[caption id=”attachment_148717″ align=”aligncenter” width=”1024″]In a special Constitution Day naturalization ceremony at Turner Field, 500 candidates from 93 countries become U.S citizens, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015 in Atlanta. (Brant Sanderlin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
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Though immigrants get blamed for crime and draining the welfare system, new research argues that immigrants are crucial to America’s economy and society.
Richard Florida, the director of cities at the Martin Prosperity Institute and global research professor at New York University, argues in CityLab that “immigrants are concentrated in and contribute to the success of many of the most economically vibrant U.S. metros.”
Immigrant density correlates with some of the economically strongest American metro areas, MPI finds. The correlation, however, doesn’t mean that immigrants drive economic growth. It could be that the economic growth attracted them to the cities in the first place.
“Immigrants are key contributors to innovation and economic growth. A wide body of research has consistently shown that they make up a disproportionate share of leading scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs,” Florida writes.
He points to Vivek Wadhwa’s research that “more than 40 percent of Silicon Valley’s tech companies founded in recent years have at least one immigrant on their founding team,” and University of California, Davis economist Giovanni Peri’s work that shows the benefits that low-skilled immigrants bring as well.
Though immigrants carry a stereotype that they drain welfare resources, the argument isn’t strong. Alex Tabarrok points out that most welfare programs aren’t available to immigrants, or the economic growth they create increases tax revenues that cover the cost.
If presidential candidates want to develop their policy proposals on economic growth, the best way to do so might be to encourage more immigration to struggling cities in the Midwest with weak growth and low numbers of immigrants.
