http://www.islandpacket.com/editorial/s ... 1905c.html

Study of Mexican workers gives glimpse of impact
But USC survey raises as many questions as it answers
Published Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Comments (0) Add Comment
The first of two endeavors aimed at getting some hard facts about immigration in South Carolina and Beaufort County shed some light last week.

A survey of 381 Mexican immigrants across the state, including some in the Hilton Head Island area, brought out an interesting array of information, including:

• One-third of those surveyed were in construction jobs. The others were spread across landscaping, manufacturing, restaurants, trade and other industries.

• The average Mexican immigrant surveyed earns about $21,000 annually.

• 86.5 percent of the immigrants say they rent lodgings, with 78.3 percent saying they live in an apartment or mobile home.

• Approximately 34 percent say they plan to remain in South Carolina, while some 61 percent say they plan to return to Mexico.

• 58 percent report having minors living with them.

• Mexican workers in South Carolina send an average 16 percent of their earnings back to their home communities in Mexico.

The study was headed by Douglas Woodward, economics professor and research director at the University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business, and began in a special course on Latino immigration last spring. Despite this highly visible demographic shift, the study notes, South Carolina was "surprisingly uninformed" about its Latino population.

This trend is no small thing. According to the study, South Carolina's Latino population grew by 273 percent between 1990 and 2003, compared with 78 percent for the United States as a whole. The U.S. Census now estimates that more than 130,000 Latinos live in South Carolina. But this number is believed to be far under the true number. The Latino population might be more than 400,000, according to analysts at the University of South Carolina's Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies.

Beyond the facts and figures, the study also raises some serious issues.

In South Carolina, the study states, there are both "promising and disquieting implications" to the rapid growth in the number of Mexican immigrants. Such growth creates new income and buying power and provides labor for industries, particularly construction, business services and manufacturing.

The "disquieting" implications are that state and local governments are not prepared for the challenges and additional costs of serving this new Spanish-speaking population, according to the study.

The report points out that more output and lower wages means more economic benefits to the private sector in the form of higher profits. "In other words, it is profitable to hire Mexican workers." But it's unclear what costs are being shifted to the public sector.

"As more families follow immigrant workers and settle in the state, the public sector will have to fund education, health care and other services," the report states.

We're already seeing that in Beaufort County. A planned study of immigration here should shed even more light.

Beaufort County still is determining the scope of that study, county administrator Gary Kubic says. Woodward has been invited to talk about his work as part of the process.

What exactly will be done with the information once it's in hand is unclear. But it is clear that we can't develop good public policy without better information.