Want to make the country poorer? Close the borders.

From Friday's WSJ...


Jobs Americans Won't Do
Want to make the country poorer? Close the borders.

President Bush is taking knocks from all sides in the immigration debate over his argument that the U.S. needs foreign workers to fill "jobs Americans don't want." Economists on both the left and right say Mr. Bush is ignoring the role of "prices"--and that more Americans would happily mow lawns and bus tables if those jobs paid more than they currently do.
Well, we're always happy to see leftish economists paying attention to prices. Would that they also did so when promoting minimum-wage laws and health-care mandates. Less helpful is to see allegedly free-market sorts embrace the idea that something called "the economy" can be closed off at the national border. These fair-weather free-marketeers need a little re-education on global labor markets.

Certainly if we could somehow seal the border--and good luck with that--the market would adjust to the shrinking supply of labor; wages and prices would adapt. The country could survive without foreign labor in the same way we cope with shortages of steel, or sugar for that matter. But economics is about trade-offs. So the real question isn't whether living in a closed economy is possible. It's whether the U.S. is better off moving in that direction. MORE