LatinaLista — A non-political report was released earlier this week that surprisingly received little media attention. It was published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and titled The Effect of Immigrants on U.S. Employment and Productivity.
After reviewing the research, it’s easy to see why it didn’t make headlines — it didn’t support one argument conservatives use to justify drafting punitive immigration laws.
According to the author:
…there is no evidence that immigrants crowd out U.S.-born workers in either the short or long run.
Second, the positive long-run effect on income per U.S.-born worker accrues over some time. In the short run, small insignificant effects are observed. Over the long run, however, a net inflow of immigrants equal to 1% of employment increases income per worker by 0.6% to 0.9%. This implies that total immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real income per worker or an increase of about $5,100 in the yearly income of the average U.S. worker in constant 2005 dollars.
The third result is that the long-run increase in income per worker associated with immigrants is mainly due to increases in the efficiency and productivity of state economies.
It’s not exactly news those who are behind the crafting of punitive immigration bills across the country want to hear. If this news became common knowledge, then the urgency that is being used to drive politicians to champion bills like Arizona’s SB1070 would come to a dead halt — as they should.
All it takes is for politicians to actually read the report to get the true story — that is, if they want to hear it.
Data show that, on net, immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s productive capacity, stimulate investment, and promote specialization that in the long run boosts productivity. Consistent with previous research, there is no evidence that these effects take place at the expense of jobs for workers born in the United States.
