While April job growth was a surprisingly robust 274,000, the number of employed Hispanics dipped by 12,000.

This is a rarity. As we’ve been chronicling, since the start of the Bush Administration (January 2001) Hispanics have taken 2.3 million, or 68 percent of the 3.3 million new jobs created in the U.S. A monthly Household survey is the source of employment data by race and ethnicity; the more frequently cited establishment survey is the mainline media’s source for total employment figures.

Another study released last week raises questions about this Hispanic-led job growth. Average Latino wages declined 2.6 percent in 2004 on the heels of a 2.2 percent fall the prior year. New Latino immigrants were the biggest losers.

The findings, from the Pew Hispanic Center, show the pay gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic workers expanding from 30 percent in 2003 to 32 percent in 2004. [Latino Labor Report, 2004 | More Jobs for New Immigrants but at Lower Wages, by Rakesh Kochhar]]

The author of the Pew study professes “surprise” that Hispanic wages would fall at a time when they are having such “luck” in getting jobs.

A refresher course in Economics 101 is in order here.

Falling prices denote a surplus. That is a basic principle of economics. Falling Hispanic wages are thus a signal sent by a labor market that is saying what many of us have been saying for years: Immigrant workers are simply not needed. Far from doing the jobs that Americans “won’t do,” Hispanic immigrants are displacing low wage natives—Hispanic and non-Hispanic alike.

When will it end? Eventually wages in this country will converge to levels prevailing in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, dragging immigrants and poorly-educated natives down to a new “equilibrium.”

At that point the economic incentives to immigrate will cease.

So will the American Dream. [Edwin S. Rubenstein] - 05/08/05

While April job growth was a surprisingly robust 274,000, the number of employed Hispanics dipped by 12,000.

This is a rarity. As we’ve been chronicling, since the start of the Bush Administration (January 2001) Hispanics have taken 2.3 million, or 68 percent of the 3.3 million new jobs created in the U.S. A monthly Household survey is the source of employment data by race and ethnicity; the more frequently cited establishment survey is the mainline media’s source for total employment figures.

Another study released last week raises questions about this Hispanic-led job growth. Average Latino wages declined 2.6 percent in 2004 on the heels of a 2.2 percent fall the prior year. New Latino immigrants were the biggest losers.

The findings, from the Pew Hispanic Center, show the pay gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic workers expanding from 30 percent in 2003 to 32 percent in 2004. [Latino Labor Report, 2004 | More Jobs for New Immigrants but at Lower Wages, by Rakesh Kochhar]]

The author of the Pew study professes “surprise” that Hispanic wages would fall at a time when they are having such “luck” in getting jobs.

A refresher course in Economics 101 is in order here.

Falling prices denote a surplus. That is a basic principle of economics. Falling Hispanic wages are thus a signal sent by a labor market that is saying what many of us have been saying for years: Immigrant workers are simply not needed. Far from doing the jobs that Americans “won’t do,” Hispanic immigrants are displacing low wage natives—Hispanic and non-Hispanic alike.

When will it end? Eventually wages in this country will converge to levels prevailing in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, dragging immigrants and poorly-educated natives down to a new “equilibrium.”

At that point the economic incentives to immigrate will cease.

So will the American Dream.