Study Shows Immigration Raises Wages for American Workers

From the Washington Post:

Economist Giovanni Peri has found that an influx of immigrants doesn’t increase the poverty rate by depressing the wages of low-income, native-born Americans and can actually decrease poverty when higher-skilled immigrants enter the workforce.

Peri, a professor at the University of California-Davis, looked at the economic impact of immigration in the United States on wages, then examined whether there was any correlation with the rise in U.S. poverty from 2000-2009. Here are his findings in a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research:

There is essentially no effect of immigration on native poverty at the national level. At the local level, only considering the most extreme estimates and only in some localities, we find non-trivial effects of immigration on poverty. In general, however, even the local effects of immigration bear very little correlation with the observed changes in poverty rates and they explain a negligible fraction of them.

Comments

[Another Voice]

DHS Cuts Off Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Access To ICE Programs

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/dhs_cuts_off_sheriff_joe_arpaios_access_to_ice_programs.php

[JoeF]

The investigation of Joe Arpaio:
http://us.cnn.com/2011/12/15/justice/arizona-justice-department-investigation/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
"Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, under the leadership of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has engaged in systemic discrimination against Latinos with practices that violate federal law and the Constitution, the U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday.

A comprehensive investigation found the practices include "unlawful stops, detentions and arrests of Latinos," according to a Justice Department statement."

[George Chell]

"The only problem is that people in America will listen to the Nativist first instead of the actual facts..... therefore to misinform people and appeal to their worst values is easy, just check out the media reports."

That is the story of how the United Kingdom was destroyed by Cameron, Migration Watch and their ilk! Let that be a warning to the United States of America which is benefitting from the British and European stupidity!

[Another Voice]

The only problem is that people in America will listen to the Nativist first instead of the actual facts..... therefore to misinform people and appeal to their worst values is easy, just check out the media reports.

[Legal and no longer waiting]

So, when honest, hard working people join the community, it florishes? What a surprise.

[George Chell]

I know Peri personally. He and Matloff go at it frequently. Matloff is a old style protectionist and is mostly anti-Indian and anti-foreign computer programmer...defending his turf. His arguments are all nonsense. When you ask him about jobs moving abroad due to restrictive immigration, he skirts the issue. The reason it does not affect the wages is one of two things: increases in trade; and (ii) increases in foreign direct investmeent chasing skilled migrants.

[JoeF]

Maybe he can educate his fellow faculty member at UC Davis, Norm Matloff, the infamous anti-H1 cursader...