system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
It is stated that a wall is necessary as illegals are depressing pay and taking jobs. Statistically, there are roughly 8 million illegals working out of 125 million working in the country. How much does that depress pay?

Trying to look at this on a statistics/economics level not a political and emotional level. And please, I get that this will definitely affect some people in some industries more than others (I am sure a construction worker in CA is affected more than a computer programmer in Idaho.

Do economists have an idea how much 8 million additional workers affect wages? Even with illegals, unemployment is low. SOME illegals take jobs others don't want. So maybe 6 million jobs that Americans want are taken by illegals. Can economists, statisticians figure out where wages would be if there were 8 million fewer workers, (6 million?)
gpt
Despite the rhetoric, there's no economic consensus that immigrants (legal or otherwise) depress wages at all. Borjas research suggests that immigrants may depress wages slightly for some specific segments of the population (low skill natives without a high school diploma) while remaining a net benefit, but even that is contested.

The reason is that immigrants are consumers as well as laborers, and the increased demand for goods seems to offset the downward wage pressure.