Thread: Illegal immigrants: both a blessing and a curse

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Illegal immigrants: both a blessing and a curse

They contribute to economy, but also strain social services
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 11/13/05
BY JONATHAN HIGUERA
AND DANIEL GONZALEZ
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
ONE VERY COMMON perception of undocumented immigrants' impact on the economy: They are a net drain. Mostly employed in low-wage, low-skill industries, they drive down wages and take jobs away from Americans. They strain public schools, choke hospital emergency rooms and sap welfare.

The perception is partly true.

But it's also true, according to research, that undocumented immigrants perform jobs that might go unfilled and are especially crucial to several key industries, including restaurants, tourism, landscaping and construction. Their willingness to accept low wages keeps prices down and profits up.

They spend at least hundreds of millions, and maybe billions, of dollars on everything from consumer goods and services to homes. Most pay taxes. And undocumented immigrants in the United States are paying billions of dollars into Social Security that they won't collect.

So what's the bottom line? Do undocumented immigrants contribute more than they take from the economy? The answer: It's hard to say.

"You could win the Nobel Prize if you could answer that question in a very precise way," said Robert Grosse, a professor at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, in Glendale, Ariz.

The only thing that is clear is that undocumented immigrants have become an integral part of the economy, especially because an increasing number of them are families who have sunk roots into communities. As a result, any move to uproot them or change their status would have a profound impact on the economy both good and bad, depending on your perspective.

Measuring the impact of undocumented immigrants on the economy is difficult. Costs are easier to measure than the benefits. Research on illegal immigration is often colored by political agendas. And the data often don't capture aspects such as upward mobility, productivity and entrepreneurship.

The lines also get blurred when it comes to public assistance. U.S.-born children have a right to food stamps and other public assistance that their undocumented parents don't.

Of course, the overall cost of social services provided to undocumented immigrants can be significant.

A 1997 study by the National Academy of Sciences, one of the few studies to look at the tax contributions from and the cost of providing public services to legal and illegal immigrants, concluded that they end up contributing more than they take over their lifetimes. However, it also found that those with less than a high school education end up costing slightly more than they contribute.

There are several indisputable contributions to the economy that undocumented immigrants make.

For example, their growing spending power contributes to the local economies wherever they live. Business, including banks, insurers, money-transfer services and car dealers, recognize the opportunity and are less concerned about the politics of immigration.

One is Wells Fargo, which has eased the identification requirements for opening a bank account and is considering doing the same for mortgages.

"We have no reason to ask a person's residency status," said Al Montoya, senior vice president in charge of growth markets for Wells Fargo.

Although the business that undocumented immigrants generate and the taxes they pay are clear-cut positives, some of their contributions have a flip side. A case in point: jobs.

Nationally, undocumented workers constitute more than 20 percent of many construction occupations. Though some are employed off the books, most work with fake papers that employers cannot always detect.

"The way construction is going right now . . . I don't know what we'd do without them," said Tom Quine, head of training at the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters.

A study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston concluded that new immigrants, legal and undocumented, filled more than half of the massive number of new jobs created in the United States in the 1990s, preventing major labor shortages.

On the flip side, new immigrants took jobs that otherwise might have gone to high school students and young adults from 2000 to 2004, when the economy slowed, according to another Northeastern study.

"Employers think they are better workers," said Paul Harrington, a labor economist at Northeastern, who was involved in both studies. "They find their work ethic much stronger."

[b Immigrants do take jobs that American citizens would want- the middleaged and older- the dis-abled are dis-placed by this invasion of the very young mexicans.
the Housecleaning industry has experienced a total wage freeze , in Portland Oregon, since 500,000 mexicans came to this region. wages have dropped since the late 1990's , just when they began to arrive and take over jobs. Check out Merry Maids when they drive by, it's all mexican women in the car. everywhere you go, from car dealerships,to car washes, to gardeners to restaurents to roofing companies- the jobs are all going to the mexicans.I'am sorry but this is only good for the rich business owners who take advantage of the situation. ][/b]