11/06/2009
October’s unemployment numbers came in this morning:
The unemployment rate has surpassed 10 percent for the first time since 1983 — and is likely to go higher.
Nearly 16 million people can’t find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended …
The Labor Department said Friday that jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest since April 1983, from 9.8 percent in September.
(Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since '83, by Christopher S. Rugaber, AP, November 6, 2009)
Unemployment is generally regarded as a lagging indicator, so it will probably rise for several more months — even if the recession is ending, something which government and private sector economists usually have a surprisingly hard time establishing.
My question:Where are the calls for an immigration moratorium?
VDARE.COM has been exploring the immigration moratorium issue here. When the previous month’s numbers came out, Ed Rubenstein estimated that an immediate moratorium would reduce unemployment by about half a percentage point in a year. A moratorium enacted in 1998 would have tightened the labor market to the point where, in the depths of this recession, the unemployment rate would have been less than half of what it is now.
But when I googled "immigration + moratorium" in News this morning, I basically got VDARE.COM, plus some intrepid private citizens posting to MSM comment threads. (A good idea, btw).
When I googled "immigration suspension", which is the term favored for some mysterious reason by NumbersUSA, I did find a useful story by Roy Beck pointing out that the 650,000 jobs that the White House claims were created or saved by the Stimulus Bill were more than completely wiped out by the 1.125 million legal immigrants and temporary workers admitted in 2009. But nothing else.
Republicans are congratulating themselves on winning on November 3 by focusing on economic issues. Isn’t unemployment an economic issue?
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.