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April 10, 2006
Nicholas Kristof
...in the NYT yesterday.
...But I've changed my mind on a guest worker program, because of growing evidence that low-wage immigration hurts America's own poor.The most careful study of this issue, done by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the surge of immigration in the 1980's and 1990's lowered the wages of America's own high school dropouts by 8.2 percent. "The large growth and predominantly low-skilled nature of Mexican immigration to the United States over the past two decades appears to have played a modest role in the widening of the U.S. wage structure," the study concluded.
Another study, by Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, reached similar conclusions. Between 2000 and 2005, he found, immigrant workers with a high school degree or less rose by 1.5 million, while employment of native workers at that education level fell by 3.2 million.
It's often said that immigrants take jobs that Americans won't take. But look at employment statistics, and you see that even among maids and agricultural workers, only four out of 10 people are immigrants.
...The broader problem is that our immigration program is structured so as to bring in cheap laborers more than brilliant minds. At last count, only 16 percent of admissions for permanent residence went to those with employment qualifications, while the great majority went to applicants on the basis of family ties.
When I lived in China, American diplomats complained that under the law they had to deny visas to brilliant physicists while granting immigrant visas to elementary-school dropouts who had a relative in Chicago.
Posted by tree hugging sister at April 10, 2006 09:09 AM