During the past 15 years house prices have not gone down, prices jumped up through the roof! There goes the theory that businesses will pass along the savings to us, the customers. Just as Nike shoes haven't gotten any cheaper even though they're all made overseas.
Every job that an American loses causes another 2, 3 or 4 jobs to be lost because that worker is not putting all their money back into our economy.
Mexicans living in the United States sent a record $23.1 billion back home in 2006, putting remittances third after oil and maquiladora exports as a foreign-exchange generator for Mexico (Chart 1). Over the last decade or so, inflation-adjusted remittances have grown at an average annual rate of 15.6 percent. Since 2000, the rate has risen to 20.4 percent.
http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2007/swe0704b.cfmIn 2007, remittances flowing into Mexico reached an all time high of $23.98 billion.
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They are second only to oil as
source of foreign income. Remittances are important because they promote economic growth by allowing more citizens at home to engage in the formal economic sector, while simultaneously encouraging the use of formal financial services and participation in small-scale investment in the national economy.
http://www.coha.org/a-change-of-fortune-remittances-to-mexico-fall/Why is this important? It's only $23 Billion a year and our economy is so big.
In 2005, the trade deficit with China was $202 Billion. (
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2005)
This equates to money lost from our economy, money that cannot be used to pay American workers.
We can use that data to calculate how many jobs were lost due to the money that illegal workers send to Mexico. $202 Billion caused 3 million jobs to be lost so every $67,426 sent outside our country causes the loss of one American job. With $23 Billion going out of our country each year to Mexico that results in 341,114 lost American jobs each year.