Jobs and Immigrants

One of Americans’ main anxieties regarding immigration is jobs. When the economy roars the salience of job competition fades. But during times of high unemployment (like today), the impact of immigrants on jobs and wages is a paramount public concern.

In the media and in political discourse it’s almost taken as given that immigrants steal American jobs and drive down wages. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe that immigration might make employers less willing to pay a decent wage. Like so much of the discussion, these views are espoused, disseminated, and accepted with little or no evidence.

Happily, there is a body of economic research demonstrating that the impact of unauthorized immigration on the United States economy—while nuanced and mixed—is largely positive. This week an economic analysis of the impact of immigrants on the economy during the recession stated:

“Immigration unambiguously improves employment, productivity, and income, but this involves adjustments. These adjustments are more difficult during downturns, suggesting that the United States would benefit from immigration that adjusts to economic conditions.”

This report was the latest in a series of research demonstrating that immigration—and particularly unauthorized immigration—largely complements rather than substitutes native American workers’ skills.

So while politicians tout facile analyses linking the nation’s millions of unemployed with the number of unauthorized immigrants, credible economic analysis shows that unauthorized immigration is negligible in terms of “taking away American jobs.” In fact, the consensus among economists is that immigration:

“Can boost the supply of skills different from and complementary to those of natives, increase the supply of low-cost services, contribute to innovation, and create incentives for investment and efficiency gains…There is broad consensus that the long-run impact of immigration on the average income of Americans is small but positive.”

Of course, like everything in life, immigration has costs in addition to benefits. And these costs are borne more heavily by one section of the American labor force whose education level most closely matches that of immigrants: high school dropouts.

The growth of unauthorized immigration is linked to the increasing educational attainment of Americans during the second half of the 20^th century. In 1960, half of all American men in the workforce were high school dropouts who filled jobs requiring little formal education. Today less than 10 percent of the workforce is composed of American dropouts.

The increasing education and skills of the American workforce is the foundation for economic growth. But while the percentage of Americans with more formal education and more job-relevant skills has increased, the millions of jobs requiring less than a high school degree—construction, restaurant work, agriculture—are not disappearing.

With less low-skill natives to work in these jobs, they are increasingly filled by unauthorized immigrants who arrive in the United States to meet this labor market gap. So if you work in a restaurant, clean houses, toil in agriculture, or labor on a construction site, you might be competing with unauthorized immigrants.

But Americans’ desire to work long-term in these fields is not strong. Anecdotal evidence shows that when these jobs are available and advertised at pay rates far above the minimum wage—even during almost 10 percent unemployment—they continue to go unfilled by native workers.

Due in part to Americans’ disinterest in these jobs, some research indicates that unauthorized immigrants compete most with other immigrants and the children of immigrants whose skill set—and lack of English-language skills—most closely matches that of recent immigrants.

In spite of the potential for a slight, short-term negative imact, the long-term overall impact of immigration is widely positive, as is stated in another recent report:

In any case, for the vast majority of Americans, unauthorized immigration is a complement to the labor force and in fact has a positive impact on job creation.