Impact Of Immigration On Economy

Impact of Immigration on the Economy The United States has the largest immigrant population in the world. As of recently, immigration policy has been a hot topic in the United States. Much of the issues focus on cultural issues, and the impacts of immigration on the economy. These impacts can be both positive and negative. 42.4 million immigrants are in the United States and accounts for about 13 percent of the population and only about 46 percent are naturalized United States citizens. There is about 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States that accounts for about 3.7 percent of the population. Unauthorized immigrants account for roughly 5.2 percent of the labor force. Immigrants contribute to about 14.7 percent of the United States

Immigrants do jobs that Americans don’t want to do. Most Americans do not compete with illegals immigrants for jobs; therefore, there hasn’t been a large change in the wage rate for those jobs. Even though this seems to be a positive thing, it brings about some negatives. People that don’t have a high school diploma are the ones that are primarily affected. Illegal immigrants lower the wages of low skilled jobs by about 3-8 percent. If illegal immigration were to decrease significantly, competing Americans would make around $25 more per week. Since undocumented immigrants are paid lower wages, the cost of production lowers. This could lower the costs of products and services for consumers. Undocumented immigrants give a part of their income to their family from their home country; however, they still take part in the United States economy by spending the majority of their income. They also somewhat save American jobs by providing cheap labor, keeping businesses from investing in new technology that would replace actual workers with

First off, the amount of workers would face a dramatic drop. Since undocumented workers make up 5.2 percent of the nation’s labor force, about 8.1 million workers would be taken out of the work place. There would not be enough workers to fill the now open jobs. Even with the 8.3 million unemployed people in the United States, the skill gap, the unemployment rate would never reach zero. This means that jobs would not be filled. Undocumented immigrants are concentrated in specific jobs. The majority of them focus their work in service occupations farming and construction. These jobs would be severely affected if undocumented immigration stopped. Also the cost of production would increase because companies would have to hire American workers who would be paid more than immigrant workers. This increase in cost of production could also impact the price of certain products or services. The prices would most likely increase to balance the cost and profit. Stopping undocumented immigration could also directly affect native workers. They may earn less and even see fewer jobs. The Social Security Fund would also be affected. Undocumented immigrants provide $13 billion in taxes. Immigrants themselves obtained about $1 billion, meaning there would be a $12 billion loss in contributions if they were all