A
recent Washington Post article reports on new studies about the
employment effects of immigration. The basic conclusion? Immigrants
don’t displace native-born workers. In fact, the former help the
latter become more productive.
New white papers from the German research group IZA document the
following, all of which are obvious upon a minute’s reflection:
- immigrants fill labor gaps;
- immigrants don’t have access to the same jobs as
natives; - immigrants complement (rather than replace) existing
capital, tech, and workers; - labor markets adapt;
- complementarity increases productivity, which in turn
increases wages.
The IZA papers are
here and
here.
Regarding whether immigrants cause unemployment, here’s an IZA
chart which shows no relationship between immigration rates and
unemployment rates in developed (OECD) countries:
And here’s a chart from a meta-analysis of economic studies of
the effect of immigration on wages. The vast majority report that
the direct effect is near zero, meaning that immigrants do not
depress native incomes by creating a vast army of the
unemployed.
I don’t expect this latest foray into empirical reality to
change most people’s minds on immigration.
As Wash Post‘s Lydia DePillis writes,
“Despite manifold evidence to
the contrary, the trope that immigrants steal Americans’ jobs and
depress their wages comes up again and again when
Congress toys with passing immigration reform.”
Yet the simple reality is something like this: Immigrants, who
are barred from receiving most forms of welfare in America, come
here for economic opportunity, not to lounge around. They go to
areas with lots of jobs and they stop coming when work dries up in
America (that explains fluctuations in illegals crossing the border
with Mexico). They either do jobs that Americans won’t do (such as
migrant farm work), jobs that free up native workers to do
higher-value jobs (immigrants take care of your kids or cut your
grass so you have more time to do jobs that required English, local
knowledge, and pay better), or high-skilled jobs for which there’s
a shortage of native workers (H1-B visas). Doubtless there are some
local disruptions from time to time, but all of this helps the
larger economy become bigger.
I might also add that except in very rare instances, governments
do about as good a job at securing borders at home as they do in
keeping drugs out of jails and schools or nation-building abroad.
Sure, North Korea can do a decent job of keeping its half-starved
“citizens” from escaping but the only reason the Hermit Kingdom
isn’t overrun with illegal immigrants is because nobody wants to
move there. As
Lant Pritchett, formerly of the World Bank and now at Harvard,
will tell you, people move to where the action is whether border
bluenoses technically allow it or not. And if you think immigration
is a problem, just wait until the world’s wretched refuse stops
beating a path to your country. Those of you living in parts of the
country without a lot of immigration (whether by “Americans” or
foreigners) know exactly what I’m talking about.
But the immigration debate is
ultimately more about optics and emotions than reality.
That’s why so many restrictionists focus on things such as
cultural assimilation (never mind that today’s mostly
Spanish-speaking newcomers learn English at the same rate as
yesteryear’s Italians, Poles, and Jews); the unbearable burden of
having to specify what language you want at an ATM; and the outrage
that
Irish Americans held
the world’s first-St. Patrick’s Day parade in colonial New York as
a way to piss off “real” Americans (by which I mean
English-descended overlords) Mexicans celebrate
Cinco De Mayo and drink beer like a bunch of American college
students on Spring Break.
Or restrictionists fixate on the willingness of
cantalope-calved “criminals” to cross a fucking desert in order
to send money back home to a Fourth World village somewhere while
also committing violent and property crime at lower rates than
native-born Americans. Or they enlist SCIENCE in the cause of
closing borders: Don’t you know that evolution means we are
designed by nature to hate Mexicans who don’t look
anything like us second-generation Italians, third-generation Jews,
and
seventh-generation Tennesseans?
I understand that point of view and I can appreciate the anxiety
of people who displace their worries about their lives on people
who don’t look, talk, or smell like them.
But that sort of atavism and emotionalism is simply no basis for
public policy or living an examined life. If it is allowed to guide
immigration policy, it will lead to an America that is not just
poorer in material terms but absolutely beggared in spirit.
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