased household consumption as homeowners borrowed on average $0.25 to $0.30 for every $1 increase on their home equity. Now that housing prices have crashed and credit is tight, the inevitable result, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi write somewhat euphemistically, is a "painful process of household de-leveraging." Generic Defense – Can’t Solve – No Middle ClassWealth stratification has destroyed the middle class, who have no financial security anymore Froomkin 2010 Dan, Huffington Post Online, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/23/7-things-about-the-econom_n_433688.html Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, an emerging hero among progressives in her role as chair of the congressional bailout oversight panel, sees the latest series of blows as the unfortunate culmination of a crisis that started taking form a generation ago. For long stretches of time, the growth in the nation's GDP has gone almost entirely to the top 1% or less of the population. That has resulted in a dramatic shift in wealth away from the middle class, made the economy more vulnerable to disaster and made the toll of such a disaster more catastrophic to all but the wealthiest Americans. Warren writes: America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security. Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child's education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff. She concludes: "America without a strong middle class? Unthinkable, but the once-solid foundation is shaking." Generic Defense – Wage Decreases IrrelevantEven if immigrants hurt workers wages they still help the annual income of the US economy Hanson 7 (Gordon H. Hanson “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration” CSR NO. 26, April 2007 Council on Foreign Relations pg 19-20) Immigration generates extra income for the U.S. economy, even as it pushes down wages for some workers. By increasing the supply of labor, immigration raises the productivity of resources that are complementary to labor. More workers allow U.S. capital, land, and natural resources to be exploited more efficiently. Increasing the supply of labor to perishable fruits and vegetables, for instance, means that each acre of land under cultivation generates more output. Similarly, an expansion in the number of manufacturing workers allows the existing industrial base to produce more goods. The gain in productivity yields extra income for U.S. businesses, which is termed the immigration surplus. The annual immigration surplus in the United States appears to be small, equal to about 0.2 percent of GDP in 2004.33 Generic Defense – Temporary Workers don’t fill jobsThere is no shortfall of workers in essential industries – a guest worker program doesn’t make economic sense. Malanga 6 (Steven, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow, July 23 2006, http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_chicsuntimes-why_unskilled_immigrants.htm) TJN Despite our cherished view of immigrants as rapidly climbing the economic ladder, new arrivals and their children face a lifetime of economic disadvantage, because they arrive here with shortcomings not easily overcome. Mexican immigrants, who are up to six times more likely to be high school dropouts than native-born Americans, not only earn substantially less than the native-born median, but the wage gap persists for decades after they've arrived. A study of the 2000 census data, for instance, shows that the cohort of Mexican immigrants between 25 and 34 who entered the United States in the late 1970s were earning 40 to 50 percent less than native-born Americans in that age group in 1980, but 20 years later they had fallen even further behind their native-born counterparts. Given these realities, several of the major immigration reforms now under consideration simply don't make economic sense -- especially the guest-worker program favored by President Bush and the U.S. Senate. Careful economic research tells us that there is no significant shortfall of workers in essential American industries desperately needing supplement from a massive guest-worker program. Download 0.75 Mb. Share with your friends:
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