Immigration reduces the wages of U.S. workers

Edwin S. Rubenstein:

The role of college-educated foreigners in depressing wages of U.S. natives is brought home by Harvard economist (and Cuban immigrant) George Borjas. In his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper [The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping:] Borjas concludes that immigration 1980-2000 reduced wages of the average U.S.-born worker by 3.2 percent in 2000.

The reduction varied dramatically among education levels. Native high-school dropouts suffered an 8.9 percent wage reduction. But even college-educated natives suffered an above-average reduction of 4.9 percent.

The impact was greatest on college graduates with 11-15 years of work experience – i.e., most likely to have young families – when it amounted to 5.9 percent. Even new college graduates, with 1-5 years of experience, faced a wage reduction of 3.5 percent.

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