A massive 495-page report on the economic impact of 40 million immigrants in America finds that mass immigration costs America some $278 billion or more, offsetting any economic benefit it brings to the country.
The National Academy of Sciences report, titled “The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration,” was to be released Thursday and generally suggests that immigration is good for the country and business and glosses over the economic hit from lost wages and welfare and economic costs. It was released Wednesday after this and other stories about it posted.
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For example, the report concludes that immigration adds a $54.2 billion net benefit to the economy, which is a nice nudge in income for businesses.
But it appears to come at the expense of wages. The report does note that immigration “drives down wages,” but business benefit, and thus so does the economy, and the report focuses on the positive impact.
The study also projects a favorable impact of immigrants on the future economy, but then suggests that immigrant wage growth is slowing and they are lagging in learning English, trends that are typically a drag on the economy.
It uses several models to look at the fiscal impact, and they range from a hit on the economy of $43 billion to $278.7 billion or even more, depending on the models used.
Of note, the report references illegal immigrants 12 times, but all but three are related to legislation and reports that mention the word. The report prefers “unauthorized,” referenced 84 times, and “undocumented,” mentioned 43 times.
NAS said the report is a follow on to a 1997 study of the impact of immigration. “Summarizes existing knowledge about the economic and fiscal impacts of immigration since the Academies’ 1997 report on the topic, The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. The report looks at how immigration may affect overall living standards, wages and income of U.S. natives and immigrants, the labor market, budgets, and fiscal health at the federal, state and local levels.”
Other key points from the preliminary copy of the report:
— The portion of the labor force that is foreign born has grown from about 11 percent to just over 16 percent in the past 20 years. The vast majority of current and future net workforce growth—which, at less than 1 percent annually, is very slow by historical standards—will be accounted for by immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants.
— Geographic patterns of immigrant settlement have changed in the past 2 decades, with immigrant families increasingly settling in “nontraditional” receiving states and communities. None of the traditional gateway states (California, New York, New Jersey, and Florida), where immigrants make up roughly 20 percent or more of the population, were among the top seven states with the highest growth rates over 1990-2010. Over that 20-year period, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Nevada, South Carolina, and Kentucky each experienced growth rates over 300 percent—albeit from low initial immigrant populations at the beginning—in their immigrant populations.
— The number of immigrants living in the United States increased by more than 70 percent—from 24.5 million (about 9 percent of the population) in 1995 to 42.3 million (about 13 percent of the population) in 2014; the native-born population increased by about 20 percent during the same period.
— Annual flows of lawful permanent residents have increased. During the 1980s, just under 600,000 immigrants were admitted legally (received green cards) each year; after the 1990 Immigration Act took effect, legal admissions increased to just under 800,000 per year; since 2001, legal admissions have averaged just over 1 million per year.
— Estimates of the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States roughly doubled from about 5.7 million in 1995 to about 11.1 million in 2014. Gross inflows, which had reached more than 800,000 annually by the first 5 years of the 21st century, decreased dramatically after 2007; partly as a result, the unauthorized immigrant population shrank by about 1 million over the next 2 years. Since 2009, the unauthorized immigrant population has remained essentially constant, with 300,000-400,000 new unauthorized immigrants arriving each year and about the same number leaving.
— The foreign-born population has changed from being relatively old to being relatively young. In 1970 the peak concentration of immigrants was in their 60s; in 2012 the peak was in their 40s.
— Educational attainment has increased steadily over recent decades for both recent immigrants and natives, although the former still have about 0.8 years less of schooling on average than do the latter. Such averages, however, obscure that the foreign born are overrepresented both among those with less than a high school education and among those with more than a 4-year college education, particularly among computer, science, and engineering workers with advanced degrees. The foreign and native born populations have roughly the same share of college graduates.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
