Of Course Immigrants Bring More Jobs and Higher Pay for Americans
The way immigrants bring more jobs and higher pay to Americans is straightforward
The way undocumented immigrants arrive in the United States is problematic, but the economic literature is clear: immigrants, both the documented and the undocumented, mean more jobs and higher pay for Americans. The reason economists believe this isn’t because of a complicated bank shot, seven step, economic theory that only economists understand or believe. Nor do they believe it because of some elitist trickle-down theory where rich employers get rich and somehow great things happen for the rest of us. No … it’s much simpler and not about what they believe, but about what the evidence shows. Undocumented immigrants fill jobs Americans won’t do, play roles in businesses that allow the businesses to grow and hire citizens, and the work of undocumented immigrants frees up citizens to pursue fulfilling careers. Study after study shows that in these ways, and others, immigrants help Americans up and down the economic ladder.
The part of this story that everyone has heard is that immigrants take jobs that Americans don’t want. That’s true, and it keeps the companies that employ immigrants from leaving for other countries — which preserves the jobs of the many citizens whom they also employ. Americans do not generally want jobs picking fruit or slaughtering pigs. The U.S. economy has been strong enough for long enough that most Americans haven’t been willing to do those jobs for 50 years. We’ve had painful recessions and job market downturns over those years — even then Americans haven’t lined up for jobs at meatpacking plants. They have, for good reason, waited out the downturns and gone back to more attractive jobs. If immigrants didn’t fill the jobs that Americans don’t want, the industries simply couldn’t meaningfully exist in the United States. That would mean that the citizen jobs in those industries, and the related industries that support them, also wouldn’t exist. Tyson Foods employs many non-immigrants whose jobs depend on immigrants doing jobs non-immigrants won’t do.
Immigrants also create a labor pool that allows industries that don’t absolutely need them to exist on a greater scale. We’d still have restaurants without immigrants. There are certainly restaurants with U.S.-born dishwashers. In many areas of the country though, the availability of immigrant dishwashers are what makes many of the jobs of non-immigrant waiters, bartenders, hosts and managers possible. As economist Michael Clemens has said: “[t]he work of the U.S. citizen serving a table in a restaurant is complemented by the work of a possibly unauthorized worker in the back of the restaurant, neither of those jobs can happen without the other.” There are many good union construction jobs that Americans want and have, but the existence of immigrants in the industry allow it to be much larger, employing many more Americans — especially in the higher-skill jobs (we also, by-the-way, get more homes and other buildings built at more affordable prices). To the extent Americans ever get replaced by immigrants in these jobs — they get “kicked upstairs” not unemployed. They take better jobs and better pay.
A third way that Americans get better jobs at better pay because of immigrants is that immigrants free up Americans to be able to take jobs or increase their hours. Think of childcare. Immigrants make childcare available to families that otherwise couldn’t afford it. The parents in those families can then engage in full-time work and have decent-paying careers that they couldn’t have otherwise. This isn’t a story about immigrants taking childcare jobs away from non-immigrants. It’s childcare that simply wouldn’t happen without them — because there would be less childcare available and the limited supply would be too costly for families to afford. More subtly, the availability of lawn care, and all manner of services makes both more leisure and work time available for citizens.
All of this isn’t just anecdotally what we see every day, but is also what has been found in the research. Study after study has found these things. Studies have also identified other ways immigrants lead to more and better jobs for citizens by expanding the economic pie in ways that American workers each get bigger pieces. This is particularly true of immigrants who can legally work, including undocumented immigrants, such as Dreamers, who have work authorization. The addition of immigrants throughout the labor force allows a finer division of labor and greater worker specialization which enhances productivity and output. Immigrants can provide skills that are in short supply and address specific worker shortages such as in nursing and teaching. They bring their innovation and entrepreneurship, which can increase productivity and business creation. They are consumers who purchase goods and services, which increases business sales, profits, and investment. They pay taxes that fund public services.
Are there any examples of immigrants taking jobs from Americans? Yes: nothing is never ever. It is, however, rare in general and particularly unlikely to be due to new undocumented immigrants arriving at the border. Few of these immigrants have the job and language skills to compete with most American workers.
Overwhelmingly for the vast majority of us, no matter what our job or economic status, the presence of immigrants means better lives for us. How much better? The literature on mass deportation is telling. Mass deportation of the undocumented would cost the economy a trillion dollars. We’d lose the $100 billion that undocumented immigrants pay in taxes, while saving much less in government expenses since they are barred from benefits such as Social Security and Medicare. The research also shows that for every million people deported 88,000 citizens would lose their jobs, and the pay of citizens would end up lower.
We need changes to our immigration laws to maximize the benefits of immigration and address the challenges. Those changes, however, need to be made with the recognition that immigrants are good for the country and mass deportation would be bad for all of us. The reasons aren’t complicated.
