Proving that even banned commenters have their uses, Chris Marschner offered a persuasive and enlightening rebuttal of the contention by a quickly-banned new commenter here that accounts of the problems visited on Springfield, Ohio by an overwhelming influx of Haitian immigrants were tainted by racism.

Chris’s Comment of the Day combines two comments that were piggy-backed in the thread, and here they are, inspired by the post, “Ethics Verdict: When Your Town Is Being Overrun, It’s Not Racist To Use The Term ‘Overrun.’”

***

Reuters did a good job spinning the actual data. Medicaid skyrocketing in the last three years; wage growth grew only after the pandemic and dropped faster than a neighboring town’s starting in 2022. Housing costs rose three times faster than in the US as a whole. Unemployment has been rising faster than in neighboring areas and the US as a whole.

Reuters makes the point that wage growth stayed above 6% longer than Dayton or the overall economy, but failed to say that it became more volatile as migrants moved in, dropping faster and farther than either Dayton or the US.

The story also makes statements like “false claims” by residents at community meetings and white supremacist protests during a jazz festival. Both statements are inflammatory and included no evidence to support the claims made.

Reuters has a progressive bias in all its reporting. Reuters wrote:
“More recently, Vance and other Republicans have amplified false claims aired by some residents at weekly city commission meetings. City commissioners in their public comments have pushed back, noting that the vast majority of Haitians are in the country legally and have a right to live where they choose”

The first statement states that locals are liars and the last statement fails to acknowledge that their legal status is exactly what the complaint is about. If Joe Biden had made an executive order giving temporary legal status for anyone in the world, anyone showing up would be here legally. At issue is the administration’s role in creating a massive influx of people who have not had to go through our normal processes to ensure they will not be a charge on society.

They continued,

“It is still a jarring increase from around 3,500 in just a few years – too fast to be reflected yet in Census data and the equivalent of 1.6 million or so new arrivals to New York City. There are growing pains – indeed outright tension – as a result, with sometimes ugly rhetoric at city commission open comment periods. A small group of white supremacists marched through town during a jazz festival in mid-August. For many local civic and business leaders, however, the advantages of having more people to fill jobs, start businesses, and buy goods and services are not lost.”

Buried in one line is the impact of the exodus from Haiti to Springfield. We all remember what Mayor Eric Adams complained of when he had to deal with far less impact on his city.

Where is the proof that the group marching were white supremacists?Is being white a bar to protest against policies that harm them while benefiting these migrants.?

Of course local business and civic leaders like an influx of cheap exploitable labor. One look at the chart shows wages were growing until the large wave of Haitians came. Then they fell faster than neighboring regions in 2022. The combination of demand for housing because of the rapid migration of Haitians coupled with increased federal benefits to these Haitians created a windfall for local businesses. This adversely affected the existing population of citizens had an actual birthright to live in the United States- not simply by virtue of a stroke of a pen by a President with an agenda to repopulate the US with government dependents.

The following is attributed to Haitian immigration but that is an illusion:

“A Ryan Homes subdivision on the outskirts of town, the first new home construction in years, is nearly built out and largely occupied. Another large development of higher-priced homes is underway, and a block of city-center town homes is sold out.”

How can this be when more than half are receiving federal assistance? How do these people who come from an impoverished nation where men work to scoop shit out of community latrines have the necessary down payments and closing costs to buy these homes? The answer: they don’t. These houses are being bought by a small group of beneficiaries of the infusion of federal dollars into supporting the Haitians.

This is actually irrelevant to the story itself except to help spin the narrative: “At a time when commercial real state is on shaky footing after the pandemic, one of several vacant downtown buildings is being converted to condominiums. And a boarded-up black structure towering over City Hall – briefly home to a failed bid to reincarnate the defunct E.F. Hutton investment firm brand – has attracted investor interest with a high-tech research hub as a possible anchor, one of several positive spillovers local development officials say they have seen from the Intel chip plant being built near Columbus.”

This has nothing to do with Haitian immigration as it is unlikely that they have the education to work in a research park or chip plant.

“For their part, city officials, local educators and the business community say that once the short-term disruptions are overcome, a growing population will add to a nascent revival.”

“We needed a workforce,” to fill jobs in a resurgent local manufacturing sector and staff a growing number of warehouse and distribution centers, said Amy Donahoe, director of workforce development with the Greater Springfield Partnership. “They are coming in and they are working hard and they want to make money.”

The people who are benefitting by cheap labor who do not suffer the costs of having to deal with the day to day issues of the culture clash will never have a problem with more labor supply. Just ask Caeser Chavez. When the Haitians start demanding entry to the country clubs, start taking tee times from the members of the Greater Springfield Partnership, or compete for their jobs I suspect they may suddenly have second thoughts…

Yes, as Amy says, they want to make more money than they could in Haiti, which is far less than we would have to pay our existing workforce.

Amy Donahoe, director of workforce development with the Greater Springfield Partnership. “They are coming in and they are working hard and they want to make money.”

Yes, they want to make more money than they could in Haiti which is far less than we would have to pay our existing workforce.

For those who do not know what these partnerships are they are comprised of the business interests in the area. They include the community college, the public schools, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce NGO’s as well as those in the main industries such as hospitals, manufacturing, hospitality services etc.   Each one benefits by a larger population even if that rapid growth decreases the overall quality of life because it dampens wage pressures on employers or provides a rationale for increased budget allocations from government.

Each one of these as well as a variety of NGO’s has a vested financial interest in expanding the population through immigration by way of getting training or resettlement grants or increased budget allocations from government sources to defray the costs of added management and administrative staff to handle the new programs for the immigrants with a plethora of special services that would not be otherwise needed.  This new money into the economy of Springfield has an inflationary effect and like all special grants when the funding dries up the employees get let go.  It’s not sustainable.

Businesses get training grants for workforce development from the state or as a pass through from the federal government. This lowers their total costs to employ less qualified workers at reduced wages. By hiring a Haitian at minimum wage rather than a more qualified American worker that does not need training at a higher one the employer benefits even though the marginal revenue from the less skilled worker is lower than the skilled worker because any future increase in wages will lag behind the productivity gains through training.  A 6% raise for a $15 dollar an hour worker will only be 90 cents per hour while a 6% raise for a $20/hour worker will be $1.20. The greater the difference between the marginal revenue and the marginal cost of each type of employee will cause the employer to want more of that type until the differential is equal.  Government involvement skews the labor market in favor of Haitians.  The relationships in these partnerships by nature are symbiotic. Each reinforces the economic and financial well-being of the others in the partnership.

There is also the psychological aspect of wages among immigrants and locals. Immigrants from impoverished nations have lower expectations for what a “good” life means. For most Haitians a home with indoor plumbing and not worrying about warlords like BarBcue roaming the streets and killing indiscriminately is like most of us thinking what it would be like to live at Mar A Lago. This creates a dual labor market with one being American employees with their understanding of a their market value and the Haitian labor pool with much lower wage and benefit expectations. 

Economists have a term for paying a worker more than market in order to increase the opportunity costs of slacking. They are called efficiency wages. Getting fired for slacking means you lose your premium wages by going anywhere else. For the Haitians who lack basic skills even minimum wage jobs are far higher than they would have back in Haiti so it becomes a draw for more Haitians and keeps labor costs lower for local employers. 

The bottom line is that many Haitians will assimilate into our culture with a bit of assistance from Americans who are typically happy to give a helping hand. However, many will not and will fall back into the comfort of the Haitian culture they left.  Even, meager government benefits is far better than in what they left behind in Haiti and they can continue to live as they did back in Haiti. People do not like change and assimilation means changing cultural habits. Those unwilling to change should not remain here and those who do well should be left alone.

With that said, it is not racist to address the behaviors of those who are unwilling to adapt and assimilate into our culture.