September 28, 2016

Immigrants help the economy

Rural Blog - "Waves of immigrants coming into the U.S. in recent decades have helped the economy over the long haul and had little lasting impact on the wages or employment levels of native-born Americans, according to one of the most comprehensive studies yet on the topic," Jeffrey Sparshott reports for The Wall Street Journal.

The study by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine,found that immigrants have a very small effect on wages of American-born workers, with most of that coming among low-skilled workers who are most likely high-school dropouts.

The study found that "immigration also can lead to more innovation, entrepreneurship and technological change across the economy," Researchers found that “the prospects for long-run economic growth in the U.S. would be considerably dimmed without the contributions of high-skilled immigrants" and "that 'over a long time horizon (about 75 years)' the fiscal impacts of immigrants 'are generally positive at the federal level and negative at the state and local levels.'”

The study did find that "immigration can burden government finances, especially education budgets at the state and local levels," Sparshott writes.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now here is a bull shit story filled with all sorts of skewed data. For starters, how about the impact upon the building trades over the past four decades? From what pool of laborers were contractors able to draw in order to scab out jobs and bust union ranks? How about an in depth study of how that process worked in the Southwest United States during the great so-called building booms of the 1980's-1990's?
What of the impact now upon the information technology sector? Let's see some realistic statistics demonstrating the hit IT wages and salaries took over the past couple of decades.

Anonymous said...

...very small effect on wages of American-born workers, with most of that coming among low-skilled workers ... 'over a long time horizon (about 75 years)' the fiscal impacts of immigrants 'are generally positive at the federal level and negative at the state and local levels.'”

I consider myself pro-immigrant, but the fact that immigration affects "only" low-skilled workers is a huge exception, and 75 years is an extremely long time horizon. It's asking a lot of voters to have them suffer for the next 20 or 50(!) years for the sake of the long view, and usually they're labeled racist if they object.

I'm also skeptical of economists. This is the only case I know of where they claim that a huge increase in supply has a minimal effect on price (i.e. wages).

-- Syd

Capt. America said...

Propaganda to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor is what this article amounts to.