Collapse of international mobility a key factor behind wages growth

Classic tweet and a reason I don&#x27;t like Twitter. It&#x27;s completely unclear what is being said here specifically even though I understand a tiny bit of economics.<p>It&#x27;d be better if the author would have either not said anything or took the time to formulate their thoughts into a piece of text worthy and representative of the complexity of the concept.

Stated another way, importing illegal immigrants has suppressed wages for Americans for decades. Nothing about that should be surprising.<p>Illegal immigrant labor is a key part if the American economy. These people are intentionally kept in a state of legal limbo. They&#x27;re tolerated, but always could be prosecuted and have their lives destroyed. This keeps them exploitable and able to be treated in ways we would never tolerate for American workers.<p>The entire game is that because they are breaking the law, employers can ignore labor law when it comes to employing them. It&#x27;s like any black market. The fact that everyone is breaking the law means all bets are off.<p>An imported serf class, intentionally kept in an exploitable legal state, is inherently going to reduce the leverage of labor that would otherwise occupy those jobs.

&quot;The collapse of international mobility and therefore immmigration is a key factor behind wages growth acceleration in advanced economies.&quot;

On Nitter for those without a Twitter account:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nitter.net&#x2F;C_Barraud&#x2F;status&#x2F;1459440257783549954" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nitter.net&#x2F;C_Barraud&#x2F;status&#x2F;1459440257783549954</a>

I don’t see this as a problem at all. If anything it show how immigration is exploited to keep salaries artificially low and hurt the worker and lower middle class.

Is it just me or is that graph labelled confusingly? The graph is titled &quot;Contribution of international migration to population growth&quot;, the x-axis is years and the y-axis is &quot;millions per year&quot;. Well, millions per year- what? Migration, or growth?<p>I think, from the accompanying snippet of text from JPMorgan that it&#x27;s meant to be population growth (&quot;the working-age population has been falling for almost two years&quot;) but in that case why is there only one line on the graph? Shouldn&#x27;t we be looking at the line for growth side-to-side with the line for migration? How does the graph show the relation between migration and growth?<p>I also don&#x27;t understand how &quot;population growth&quot; in the title of the graph becomes &quot;wages growth acceleration&quot; in the text of the tweet.<p>Also also: is this graph about &quot;international&quot; migration, as implied by &quot;international mobility&quot; in the tweet, or specific to the US, as implied by the subtitle of the graph, &quot;Source: Census Bureau J.P. Morgan&quot;?

The country as a whole is not better off if the wage growth causes inflation and economic slowdown. It amounts to a wealth transfer to those who work currently from those who retired and now live on fixed income. It&#x27;s a zero sum game.<p>Funnily I find that it&#x27;s the older people who are the most against immigration. Let them enjoy the high prices for anything that involves local labor.

Correlation is not causation?