Excessive Immigration Damage

As Immigration Rises: US Wages Drop. Well, DUH!

Wages for the overwhelming majority of Americans have fallen below 1970s levels as the percentage of the population that is foreign-born has surged.

 

A memo from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), released in response to a request for data from the Senate Judiciary Committee, shows on the other hand that in the decades prior to 1970, when the percentage of foreign-born Americans dropped, wages for most Americans rose.

 

From 1945 to 1970, the foreign-born population in the United States decreased from 10.97 million to 9.74 million, a decline of 11.2 percent.

 

During that 25-year period, the reported income of the bottom 90 percent of tax filers rose from an average of $18,418, in 2013 dollars, to $33,621 in 1970, an increase of 82.5 percent.

 

The share of total income held by the bottom 90 percent also rose during this period, from 67.4 percent to 68.5 percent.

 

The CRS also disclosed that from 1970 through 2013, the foreign-born population in the U.S. increased from 9.74 million to 41.34 million, a rise of an astounding 324.5 percent.

 

During that period, the income of the bottom 90 percent of tax filers fell from an average of $33,621 in 1970 to $30,980 in 2013, and the share of income they held sank from 68.5 percent to 53 percent, a decline of 15.5 percentage points over this 43-year period.

 

The CRS report "questions claims that native Americans are economically helped by greater immigration," The Washington Examiner observed in an article about the report.

 

"The report could throw cold water on congressional efforts to expand immigration for tech and other jobs. One bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and backed by presidential candidate Marco Rubio, would boost guest worker levels and remove any cap on green cards for certain foreign graduates of American colleges and universities."

 

The U.S. each year already admits a million immigrants, half a million immigrant students, 700,000 guest workers, and 70,000 refugees and persons seeking political asylum.

 

The CRS report follows an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimating that in the next eight years, the foreign-born population will reach a record high of 51 million.

 

Another CIS analysis disclosed that since 2000 all net employment growth among working-age adults went to immigrants, while the number of U.S-born adults not working rose by 17 million.

 

In an op-ed piece for The New York Times last year, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, wrote: "It defies reason to argue that the record admission of new foreign workers has no negative effect on the wages of American workers, including the wages of past immigrants hoping to climb into the middle class.

 

"Why would many of the largest business groups in the United States spend millions lobbying for the admission of more foreign workers if such policies did not cut labor costs?"

 

 

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