How immigrants boost your local economy

Immigrants create jobs for native-born American workers, according to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper says every immigrant creates 1.2 local jobs for local workers, raises wages for native workers, and attracts native-born workers from elsewhere in the country.

The paper was authored by Gihoon Hong, with Indiana University South Bend, and John McLaren, with the University of Virginia. Hong and McLaren used Census data from 1980-2000 to reach their conclusions.