this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
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Day laborers taking their fistful of loose change in wages and driving 300 miles back across the border to buy a sandwich.
Damn shame the labor performed by these workers doesn't stick around in the US economy in any way, either. All those houses and office buildings they assemble, the plumbing they fix, the foodstuffs they collect for retail sale, the electronics repairs, the meals they prep, the nursing they provide, the child care... all goes right back over the border with them as soon as they day is over.
OP was merely stating facts, don't get all emotional about it. OP never said the work paid for had no value, only that the money paid leaves this country. Once a dollar crosses the border, it's no longer part of our economy. I'm guessing it's not a big problem because the immigrant haters would be screaming about it.
Anecdotally, it's true. My wife sends a lot of money home every month. Won't tell me how much because she thinks I'll get mad, but it's at least $6,000 a year. She used to supervise a bunch of Hispanic immigrants who did the same. That money now belongs to the economies of the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras.
Does it matter much? No clue.
If you're reading emotion into my simple straightforward examples, that's on you.
And your wife's family imports US produced goods and services back home. In fact, half the reason your wife sends money back home is due to the internationalization of trade between her country and the US. That's why the US dollar spends so well abroad.
It belongs to the international financial system. And it sloshes from Riyadh to Rio de Janeiro. Nobody in the US is made materially poorer because your wife's family has access to American dollars. If anything, they're made richer by way of export markets.
But that's the kind of macro-economics Americans aren't allowed to learn in high school.
Out of how much she makes? Pre-tax obviously, and don't forget workplace benefits, bonuses and the like. See my point? She's sending a hefty chunk back home but the vast majority of the money she makes—and, more broadly, the GDP she creates—stays in America. To generalize your anecdote, according to the UN immigrants, on average, only send 15% of what they earn back home. To a wealthy country, this is frankly peanuts.