GOP lawmaker slams Ryan's 'guest-worker' program

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (Photo: U.S. House Ways and Means Committee)

Buried in House Speaker Paul Ryan's 2,009-page omnibus spending bill, passed in the waning hours before Congress left Washington for the holidays, was an expansion in the H-2B "guest worker" visa program for low-skilled seasonal workers.

This legislation will potentially quadruple the number of foreign workers allowed into the country on two-year visas to gobble up jobs in non-farm seasonal fields such as forestry, landscaping, construction, trucking, sanitation, food processing and hotel-motel maids, among others.

Rep. Ryan, R-Wisc., said the opposition to the last-minute insertion was "overblown" by critics and that the legislation would help employers suffering from a labor shortage in these fields.

But a new study of wages in the top H-2B occupations by the Center for Immigration shows no signs of any such labor shortage (see charts below). In fact, stagnant wages suggest there is a glut of people seeking these jobs in the U.S.

Rep. Mo Brooks

Meanwhile Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., came out Thursday and blasted Ryan's decision to insert the H-2B provision into the $1.1 trillion omnibus bill at the 11th hour. He issued the following statement:

"House Speaker Paul Ryan claims increasing foreign worker visas [quote] 'helps small businesses who cannot find labor when there’s a surge in demand for their labor like seafood processing, or tourism.’ This claimed labor shortage is unsupported by jobs or wage data and is political bunk!

"Per federal labor statistics, 57 percent of Americans without a high school diploma had NO job in 2015’s second quarter.[vi] That bears repeating. 57 percent of Americans without a high school diploma had NO job in 2015’s second quarter. That’s a lot of Americans who would love to have those jobs President Obama and Congress denied Americans and gave to foreigners."

The CIS study shows real wages, adjusted for inflation, increased little or actually declined from 2007 to 2014 for many of the H-2B occupations, all very low-paying jobs to begin with.

The occupation that did the best was maids and housekeepers; it saw roughly a 4 percent increase from 2007 to 2014, or 0.6 percent annual wage growth on average. Janitors, ticket takers, and cooks were among those who actually saw their real wages decline. If there is a labor shortage, then wages should be rising rapidly for these occupations as employers struggle to recruit new workers or retain the workers they already have.

"If there is a labor shortage, then wages should be rising rapidly for these occupations as employers struggle to recruit new workers or retain the ones they already have," writes CIS Research Director Steven Camarota. "In economics, the price of anything — steel, wheat, or workers — rises if demand outstrips supply, and of course the price of workers is primarily wages.

Foreign workers' gain at expense of Americans

In another stunning development, the latest figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' current population survey show that, in the two months since October, foreign workers have added 306,000 jobs while U.S.-born workers have lost 320,000 jobs.

Read the entire report on the CIS website.