>This is a good general point, but it doesn't address the question of
>whether or not the "original" population has a higher or lower real income,
>or what has happened to inequality within that group.
The implication of Cox's argument seems to be that once immigrants adjust (as far as their genes will allow them) their so called marginal productivity upward through education and assimilation (must ban that bliingual education) they too will then converge on the prosperous autochthonous population above then, thereby reducing the income inequality that exercises the weak hearted.
This is an optimistic view. And Nathan's rejoinder an excellent one. If more educated, it is quite possible that immigrants or other low wage workers will then only be overeducated for the low wage and very low wage jobs the American economic machine so brilliantly churns out due to structural changes in the job machine itself. The fact of immigration has nothing to do with it.
Even if immigrants close the gap, that will not change anyway the fact that the population as a whole has had to put in more family hours of work at more intensive jobs (due to jit, computer surveillance of service employees) to maintain the same real income. So the misery continues even if income inequality is reduced by immigrant assimilation.
And Brett there is the question of why people are leaving their home countries for such shitty jobs. Not enough neo liberalism?
best, rakesh