In the first half of the 19th century, Horace Mann dedicated himself to the Common School movement. Providing free, open, and accessible schools across the country was the great equalizer, the “the balance wheel of the social machinery.” Thomas Jefferson was an early, but unsuccessful (twice in his home state of Virginia), advocate of what is now free public education. Mann made it a reality nearly five decades later.

Nearly a century later, President Roosevelt signed into law the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill. Thanks to the GI Bill, millions of Americans and their families from every generation thereafter benefited from a legion of college-educated servicemen. College was now affordable and accessible, new opportunities were within reach for people returning from military service.

These two initiatives transformed the employment landscape forever. As anyone in the education field will tell you, it is not about what students learn now, but how they use it once out of school. Free public schools and free college for servicemen and women opened doors for them. But the largest ripple effect was felt outside its core: everyone else had to keep up.

President Obama said he will focus on immigration reform in 2010. The issue comes back to the fore at a time when people who can work here legally can hardly find work at all. He is faced with polar extremes calling for a swift and indiscriminate deportation of all 11 million or so illegal immigrants on one end, and an amnesty granting all of them legal resident status on the other.

It’s highly unlikely that Obama will pick either option. He will probably pick a mix, a trademark Obama solution. But he must understand the often overlooked implications of taking any approach. Just as free public education and subsidized college education transformed not only those enjoying the program but also those outside of it, immigration reform will transform America’s vitality for generations to come.

Free public education and the GI Bill both changed the game by changing the rules. They both, in economic terminology, incentivized people to get educated. They made it easier to obtain, and more “expensive” to pass up. There is now an opportunity cost for those choosing to forgo public school. If you do, you will be competing against people who did take advantage of it, and are more prepared, and therefore more appealing to employers, than you. You will find it harder to get a job, and if you do find one, you will almost certainly be paid less than your more educated counterpart. In either case, you will lose money because you are unemployed, or just paid less than the rest, by not getting educated. Same goes for the GI Bill: military personnel opting to skip this benefit will compete with college-educated candidates, and feel the same pain in finding a good paying job. Money is lost in lost wages, skipping these programs becomes expensive.

When policy is being thought out, these implications are sometimes never considered. The benefits are later noticed once the ripple effect is more visible and pervasive. Unfortunately for Obama, he cannot skip thinking of the “then what?” when reforming our immigration system. With 11 million illegal immigrants (a guesstimate at best) in the United States, any change will surely be noticed.

Illegal immigrants are typically filling unskilled positions such as field worker, janitor, busser, line cook, or any other job that can easily be paid under the table. One of the most popular arguments from those hoping to deport every single one of them is that they are taking valuable, sought-after jobs. They claim these jobs, if undocumented workers were not doing them, would be filled by American citizens, therefore alleviating some of the unemployment woes our country consistently faces. This is absolutely true. If these jobs were vacant, millions of Americans would rush to fill them, especially when so few jobs are being created. But the big question here is whether that is actually a good thing.

Keeping illegal immigrants here does what public schools and the GI Bill do: it makes education more appealing. Allowing people from other countries to work here without papers is making our country more educated. Let me explain:

Think of our job market as a giant ladder. The unskilled jobs occupy the lower rungs; the skilled jobs are up top. The more education you need for a job, the higher up the ladder it is. As previously mentioned, illegal immigrants tend to occupy the bottom rungs, not because they are necessarily poorly educated (some have advanced degrees in their home country, but end up an assistant janitor here in the US), but because they do not have the papers needed to fill a more closely monitored and visible job. Those jobs they are doing are obviously filled and cannot be taken up by anyone else; those unskilled jobs are off-limits to legal American workers. In other words, anyone looking to find a job as a field worker will find it nearly impossible to do so, and will have to keep looking further up. To find something above those bottom rungs, however, means they will need more preparation, i.e. more education and experience. It’s either that or be unemployed for an indefinite amount of time. For someone who has no skill set (which is likely the case for someone looking for a job as field worker/busser/etc.), the easiest way to get minimal education, a requirement to being competitive in jobs higher up the ladder, is a public school.

What if they were not here? What if, for whatever reason, all undocumented workers were no longer working those jobs? Then the previously off-limits rungs at the bottom of the ladder would be accessible to all. Anyone looking to find a job, any job, would not need any amount of education. The pay would be dismal, of course, but it would still be better than earning nothing or minimal unemployment benefits. The key consequence of making these unskilled jobs available is that it would, in effect, make education LESS appealing. There would be a fight at the bottom between unskilled, uneducated candidates to fill these positions, since there is no point in obtaining any amount of education for the sole purpose of getting a job. Money could be earned, legally, with absolutely no education. The opportunity cost that was previously there has been taken out.

There are changes beyond the job market, beyond making basic education less sexy and no longer a necessity, which hit everyone. Once legal American workers fill these jobs, the old rules must change. There can no longer be under-the-table arrangements–the federally mandated minimum wage actually has to be obeyed. This will raise wages across the board, which will increase inflation, since more dollars will be flowing around the country, making each dollar worth less/every product worth more. In product industries, like produce, this will be felt even more. Since legal workers will demand at least minimum wage, and that wage will most definitely be higher than what undocumented workers were previously paid, the cost to harvest lettuce and strawberries will rise, and that cost will passed on to consumers in price increases. Inflation will hit everyone, even those who never picked a strawberry in their lifetime.

Inflation eats into the pockets of working Americans, but loss of taxes and social security deposits eats into the pockets of the federal government. Contrary to the myths circulating in anti-immigrant circles, more than two thirds of illegal immigrants DO pay income taxes and have to pay into the social security fund. From 1996-2003, payments coming from people using Individual Taxpayer Identification, a number issued by the IRS to people ineligible to collect Social Security (i.e. illegal immigrants) totaled $50 billion. As just mentioned, they CANNOT collect Social Security. They are, in essence, giving money away to our legal senior citizens. This thankless contribution would cease to exist, not to mention the taxes paid, if and once they were deported.

The other side of the immigration debate wants legal status for all. What if they were given amnesty? Then something similar to the education depreciation/inflation dynamic would occur, but with less of the costs. Wages would rise, since these workers would become legal and demand a minimum wage, starting the same snowballing effect that would lead to inflation. But the money the government received from them through income taxes and SS deposits would not be taken away. They would pay into the piggy like everyone else. They would also keep the bottom rungs off-limits, making basic education a necessity in the workforce. Some would even take advantage of their newfound legal status and strive to get more education, since many states prohibit awarding financial aid for college to illegal immigrants.

The issue does not have a silver bullet. Any proposed solution will have unpreventable consequences. Wherever Obama goes with his immigration reform in 2010, he cannot overlook the indirect effects it will have for the current and following generations. Horace Mann called education the “balance wheel” of society. Now, Obama needs to picture a ladder, and what rungs he wants American workers to strive for.

You might want to check these out, too:

• Humanity is not Numerical
• The Anti-Samson
• Ain’t No Party Like a Tea Party
• Cooking the Sausage

Tags:   education · horace mann · immigration · inflation · obama1 Comment