Undocumented workers carry big stick.

“If undocumented workers suddenly left the job market, wages for people on the lower rungs of the employment ladder would quickly rise to reflect the shrinking labor pool, economists say.

Consumer prices would shoot up to reflect the rising wages. Businesses would struggle to find replacement workers. Retail spending overall would drop, cut off from the current flow of 600,000 to 700,000 new consumers per year.

While state and local agencies would save billions of dollars that they spend on social services for the immigrants, the federal government would lose billions of dollars that illegal workers pay into Social Security and Medicare but are ineligible to collect.”

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