Nowadays, workers form developing countries immigrate to wealthier countries to seek for higher salary and better life when they are able to. In the US, immigration policy is debated in Congress nearly every year. Indeed, immigration ranks among the top issues in surveys of voters just after jobs and health care. It is estimated that there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in the US, many of them are from Mexico.Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?
As we have briefly discussed in the class,immigrants makes the economy (GDP) larger. However, by itself a larger economy is not a benefit to native-born Americans.With the immigrants flowing into US,though the immigrants themselves benefit,similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. According to the article, Labor economists concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent. Those people tend to be the biggest losers from immigration since the least educated and poorest Americans are the most likely to be in competition with immigrants.On the other hand, the owner of capital can benefit from hiring workers at a relatively lower wage,which means the rental of capital increases.
The article points out another important point of why immigrants make the economy better: "Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California,concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them.Economies, as Adam Smith argued in “Wealth of Nations,” work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks among themselves.In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew.The owner of capital no longer had to pay a highly skilled worker to perform basic tasks."
Another benefit of immigrant that mentioned by the article is the fiscal impact — taxes paid by immigrants minus the costs they create for government.Undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes while only take out $1 billion (because very few undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits). Over the years, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.
Undeniable,immigrants benefit the overall economy.They bring diffuse and hard-to-see benefits to average Americans while imposing more tangible costs on a few. Whether or not we should do something to restrict immigrants seems more like a political question than a economic one.
Further reading:The Fiscal and Economic Impact of Immigration on the United States
As we have briefly discussed in the class,immigrants makes the economy (GDP) larger. However, by itself a larger economy is not a benefit to native-born Americans.With the immigrants flowing into US,though the immigrants themselves benefit,similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. According to the article, Labor economists concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent. Those people tend to be the biggest losers from immigration since the least educated and poorest Americans are the most likely to be in competition with immigrants.On the other hand, the owner of capital can benefit from hiring workers at a relatively lower wage,which means the rental of capital increases.
The article points out another important point of why immigrants make the economy better: "Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California,concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them.Economies, as Adam Smith argued in “Wealth of Nations,” work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks among themselves.In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew.The owner of capital no longer had to pay a highly skilled worker to perform basic tasks."
Another benefit of immigrant that mentioned by the article is the fiscal impact — taxes paid by immigrants minus the costs they create for government.Undocumented workers contribute about $15 billion a year to Social Security through payroll taxes while only take out $1 billion (because very few undocumented workers are eligible to receive benefits). Over the years, undocumented workers have contributed up to $300 billion, or nearly 10 percent, of the $2.7 trillion Social Security Trust Fund.
Undeniable,immigrants benefit the overall economy.They bring diffuse and hard-to-see benefits to average Americans while imposing more tangible costs on a few. Whether or not we should do something to restrict immigrants seems more like a political question than a economic one.
Further reading:The Fiscal and Economic Impact of Immigration on the United States
The debate about immigration will never have the final result because illegal immigration has both good and bad effects into U.S. They come here with American dream. Besides economic aspects mentioned in class, immigrants, both illegally and legally, will bring their own cultures into U.S. and enrich American culture. Then it leads to the improvement of service industry and attract more tourism. On the other hand, it’s harder for government to control society if we have more illegal immigrants. It will lead to the increasing of social issue. Therefore, illegal immigration should not be prohibited completely, but putting it under control is necessary.
ReplyDeleteI think the best argument for allowing immigration into the united states is that it actually does not take many jobs away from Americans. As the book illustrated, only a small fraction of the native-born work force has jobs that require less than a high school diploma, somewhere around 8%. With these immigrants coming in and "taking jobs", they are taking away not the jobs of college graduates or middle class families, but of minimum wage labor jobs that might otherwise not get done due to the small work force of native-born Americans working in those sectors. It would seem the easiest way to protect the United States and their native workers from losing jobs is to educate them past a point where the only low-wage labor jobs are filled my migrant workers.
ReplyDeleteAside from hearing immigrants take US jobs, I also frequently hear about their use of food stamps. I looked it up, and immigrants aren't eligible for food stamps until they have lived as a citizen for five years. The only exception is if a particular state sets different eligibility standards. Considering immigrants primarily fill low skill jobs they have low wages resulting in the need for financial assistance. It only makes sense that this would happen. That's why I agree with Wangxunzi's comment that immigration is more of a political question than an economic one. In terms of immigrants on food stamps, or any low skilled worker for that matter, it definetely is a political matter of whether the high wage workers are willing to help support the low wage workers.
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