Economic Facts About Immigration Essay
Ten Economic Facts about Immigration
INTRODUCTION
The Hamilton Project believes it is important to ground the current immigration debate in an objective economic framework based on the best available evidence. In this policy memo, we explore some of the questions frequently raised around immigration in the United States and provide facts drawn from publicly available data sets and the academic literature.
Most Americans agree that the current U.S. immigration system is flawed. Less clear, however, are the economic facts about immigration—the real effects that new immigrants have on wages, jobs, budgets, and the U.S. economy—facts that are essential to a constructive national debate.
These facts paint a more nuanced portrait of American …show more content…
Today’s controversies over immigration echo arguments made a century ago during the last immigration peak. While the demographics of U.S. immigrants have shifted dramatically, the concerns voiced about the social and economic impacts of immigration strike a familiar chord.
A major economic concern is how immigrants influence the wages and employment prospects of U.S. workers. The economic impacts of immigration vary tremendously, depending on whether immigrants are unskilled agricultural laborers, for example, or highly skilled PhD computer scientists. Although their consequences are often conflated, it is constructive to examine the impacts of low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants independently.
Another point of controversy in today’s debate involves the impact of unauthorized immigrants on our economic wellbeing. The best estimates suggest that 28 percent of the total foreign-born population could be unauthorized. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, roughly 60 percent of these unauthorized immigrants are from Mexico. (However, unauthorized immigrants make up only about 21 percent of U.S. residents of Mexican heritage.) When possible, we try to differentiate the figures to more closely understand the different effects—positive or negative—that unauthorized workers may have on the
INTRODUCTION
The Hamilton Project believes it is important to ground the current immigration debate in an objective economic framework based on the best available evidence. In this policy memo, we explore some of the questions frequently raised around immigration in the United States and provide facts drawn from publicly available data sets and the academic literature.
Most Americans agree that the current U.S. immigration system is flawed. Less clear, however, are the economic facts about immigration—the real effects that new immigrants have on wages, jobs, budgets, and the U.S. economy—facts that are essential to a constructive national debate.
These facts paint a more nuanced portrait of American …show more content…
Today’s controversies over immigration echo arguments made a century ago during the last immigration peak. While the demographics of U.S. immigrants have shifted dramatically, the concerns voiced about the social and economic impacts of immigration strike a familiar chord.
A major economic concern is how immigrants influence the wages and employment prospects of U.S. workers. The economic impacts of immigration vary tremendously, depending on whether immigrants are unskilled agricultural laborers, for example, or highly skilled PhD computer scientists. Although their consequences are often conflated, it is constructive to examine the impacts of low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants independently.
Another point of controversy in today’s debate involves the impact of unauthorized immigrants on our economic wellbeing. The best estimates suggest that 28 percent of the total foreign-born population could be unauthorized. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, roughly 60 percent of these unauthorized immigrants are from Mexico. (However, unauthorized immigrants make up only about 21 percent of U.S. residents of Mexican heritage.) When possible, we try to differentiate the figures to more closely understand the different effects—positive or negative—that unauthorized workers may have on the