Hot Button Issue #3

 

Assertion:

Undocumented immigrants take jobs ways from U.S. workers and drive down wages.

 

Response:  Studies show that both undocumented and legal immigrants complement the native-born workforce, do not compete with it.  Immigrant workers labor in important industries, such as farm work (almost 50 percent) food preparation, building maintenance, and grounds cleaning (33 percent), and construction (22 percent), jobs Americans generally do not want.  According the Pew Hispanic Center, foreign-born workers accounted for 49 percent of the labor force growth between 1995 and 2005.

 

At the same time, Americans are more educated (only 12 percent without a high school diploma) and the fertility rate in the United States is projected to fall below replacement level (to 1.9 children per woman) by 2012.  The Department of Labor has stated that there will be a shortage of workers in major industries (agriculture, construction, service) by early 2010.

 

The White House Council on Economic Advisors concluded in 2007 that roughly 90 percent of foreign-born workers experienced wage gains from immigration, totaling between 30 and 80 billion dollars per year.  A 2006 study by University of California-Davis economist Giovanni Peri found that native-born workers with a high school diploma experienced wage gain from immigration of up to 3-4 percent between 1990 and 2004.  Studies, such as a 2004 study by economist David Card of University California-Berkeley and the National Research Council in 1997, show that the wages of native-born persons without a high school diploma either remained constant or declined one percent because of competition from immigrants.