Attention Economy


Saturday, November 9, 2024

The Complicated Economics and Politics of Low-Skilled Immigration

Trump Has Made His View of Migrants Clear. Will It Stop Them from Coming?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/world/americas/trump-immigration-migrants-border.html
The incoming president has promised the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. Now migrants are weighing a new Trump administration in deciding whether to trek to the United States.

Why Trump Allies Say Immigration Hurts American Workers
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/business/economy/immigration-trump-economy.html
JD Vance and others on the “new right” say limiting immigration will raise wages and give jobs to sidelined Americans. Many studies suggest otherwise.

George Borjas on Immigration
 
Alesina, Alberto, and Marco Tabellini. 2024. "The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics?Journal of Economic Literature, 62 (1): 5–46.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20221643


The Immigration-Wage Myth
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-immigration-wage-myth/ar-AA1txcoe
The Atlantic Podcast: https://youtu.be/Kyc1yi7VAIA?si=i6wuJ5RcrcRMRnL-&t=52
Do higher levels of immigration lead to lower wages? The Atlantic staff writer RogĂ© Karma breaks down the misconception that immigration creates an economic burden—when actually the opposite is true: Immigrants are a source of economic growth.

The potential economic impact of Trump's mass deportation promise
https://youtu.be/GNja3OE2Hbc

The Hard Truth About Immigration
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/us-immigration-policy-1965-act/675724/
If the United States wants to reduce inequality, it’s going to need to take an honest look at a contentious issue. 
 
David Leonhardt: 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/opinion/immigration-trump-racism.html
I think our immigration policy should take into account the sharp rise in inequality over the last few decades. One way to do so would be to reduce, or at least hold constant, the level of immigration by people who would compete for lower- and middle-wage jobs while increasing immigration among people who would compete for higher-wage jobs.
  
Who competes with whom? Using occupation characteristics to estimate the impact of immigration on native wages
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101902
Abstract
Many studies have examined the impact of immigration on native wages. Some of these studies have relied upon education-experience groups to define labor markets and identify the wage elasticity with respect to immigrant labor supply. However, evidence suggests that immigrants’ educational attainment is treated differently in the labor market and constructing labor markets based upon this characteristic leads to potentially biased conclusions. We utilize O*NET occupational characteristics to form a different set of labor markets. Our analysis finds higher partial equilibrium effects on native wages than prior work using education-experience skill groups, as expected. These larger effects, however, are shown to be concentrated on the least skilled natives. Estimates of the total wage effect along the distribution of occupational skills confirm that the negative wage effect is concentrated on native workers in the bottom tail of the distribution. Natives in the upper tail of the distribution experience wage gains as a result of immigration. The distributional impact is likely due to the distribution of skills among recent immigrants. 

How the Democrats Bungled the Politics of Immigration
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/how-the-democrats-bungled-the-politics-of-immigration-0569acfc
A massive new surge of migrants turned the Biden administration’s efforts to make border policy more humane into a liability 

[CANADA] A tidal wave of immigration is swamping my country. It may not survive

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/01/canada-peoples-party-immigration-is-the-issue/

Everything that historically made Canada what it was is rapidly being destroyed


[UNITED KINGDOM] Low-skilled migrants cost taxpayers £150,000 each
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/12/low-skilled-migrants-cost-taxpayers-150000-each/
Pressure on public services outweighs tax take for low-earners, finds OBR 


What Do Immigrants Do for Government Budgets? New Research Has Answers.
Lower-skilled migrants are less fiscally advantageous than high-skilled, but they still bring economic benefits.
  
The Lifetime Fiscal Impact of Immigrants
https://manhattan.institute/article/the-lifetime-fiscal-impact-of-immigrants
Looking at immigrants more broadly, this report shows that the average new immigrant (lawful or unlawful) has a positive fiscal impact and reduces the federal budget deficit by over $10,000 during his lifetime. For comparison, the average native-born citizen is expected to cost over $250,000 to the federal government. Despite the average immigrant reducing the budget deficit, immigrants without a college education and all those who immigrate to the U.S. after age 55 are universally a net fiscal burden by up to $400,000. The large positive fiscal impact of young and college-educated immigrants pulls up the overall average. Each immigrant under the age of 35 with a graduate degree reduces the budget deficit by over $1 million in net present value during his lifetime.
Therefore, for policymakers considering the fiscal impact of immigrants to the U.S., the characteristics of people seeking entry into the country are crucial. Certain immigrants are fiscally beneficial; others are fiscally detrimental.

History Lesson: The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia.