The Brexit Arms. Please drink ( & post ) responsibly.

[surferjet]

So then that means since the late 90s there has been a 6% decrease in what the lowest paid would have got if there was the same immigration as there had been in the mid 90s?

Thanks for the input btw.

Ok then so the take home pay on minimum wage per year if immigration had stayed the same as the mid 90s would be 13,962, and the take home pay on the rate it is now is 13,351, which calculates at a difference of £611 pa or 11.75 a week.

Or is that the incorrect way to work that out?

That is my interpretation of the empirical analysis. Whether or not you consider that to be significant depends somewhat on the view you take on the necessity for government intervention to protect minimum wages and the extent to which you see actual wage depression as an indicator of depression of working conditions more generally and the impact on the unmeasured self-employment sector.

But most countries have a minimum wage, I see it as essential in order to protect employees, although I am aware of the arguments against it, I think its a positive intervention by the government.

I don't think a difference of £11 pw after tax is that significant, especially when you consider that the tax thresholds have increased by far more than this since each year since 2010 and that people earning at this low level would be eligible for TCs as well. Although I think firms should pay enough so that people don't have to rely on them.

The point about the self employment sector is a good one, but I'd also think the regional variation thing is too. Low pay in areas of low immigration can't be laid at the door of immigration really.

Furthermore as it can be shown that increases in immigration don't cause unemployment among domestic workers, then I struggle with all of this discussion of the impact of immigration on the "people".

I just feel that for the size of the economic problems faced by many in the UK, leaving the EU has been given as a panacea, when yes immigration does have an effect on wages for those at the very bottom, but a small one, but far many other things have greater effects on the terms and conditions of employment and people's living standards.

And then we are back at Figment's comments which I think we both agree with. By coincidence GO's £4k per household is based on an assumption of the UK economy being 6% smaller by 2030 due to Brexit. You make the point very well that 6% of low pay is a small sum in absolute terms.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36073201

I don't back the £4k per household figure at all. Never did. Particularly as the way it was calculated was clumsy and based on the number of current households, not the number of households there is predicted to be in 2030.

I meant to clarify that earlier regarding that figure.

Overall I think Brexit will leave us worse off, but marginally so. Many may feel very much like it has all been for nothing and I fear many that voted who were desperate for change will be at the bare the brunt of the costs.

Wrt Boston (mentioned earlier), this is how the pay is there, compared with East Midlands & Great Britain:

Gross Weekly:
Boston - £415
East Mids - £501.70
GB - £541

Hourly:
Boston - £9.41
East Mids - £12.59
GB - £13.66

(Screenshot taken from https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/1946157148/report.aspx?town=boston)

Here's the original BBC article which talks about how the wages have been depressed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36258541

Really interesting figures Mango.

I think that is what's been going on. People can see before their eyes where the country and EU are headed. But the "models" and "facts" have all been selected to ignore anything which doesn't fit the answer required. But people know what they see is happening.
In the studies I looked at they showed exactly what the models included and didn't so you can judge by yourself if something has been missed. Are there similar serious papers that contradict the fact that immigration has a neutral effect? You'd think the Leave campaign would have funded or unearthed a rigorous one?

If we stopped staffing the NHS by poaching trained staff from other (often less well off) countries, by the laws of supply and demand, we would need to make it attractive for people to train eg as nurses and so the conditions (fees, bursaries) would need to become more favourable. If the government failed to do this and the NHS started to collapse under staff shortages, we could vote in a government who would.
well you didn't, you voted in New Labour as opposed to Labour (which would never have got in because Murdoch would never endorse it) (New Labour who I think first thought it would be a good idea to import NHS staff from abroad as it's a pragmatic way of saving money), and then you voted in the Tories on an austerity/the-NHS-will-have-to-tighten-its-belt ticket, as everyone was whipped up into a frenzy of thinking that investing in the NHS and education was crazy and not a penny more must go anywhere as 'there is no money'. All of a sudden there is money for training nurses and doctors, and nevermind austerity and surplus money.
People's short memory really winds me up.
The majority votes consistently on what Murdoch says matters at the time, they buy into the need to save or the need to invest as decided by his papers who make the weather... People voting for the rational view in full understanding of sacrifices and benefits is not my experience of elections in the UK.

Similarly, we are leaving the EU whose project 'no one asked us if we wanted to join', but May is looking to suck up to Trump (See the comments of the U.K. Ambassador to the US): did anyone ask you who you wanted your new allies to be? How much more do you trust Trump over the EU to do the right thing by the planet and refugees?
Are you ok with trashing the environment (Hearhrow) to make up for lost business opportunities with the EU, is anyone asking you if you are? And how much easier will it be to keep the government in check over its decisions as opposed to when it was part of the 27 (and will you even try?)?

So please can we have a scientific paper that says immigration has been a disaster for wages?

There isn't one because it can't be proved, as with the data showed from the BOE report its very minimal and really only related to the very lowest paid.

Mango the data you have shown doesn't show that wages in Boston have been depressed. What it demonstrates is the likelihood that there are a large proportion of the workforce in Boston earning minimum wage or around or slightly higher, which corresponds with the types of jobs that are available in agriculture and food processing.

This is evident when you drill down into the data further here:

www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/1946157148/report.aspx?town=boston#tabempocc

The table shows that while the East Midlands has around 41.1% of people employed in the top earning group, Boston only has 22.4%. It also has a lower number of people employed in the second and third earnings brackets, whilst nearly 48% are employed in the lowest earning group.

The type of employment available in Boston dictates the average wage and thus the data you have used can't be used as evidence of immigration depressing average wages.

I'm off to find the data from 2000 to see if this can be done though, if we make a comparison between 2000 and 2016 and can show the the average wage in Boston is lower in regard to average wages than it was, then we might be able to put the blame on immigration.

The BBC article is very insightful Mango. Very clearly explains the effect of a localised low wage economy supported by a rapidly growing migrant workforce - low wages, high housing costs, pressure on schools and NHS childhood services.

Could you go read the Boston Town Council report I linked to which actually proves that a lot of the things in that report aren't accurate.

For example the schools thing, it mentions that whilst the school listed in the article has a 60% population of immigrant children, several schools have none. It also notes that Boston schools have very high attainment rates and that there have been few issues with having these children.

In effect, it presents a lot clearer picture than that article.

I've no agenda wrt to laying the 'blame' anywhere other than at the door of successive govts over the last 30+ years tbh.

I am coming more from a place of trying to understand 'why' people have the perceptions that they do.
Posting reams of facts, figures & studies are all very well & good on an EU centric part of mn, but the reality is that the people of Boston etc are vocalising something very different to what the quantitative data suggests.

The localised effect is the point though. As discussed yesterday the negative impact is on low wage groups. Boston has 48% population in low wage groups as opposed to UK average of about 20%. They also have half the UK average of civil service jobs and public sector jobs tend to underpin employment rights.

The schools issue is also interesting. I live in a mixed demographic area of Scotland. Per the stats just produced half the children at school with mine are in the lowest income quartile. About a third of their classmates are non-UK nationals. I think her diverse classmates positively benefit her education. However being a sufficiently savvy mc parent if it bothered me I would put in a placing request for the school a mile along the road with no children in the lowest income quartile and no children of non-UK origin. Glasgow is by far the most ethnically diverse area in Scotland. There is a growing trend for the local mc population to rediscover their Gaelic heritage in order to send their children to the selective Gaelic school.

As the Boston council report shows the town is actually doing quite well out of immigration. It also shows that there seems to be very little animosity about immigration and that crime is low etc etc

The problem of saying things about feelings is that perceptions are not always reality, the report shows that prior to 2001 immigration was a concern in the town, when at that point there was an immigrant populations of about 1.3 %. In that BBC article the woman complains about the school with 60% immigrant kids in it, but it actually turns out that the particular school has the highest amount in the town, and that some schools have no immigrant children etc etc.

I'd imagine that when you drill down on it and use the evidence that counters a lot of the negativity expressed, you'll find that a lot of the negative feelings are down to the rapid change in the town, which is also a direct effect of the way that farming in the area has changed in the last 15-20 years.

I'm off to find the data from 2000 to see if this can be done though, if we make a comparison between 2000 and 2016 and can show the the average wage in Boston is lower in regard to average wages than it was, then we might be able to put the blame on immigration

Did you manage to find the figures for this comparison Darth?

Got them :), hope you don't mind my geek out on stats, the DDs are laughing at me for it.

2000 average weekly earnings for

Boston £308
East Midlands: £330
UK: £360

So Boston in 2000 was 7.1% lower than the rest of the East Midlands and in 2016 it is 12.37% lower on average than the rest of the East Midlands.

If it had retained the trend then wages in Boston would be 5.2% higher meaning that weekly wages would be £22.36 higher. But in order to see if that year was part of a trend or an anomaly we have to look at a few other years.

In 1997, wages in Boston were 9.6% lower than the East Midlands. In 2001 average wages were 11.2 % lower, 2002 average wages were 12.2% lower and in 2003 wages in Boston were 13.7 % lower than the rest of the East Midlands these are both prior to EU 8 accession and FOM for Eastern Europeans.

Once this occurred in 2004 wages were 14.6% lower than the rest of the East Midlands, however this follows the trend noted above. however following two years of FOM in 2006 they had fallen to being 11% lower than the rest of the East Midlands.

Average wages in the actually reduced from the previous year during 2008, but in 2009 they rose again and the gap between EM and Boston was 9.9%

Wages in Boston have increased 55% since 1997 and wages in the East Midlands have increased 59%, where are average wages in the UK have increased by 68%.

Prior to FOM between 2000 and 2003 average wages grew by 8.4%, following FOM between 2004 and 2007 wages grew by 11%., between 2008 and 2011 wages grew by 10.1% but had a decrease in 2008. Between 2012 and 2016 average wages rose by 6 %.

What does this tell us?

That Boston has always been a lower paid area than the rest of the East Midlands and that its current gap has been exceeded historically in years where the town had a lower population and a far lower % of the population were immigrants.

As a larger proportion of Boston's employees are low paid workers than is average the average pay growth since 1997 has been slightly lower than the rest of the area, but both Boston and the East Midlands are fall below the national average pay growth. Pay growth accelerated between 2004 and 2007, but grew slower in later years, which corresponds with the LSE analysis.

Overall the I think that the historic wage rate trends show that immigration has had a minimal impact on income in Boston.

It is also worth noting that Boston has extremely low unemployment, lower than the national and regional average.

www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/1946157148/subreports/ashew_time_series/report.aspx?

Nothing like a good bit of stats to while a way a cold winter evening

I'm not understanding this:

That Boston has always been a lower paid area than the rest of the East Midlands and that its current gap has been exceeded historically in years where the town had a lower population and a far lower % of the population were immigrants

Could you explain?

I would say the take home message from your analysis is that between 2000 and 2016 the gap between average wages in Boston and those in the East Midlands has hugely increased (I make it from a 7% difference between Boston and EM in 2000 to 17% difference in 2016). Startling figures, whatever the cause.

(For the rest of Great Britain the differences are 16% in 2000 and 25% in 2016)

I can't concentrate enough to read it all properly yet!

Thanks though - will have a proper read & look when my brain is working better

Boston has always been lower paid than the rest of the East Midlands.

Prior the 2004 accession of Eastern European countries which is taking the blame for this difference, the gap between these areas increased and was higher than it currently is.

I'm coming up with a different figure for 2016, how did you do yours? Really interested to know if I've got this right :)

I took mango's figures for 2016

Gross Weekly:
Boston - £415
East Mids - £501.70
GB - £541

so difference of £85 which is 17% of £501. Happy to be corrected - it's late, may well be wrong.

And I see, this is key to your suggestion that the difference was higher in some previous years. If 17% is right, then that isn't the case, if it's 12% then it is true. Will have another look tomorrow.

Ugh, I've been calcuating them as a % of the lower figure, but that data I have here is gross weekly pay for all full time workers.

www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/1946157148/subreports/ashew_time_series/report.aspx?

2016 figures from the data I have: 430.4 East Midlands: 483.2 UK 540.2

So using the method I have been using 483.2 - 430.4 = 52.4

52.4/430.4 = 12.26%

As a % of 483 .2 it is 10%.

just noting, the maths geeks are dominating a pub thread.

Funny :)

I may well have been comparing two unrelated sets of figures so please ignore mine until I have had another look.

I can't resist a bit of geekery, so I've plotted the figures for you. Blue line shows how much the average gross weekly wage in Boston was below East Midlands average, as a percentage of the East Midlands average. The red line shows the same but using Great Britain as a whole as a comparison rather than the East Midlands.