Pete Sessions: “I thank the Chair. He goes on to say: Facing greater labor costs, some would find ways to minimize costs. But he goes on…”

“I thank the Chair. He goes on to say: Facing greater labor costs, some would find ways to minimize costs. But he goes on to ask this question, and let me quote Professor Samuelson: What is wrong with higher wages for the poorest workers? From 1994 to 2004, the wages of high school dropouts rose only 2.3 percent after inflation, compared with 11.9 percent for college graduates. The number of native high school dropouts with jobs declined by 1.3 million from 2000 to 2005. Some lost jobs to immigrants. Unemployment remains high for some groups; 9.3 percent for African Americans. I know that is true in my State. Although we have a great unemployment rate in Alabama--under 4 percent--we still have a far too high rate among the African-American community. And 12.7 percent for white teenagers, he notes. He says this: Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans; the only question is how much. One estimate, he said, was 10 percent. We discussed these issues in the Judiciary Committee. We had one hearing on it. We had a number of professors, including Professor Freeman, the Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard. He said these things about the jobs and wages of American workers: One of the concerns when immigrants come in is they may take jobs from some Americans and drive down the wages of some Americans and obviously, if there are a large number of immigrants coming in, if they are coming in at a bad economic time, that is very likely to happen.…”