The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) has released a detailed rejoinder to a well-publicized study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) that made a remarkable claim: “Of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived immigrant workers (legal and illegal).”
Put simply, CIS used faulty methodology to make its main point. It compared a net increase in jobs in Texas over a four-year period with a gross increase in employed newly arrived immigrants in Texas.
This is truly an apples-to-oranges comparison; it is as if a report claimed that Google is a larger company than Apple because its market capitalization of $162 billion exceeds Apple’s annual revenues of $100 billion.
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In addition, CIS estimated that fully half of all newly arrived immigrants to Texas were illegally in America. While a case that these number are off can be made using Department of Homeland Security data showing that the number of illegal immigrants getting new jobs in Texas (60,000) was less than half that claimed in the CIS report (153,880), the more important issue is the flawed methodology that led to the report’s most widely reported claim.
It is true that Texas had a nation-leading net of 279,000 more jobs in the second quarter of 2011 than it did in the second quarter of 2007. But CIS’s claim that immigrants filled 225,000 of these jobs is wrong. There is no way to determine — statistically or otherwise — that this is the case. The numbers are simply not comparable. Looking at the total number of jobs created in our dynamic and complex economy shows the fault of this claim.
Every month, about 4 million jobs turn over in the United States because of workers’ leaving to take a better job, retiring, being laid off, and because of corporate restructuring, bankruptcies, etc. Texas’s share of this natural churn is about 320,000 jobs every month. During the last four years, this meant that more than 15 million jobs have been filled. Additionally, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that during this time Texas created 5,627,328 new jobs while shedding 5,348,238 existing jobs. If an immigrant changed jobs four or five times during that four-year period, filled four or five of those 15 million jobs. That doesn’t mean he was holding four or five jobs at once, or that every job filled by an immigrant represents a new immigrant in a new permanent job. The number of jobs filled is much larger than the number of new jobs created.
TPPF’s detailed response can be seen here. We point out that trying to draw conclusions about immigration and employment in Texas in isolation from other factors is problematic at best. Texas has a strong job-creation record as compared with the nation as a whole. This record is not only affected by immigration, but also by domestic migration (781,542 Americans moved to Texas in the past decade while 1.5 million moved out of New York and 328,695 moved out of Massachusetts, artificially holding the latter states’ unemployment rate down while increasing it for Texas), the effect of extended unemployment insurance on workers’ willingness to accept new employment or move in search of work, and by the dynamics of business creation.
TPPF contends that Texas’s record of job creation is due to low state spending and taxes, a predictable, low level of regulation, and strong property-rights protection, a sound civil-justice system, and minimal dependence on — or interference from — the federal government. These policies benefit Texans, as well as people who decide to move to Texas from other states and from other countries.
— Chuck DeVore is a visiting senior fellow in fiscal policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He served in the California legislature from 2004 to 2010, is a lieutenant colonel (retired) in the U.S. Army Reserve, and has worked in the Pentagon for the Reagan administration.
Nevertheless, Perry is another "Hispanderer", like Bush. He is obsessed with the "Mexodus" - the never-ending, mass trasference of huge numbers of poor, nearly uneducated Mexican (and Central American) peasants into the USA.
Why? Who benefits from this? Agri-businesses and the Democrat party, who it helps create a new electorate, ready made for Big Government social programs.
The USA needs an immigration time-out, of about ten years.
Your naive view that Perry = Bush is based on your ignorance of Texas. Bush was a big government neocon. Perry is a real conservative who recognizes the heritage and culture of Texas. We are as unique among states as the original 13. Rabid anti-illegal immigrant types come across as anti-fastest-growing-demographic racists no matter how much they protest otherwise. And I'm not saying they are racist but perception is reality. Get a clue or we all turn blue.
Your analysis may be correct but it really doesn't matter what the real percentage of jobs taken by immigrants was unless you are prepared to assure us it was zero. It approaches criminal behavior that governments are allowing companies to fill jobs with legal and illegal foreign workers while unemployment is +9%.
If you can't find a qualified engineer etc. that isn't an immigrant, do you hire a native born technician that isn't really what you need? I don't think so.
I predict that this TPPF report could very well turn Rick Perry's candidacy around if he and his campaign are organized enough to capitalize on it and get it broadcast widely. That CIS report was a mortal blow to his campaign in conjunction with Perry's politically suicidal claim that conservatives who didn't believe in providing in-state tuition for illegals "didn't have a heart".
If Perry uses this wisely to refocus on Texas's and his jobs record, he could be right back in this race. This will be a true test of whether he and his campaign are really ready for prime time.
Wow. Thank you for the correction. Please notify Rich Lowry. And kudos to us NRO commenters who chastised Rich Lowry's article for attacking Rick Perry on what we knew was a bogus report. We said it was a 'hit piece.' It was insulting to our intelligence. Rich needs to respond to regain his credibility. Sometimes he hits a home run, but that time he didn't even try to report anything objective or truthful. How about a comprehensive analysis of the Texas' ecomony and overall life in our great state?
Amen, Paul! I get really tired of these Northeast "conservatives" telling us how we don't rate. If Texas isn't doing it right then conservatism doesn't work. So, " Get up! C'mon get down with the (socialist) sickness!"
Most good liberals, like our President, understand that one cannot allow facts to stand in the way of a good narrative, thus the twisting of truth to fit the agenda is all too common - and the lazy media, for the most part, dutifully report these "facts".
I believe that a required basic studies course at most liberal colleges is Creative Statistics 101, a somewhat different approach to the methodology of statistics that so many of us learned. Sad that they have to resort to this to support their faulty views!
Whether or not the CIS methodology is incorrect, let us keep in mind that typical NRO readers are (I should hope) more tech-savvy than the average person who works in fast food or farming.
Perhaps many readers have had the experience of noting how, throughout the 80s and 90s, established technology companies gradually replaced their educated workforce with (legal) immigrants. It was not rare to see an all-Nordic management with an all-Asian (India, Taiwan) non-management professional staff. Out in the factory, the workers were Hispanic and Vietnamese. Yet until the 60s, that same kind of all-Nordic management was reluctant to hire Irish or Italian Americans (not to mention blacks), based on their own silly racial theories.
I am confident that I''m not alone with this sentiment.
Perception is important. If a few percent of the swing voters know someone whose perception is the same as mine, then CIS is going to carry the argument.
Remember, Obama was not a great candidate in 2008. But swing voters were willing to give him a chance. I dare say that McCain's life experience did not bring much sympathy. Perry's life experience definitely will not, and that will affect how the facts are interpreted.
Devore and his cohorts in their vapid defense of Rick Perry are themselves doing a little myth creating here in this report.
Consider this excerpt from Devore's article: " But CIS’s claim that immigrants filled 225,000 of these jobs is wrong. There is no way to determine — statistically or otherwise — that this is the case."
Well, if there is no way to determine, statistically or otherwise,the number of jobs filled by immigrants, then how can Devore claim it is wrong? Where are his numbers disproving the CIS study.
For all we know, the CIS numbers may have UNDERSTATED the numbers of immigrants (mostly ILLEGAL) entering the work force. It could be that immigrants made up 115% of the new jobs. Yeah, I know, how could it be more than 100%? Because there may have been a net LOSS of jobs in the non-immigrant workforce, the negatives bringing it down to 100%.
Bottom line is that Devore and his ilk don't know - that's the problem - nobody knows. It's like the fiction that there are 11 million illegal aliens in the US. That's a number that's been in use since around 2002. Does anyone believe that there have been no more illegals entering the country since 2002?
The sad fact is that a traitorous cabal of Democrats and establishment Republicans from the Chamber of Commerce/Wall Street Journal/Bush-Rove crowd have subverted the American people in a frenzy for new voters (Democrats) and cheap workers (RINOs).
Want to see how many illegals are in the USA? Grant them amnesty. You will see 30 million come out of the woodwork.
I recommend you read our findings before writing things such as, "Because there may have been a net LOSS of jobs in the non-immigrant workforce, the negatives bringing it down to 100%."
In fact, in the past four years there were increases in both native and immigrant workers in Texas.
CIS' error was akin to saying that last month, the U.S. added one net job and last month, I was hired, therefore, I accounted for 100% of all hires in America last month.
Nice try, but your article and the survey backing it up still fail to bring out your own verifiable numbers to back up your own apples and oranges comparisons. Especially when you admit "there is no way to determine, statistically or otherwise,the number of jobs filled by immigrants". That is the fatal flaw in your argument. It's like Don Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns".
Your weak attempt to counter the gravamen of my statements by focusing on my intentional hyperbole of "115%" shows the weakness of your rebuttal.
It is undeniable that immigrants, especially ILLEGAL immigrants, make up a considerable part of Texas job increases. Care to define the makeup of the immigrants? Are they all Mexican? Salvadoran? Irish? Nigerian? Indian? If your research data is so exhaustive that it can refute CIS' or my statistics, where are yours to a level of detail that is based on more than flimsy government and special interest "analyses"? The same government that can't tell us how many illegal aliens are in the country.
You can argue all you want defending Perry's job creating claims, but you have no way of proving that and in that regard you are no different than Obama's silly claims that he "saved or created 3 million jobs".
OHHHHH..............my head doth truly ache from all the dynamism and complexity put forth by Mr. Devore.
I want to commend Mr. Devore for his painstaking analysis of jobs and what-not in Texas, but first I must take a handful of ibuprofen to dull my acute brain pain into a numbness equivalent with...oh, let's see...foundations vs. centers, claims and rejoinders, adding or subtracting, thousands or millions, net or gross, apples or oranges, moving in or out, legal or illegal, saved, created or filled, rates up or down, CIS, TPPF, Bureau of Statistics, DHS.
I may need several doses.
ON THE OTHER HAND.....I live in Oklahoma and the only numbers that matter today are Oklahoma 55 vs. Texas 17. Despite the jobs numbers, Texas will always suck, IMO! :))
To all those attracted to the idea of cutting off all illegal immigration, consider the fact that non-immigrant population growth in America (live births less deaths) is near zero and trending negative. That means there won't be enough young workers contributing into social security, medicare and medicaid to keep all the Baby Boomers' benefits intact. It really is a Ponzi Scheme, and like all such schemes, it works only insofar as new money continues to pour in to pay off prior investors. That means we need immigrants of all sorts working; and them and their employers contributing state and federal taxes, social security, FICA, unemployment taxes, etc. And in large part this means creacking down on employers to pay these employment taxes even on behalf of illegals. Don't penalize employers for hiring illegals - whack them for tax evasion. And guess what? Once employers have to start paying all these employment taxes, illegals don't look so cheap any more, and the labor market for them will likely shrink.
1. Without immigration, population would be stable or decrease, huring Social Security? In other words, it really is a Ponzi scheme, is that what you are saying? And, we have some sort of obligation to keep it going that way, on the backs of newbies?
2. Seems to me that with negative population growth, the only ones hurting would be property owners, particularly of less desirable property. That includes marginal famers and ranchers (who need low-cost labor), marginal factories (which need low-priced labor), and marginally inhabitable housing (which needs growing population to avoid well-deserved vacancies.
It's not as if we need young cannon fodder to fight dynastic wars. Or do we?
3. Negative population growth, by virtue of reducing housing demand, would have the beneficial effect of reducing the cost of housing for elderly folks who get Social Security, and thus reduce the amount of expenditure needed to support them. Might it be that negative population growth is the solution, not the problem?
4. negative population growth would also increase the value of labor, in particular un-degreed labor, thus reducing the emphasis on higher education where it is not needed, thus reducing college costs via increased competition among education providers rather than students, thus reducing student debt, government loans, and defaults. What's not to like?
5. Just think of all the non-economical "green energy" companies that would not need to exist, if negative population growth made traditional energy sources last longer.
@DWCHu. Illegal immigrants do pay taxes: 75 percent have income and payroll taxes withheld at source, many pay property tax, and all pay sales taxes. (See External Link).
