Economics
New Report Describes Peril Immigrant Women Face in U.S. Food Industry
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a new report called Injustice on our Plates: Immigrant Women in the U.S. Food Industry which looks at the conditions under which immigrant women work. It documents and personalizes the stories of women who have made the dangerous journey to the U.S. seeking a better life for themselves and their families, only to end up working long hours under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions. Read More
Experts Highlight Economic Gains from Immigration
At a forum held yesterday by the Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution, a panel of experts sought to “distinguish economic reality from myth” in the often fact-free and emotion-laden debate over how immigration affects the U.S. economy and U.S. workers. The forum, entitled “Crossing Borders: From Myth to Sound Immigration Policy”—as well as an accompanying report, Ten Economic Facts About Immigration—served to refute the shrill and empirically baseless claims of nativist groups that immigrants are stealing jobs from Americans while draining the public treasury. Read More
Congressional Committee Attempts to Tackle AgJOBS, Again
Last week, the House Immigration Subcommittee held a hearing on immigration and farm labor. The substance of the hearing is likely to be eclipsed by the presence of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, who testified about his participation in United Farm Workers’ (UFW) “Take Our Jobs” campaign. While Colbert's presence insured that it wasn’t your ordinary committee hearing, in many ways this hearing was simply more of the same rhetoric which demonstrated Congress’s inability to get beyond partisan sniping and sound bites and pass any type of immigration reform. Read More
Undocumented Immigrants Giving Social Security, Baby Boomers a Big Boost
Washington Post columnist and Harvard University Migration and Integration Research director, Edward Schumacher-Matos, recently pointed out what the Social Security Administration (SSA) has known for years—undocumented immigrants contribute to Social Security in a big way. But what surprised Schumacher-Matos was just how much these immigrants contribute, and the fact that many states are trying to pass enforcement measures to drive these contributors out. With an upcoming wave of retiring Baby Boomers (who will receive Social Security benefits instead of paying into the system) and a Social Security system teetering on the edge of insolvency, immigrants (both documented and undocumented), their role as taxpayers, workers and consumers and the question of what to do about our immigration problems become ever more relevant. Read More
Secretary Solis Continues the Drum Beat for Immigration Reform, But Is Anyone Listening?
Earlier today, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed the complicated intersection of labor, immigration, and the United States economy. “The immigration system has always been important to the labor movement,” said Trumka. Both Secretary Solis and Trumka advocated for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR)—acknowledging the obvious economic benefits to all U.S. workers—and lamented the fact that Republicans have been unwilling thus far to come to the negotiating table on the issue. The lack of Republican cooperation is surprising, considering a CIR bill would be beneficial to U.S. workers and businesses, and was part of the impetus for Solis and Trumka to come together for the webinar. Read More
Undocumented Youth Pin DREAMs on Congressional Action
Every year, undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. along with their young children. These kids grow up in the U.S., speak English, and hang out with their friends just like other American kids. But unlike their classmates, they cannot join the military, work, or pursue their dreams because they don’t have legal status. Every year, roughly 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school, but many don’t apply for college, even when they’re at the top of their class, because they can’t afford it. These hard-working students are not eligible for loans or work study and must often pay high out-of-state or international tuition rates. They often live in fear of detection by immigration authorities. The DREAM Act—which would benefit these students as well as the U.S. economy—proposes to fix these problems, but not without the political will of Congress. Read More
SB 1070 “Gets Tough” on Arizona’s Housing Market
With only six weeks until Arizona’s immigration enforcement law goes into effect, area housing analysts are already expecting the worst. According to the Arizona Republic, housing experts anticipate that SB 1070 will not only drive illegal immigrants out of the state, but legal residents and potential new homebuyers with them—“departures from a state where growth is the economic foundation.” The resulting exodus will likely spur more foreclosures and create more vacant homes and apartments, which as real-estate analysts point out, will scare off potential homebuyers who fear lower home values. With a budget deficit of $4.5 billion and an economy struggling to get back on its feet, a declining housing market is the last thing Arizonans need. Read More
New Report on the Benefits of Legalization Comes Up Short
A new report released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) this week attempts to assess the economic benefits of a legalization program on immigrants and native born workers. The report, Immigrant Legalization: Assessing the Labor Market Effects, however, falls short on research and methodology. While the report accurately concludes that legalization would not have a negative impact on native workers' wages and employment, the report takes a myopic approach to legalization’s impact on wages and mobility of the newly legalized. A wide range of economic studies—studies which consider legalization’s impact in both the long term and in context to comprehensive immigration reform—conclude that legalization does in fact benefit both native-born and immigrants alike. Read More
Immigration and the Future of American Innovation: Does America Need to Pump Up the Volume?
It should come as no surprise to anyone following the global economy that when it comes to innovation and competition, America has lost that loving feeling. Numbers in key areas of innovation—percentage of patents issued, government funded research and venture capitalists' investments—are all down. While some point a finger at a weaker economy, others look to poor domestic policy and increased global competition. Either way, American innovation is slowly fading on the global stage. Read More
Nativist Group Blames Immigrants for Unemployment and Low Wages
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) yesterday released a report, Amnesty and the American Worker, which recycles a number of discredited claims about the supposedly negative impact that immigrants have on U.S. workers and the U.S. economy. According to FAIR, unauthorized immigration has “put Americans out of work and reduced wage levels for all workers across broad sectors of the economy.” The FAIR report also claims that granting legal status to currently unauthorized immigrants would be a drain on the U.S. economy because newly legalized immigrants would qualify for tax credits. FAIR ignores the fact that there is no correlation between immigration and unemployment in the United States—that immigration has provided a small wage boost to most native-born workers and helped “grow” the economy—and that newly legalized immigrants would earn higher wages and therefore spend more in U.S. businesses and pay more in all kinds of taxes. Read More
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