Study Shows that Immigrants Do NOT Steal Jobs from Americans
A coalition of groups that want to limit immigration, legal and illegal, has an ad claiming that illegal immigrants steal jobs from Americans. That’s a popular talking point among the build-the-fence, seal-the border types, but it’s just not so.
Policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, Madeleine Sumption, claims that Immigrant workers create almost as many jobs as they occupy. Additionally Sumption added that Immigrant workers often create the jobs they work in and they also buy things making the economy bigger.
As she and a co-author wrote in a report last year for a group created by the British government:
Somerville and Sumption: The impact of Immigration on a nation’s economy remains small, for several reasons. Immigrants are not competitive in many types of jobs, and hence are not direct substitutes for natives. Local employers increase demand for low-skilled labor in areas that receive low-skilled immigrant inflows. Immigrants contribute to demand for goods and services that they consume, in turn increasing the demand for labor. And immigrants contribute to labor market efficiency and long-term economic growth.
Of course, none of that matters to the folks who don’t live in the reality-based universe.
