Wage Effects of Immigration Are Small

Immigration has small long-runrelativewage impacts on American workers by education (Figure 1). These estimates are the most popular and widely cited in the immigration debate. They were completed byGeorge Borjas andGianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri. Their findings are very close but diverge most appreciably for the wages of dropouts, even though the effect is small and positive for all native-born workers lumped together. According to the 2015 American Community Survey, 9.4 percent of native-born Americans over the age of 25 are dropouts. Thus, the wages for over 90 percent of Americans actually increased due to immigration according to more pessimistic findings in Figure 1.Figure 1Relative Impact of Immigration onNative Wages by Education Sources:Borjas, p. 120;Ottaviano& Peri, Table 6.Note: Borjas looks at 1990-2010. Ottaviano and Peri look at 1990-2006.Borjas and Ottaviano and Peri find that the wages of immigrant workers are most affected by new immigrants (Figure 2). That ’s because new immigrants have skills and education levels most similar to previous immigrants, so they compete against each other more than with natives who have very different levels of skill and education. As we point out in Figure 25 of thisbulletin,  immigrants still support liberalized immigration despite the negative wage effects they experience. There are at least three explanations for this.Figure 2Relative Impact of Immigration onImmigrant Wages by Education Sources:Borjas, p. 120;Ot...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs