Alabama reports second fastest unemployment rate drop. HB56 at work

http://annistonstar.com/bookmark/168...mployment-drop

Alabama's reporting a rapid drop in unemployment rate after HB56 went into effect

The GOP will use Alabama as the poster child of "Deport Them All" immigration policy, no doubt.

"Deport them all, and create jobs for citizens!"

That's terrible. Ron Paul was a great man until he opened his mouth on immigration. How can you possibly relate our current border situation with a kid who has already lived in this country his whole life? How can you relate our job situation to a kid who lives in America but cannot walk down the street or get a job like a normal human becaue this kid is an "illegal"

This is exactly why people should study economics a bit more. Alabama will have a short term job increase because there are vacancies that our fellow immigrants left. Over the long run, the state will be worse off (GDP portion) because there are less people in that state. Plus racial segregation will be fought by the federal government.

What a bunch of bullcrap. Amazing how stupid people can get. This is why half of these people will never own homes or successful businesses having lived in this country all their lives with this type of mentality. Immigrants are slowly taking over and acquiring all types of property. Can't wait to see what happens to this trash state in few years.

Just to play devil's advocate a bit, but doesn't the fact that the unemployment rate reduced prove that American's will do the jobs, just at a higher wage. Alabama is finally forced to pay higher wages for farming work, e.t.c. Consider the work of coal mining, or working at an oil rig, or working construction in a high rise building. Are any of these jobs easier than picking lettuce all day, yet American's do them, they just won't do them for $5 an hour.
I think Alabama will benefit in the long run from higher wages and taxes that come with it, as well as a reduced unemployment rate. We all want immigration reform but we have to admit that 10 million people working "under the table" being paid half the wage suppresses the G.D.P. in Alabama and in the United States. But since we are already here, immigration reform would be the best solution.

Yeah, but don't businesses want to maximize profits and MINIMIZE costs. Also, if employers increase wages, the price of their services will logically increase, discouraging consumption and hurting the economy. A vicious cycle of economic consequences will ensue. As others have said in this post, the economy and citizens will suffer in the long run.

Smooth is correct. Consumption is the biggest component of GDP in the United States. Unemployment fell because there was an increased demand for workers, which in turn increases wages/price levels (particularly for unskilled labor). As price levels rise, the value of the dollar falls. Inflation is inevitable in an economy and is countered by in increase in money supply via central banking. But now let's say other states become as ignorant as Alabama, the short term benefits will not be worth the long term negative effects.

As long as the sole purpose is to maximize profits, everything even the health of people will not matter. This is not new at all. Look at the airline industry, when something was discovered to be defective, they would factor the cost of lawsuits for loss of life versus the cost of replacing the part on the airplane, and unfortunately, in some cases, they determined it was better to take prolong a necessary change. It's what caused a single airline to have a failure that almost brought a plane down with the actually bring a plane down several years later after the defect was ordered fixed causing the loss of all the passengers.

I had the pleasure to talk to the CEO and president from one of the largest energy companies in the country, and while people where asking him the lame questions about nuclear energy future for the state or how he made it to be at the top, or what advice he would give them for greater success, I stood up and asked about an actual issue that has been coming up involving the safety of entire communities to the practice fracking (hydraulic fracturing) and poisoning of ground water people depend on resulting in various retrofits in other states to attempt to correct the problem, some loss of life and many people consuming highly carcinogenic products because Donald Rumsfeld was able help one of his companies to not have any requirements for inspections of any kind allowing for the usage of any chemicals to be pumped underground without considering their effects. His response, he was aware of the issues, but fracking was significantly cheaper than other safer technologies, besides, this is what investors wanted, it would make them a lot more money.

And just like that, he passed the buck to the investors who will never be found guilty of anything involving the company if a lawsuit is ever filed.

Immigration ends up being a scapegoat that prolongs the inevitable. If they increase wages, in order to maximize profits, they will increase prices of everything, they will send the jobs overseas where they can get people to work for a few cents per hour in deplorable conditions to do the job we would pay people 6-8 per hour to do in the states. Free trade agreements is the most damaging idea we could have formulated, it does not help the countries in need as it places people into slavery and it causes considerably unemployment in the US, allowing a very small number of people to have all the wealth and control.

It's highly unstable.

Yes businesses want to maximize profits, that's why they are in Alabama in the first place and not California or Michigan. Its ironic all of the states friendly to illegal immigrants also happen to be heavily unionized. The fact they are unionized makes people look for cheaper forms of labor. In a right to work state, you can get dirt cheap citizen labor.

Higher wages tends to lead to higher productivity.

Also, businesses would be better served to keep the same margins and find other ways to become more efficient, like outsourcing. Not all jobs can be outsourced though, and you can argue that the US could be better off without some of the manufacturing jobs. Consumption would increase because of cheaper goods.

An increase in wages would then force a more efficient economy.

p.s. economics is not my area of study.