Summary: The Economic Benefits Of Immigration

Immigration and Economic Impacts

The Economic Benefits of Immigration in the United States

Madeleine Darmadi – 12415050

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services obtain and determine nearly 6 million petitions and applications each year, which allow foreigners to stay in the United States as permanent residents or immigrants (Immigration and Citizenship Data, 2015). Even though this numerous number of immigrants is not something unusual in the United States, some people still questioning the reason of this massive immigration itself. Why do people immigrate to the United States? In order to avoid poverty, violence, and to look for a better life, people will leave their homeland and

Apart from being a worker, immigrants also play the roles of job creators, taxpayer and consumers. As a consumer, immigrants spend or invest their money in residence and daily necessity which in turn create new jobs and increase the demand for labor. On the other hand, the skills and experience of immigrants and foreigners are required in order to form an open, innovative, and exporting economy (Vince, 2014). Immigrants, who have various kinds of backgrounds and cultures, are beneficial assets for creating original and unique ideas. By establishing new jobs and starting new business, the rising demand of labor and a steady development in the economy could be expected. More importantly, the native-born will gain more advantages than the immigrants since these new jobs are more likely going to native-born workers. A recent study by McLaren and Hong found that each new immigrant created around 1.2 new jobs that most of them went to native-born employees (2015). On a whole, immigrants will result in a bigger economy with higher rate of

According to Ramos (2013) instead of consequential risk, the current’s legal immigrants who mainly possess higher skill than previous wave boost innovation and prosperity of the United States’ economy. Due to the multi-roles that immigrants play, new jobs are being created and the economy is stimulated. There are several disagreements about immigration since immigrants are considered to drive down the wages and harm the native workers’ employment opportunities. However, foreign-workers do not compete directly with local workers for the same type of jobs since they have a different range of jobs due to their younger age and lower education level. Thus, immigration causes good influences rather than threats towards the native-born workers. As reported by Patrice Hill (2014), economists believe that increasing immigration equals to a steady development in the economy. Immigration plays a crucial role and has positive impacts on the United States economy, especially in the twentieth century. Raising the labors’ demand, filling the growing gaps in the labor force, and increasing the native-born wages are some benefits a host country could gain from