-Caveat Lector- Immigration found to cut U.S. workers' pay
By Julia Malone, Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service Tuesday, May 4, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Two decades' growth in the supply of immigrant workers cost native-born American men an average $1,700 in annual wages by the year 2000, a top economist has concluded. Hispanic and black Americans were hurt most by the influx of foreign-born workers, says a new report by Harvard University's George J. Borjas, considered a leading authority on the impact of immigration. The findings, to be released today, could influence immigration proposals now being urged by lawmakers and the White House. Congressional Democrats plan today to launch comprehensive legislation whose provisions would legalize immigrant workers already here, guarantee labor rights and allow an increased flow of legal, temporary foreign workers. Earlier this year, President Bush announced his own overhaul for immigration that would offer temporary legal status to workers now here and open the door for greater numbers of "willing workers" from abroad to take temporary jobs in America. In his report, Borjas suggests that one effect of such proposals would be to depress Americans' wage growth for all levels of education and job skills. His study of two decades of wages concluded that U.S.-born high school dropouts suffered the most -- a 7.4 percent drop in annual wages by the year 2000. For high school graduates and workers with some college, the loss was a little more than 2 percent. And for college graduates, wages were held back an average 3.6 percent. Borjas found that U.S.-born Hispanic workers saw their wages reduced by an average 5 percent, and U.S.-born blacks experienced a 4.5 percent drop. These two groups faced the most direct competition from foreign-born workers, he said. "The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary," said Borjas, himself an immigrant from Cuba. "It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status." The report, an updated version of an article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics last year, is being published by the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan research group that favors lower levels of immigration. The Borjas study on the impact is unusually bleak, said Jared Bernstein, senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a research group financed by labor unions. "I think the magnitude of the effect is quite large relative to other research," he said, arguing that the impact on wages is probably somewhat less dramatic. Economist Robert Lerman, a senior fellow at the generally pro-immigration Urban Institute, said that Borjas had made a "fine study" of the wage effects through 2000, but added that his conclusions might not hold for the next two decades. [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
