More Misinformation from the Media:
Waves of immigrants coming into the U.S. in recent years have helped the economy over the long haul and had little lasting impact on the wages or employment levels of native-born Americans, according to one of the most comprehensive studies yet on the topic. . . . The study found that “over a long time horizon (75 years in our estimates),” the fiscal impacts of immigrants “are generally positive at the federal level and negative at the state and local levels.” – Immigration Does More Good than Harm to the Economy, Study Finds, The Wall Street Journal, Jeffery Sparshott, 9/22/16
Fact Check: This article carries a false title because it notes the “good” immigration while largely ignoring the harm. The study, by the National Academy of Sciences, estimated that immigration increases the income of native-born Americans, primarily in business, by a total of $548.1 billion a year. But that gain comes largely at the expense of reduced wages for American workers. Contrary to Sparshott’s claim, the study found that competition from immigrants lowered their wages by an annual total of $493.9 billion.
This leaves a net gain of $54.2 billion a year, which still sounds impressive until one calculates that it amounts to only 0.31 percent of the annual increase in income for natives. This situation is morally reprehensible, because it amounts to what might be termed Robin Hood-in-reverse. It takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
But the costs don’t stop there. Immigrants on average use more in tax-paid services then they pay in taxes. The study estimates that this deficit is as high as $299 billion a year. Sparshott maintains, however, that within 75 years—according to projections of the report—the fiscal impact of today’s immigrants and their descendants are “generally positive.”
Actually, a fiscally positive outcome only occurs in four of eight scenarios that the study projects. The other four foresee deficits at the end of seventy-five years. In both cases, the projections derive from guesswork about future conditions. The positive outcome assumes that federal spending will be brought under control and that we will have an immigration policy which selects much more for skills than our current policy.
Will that happen? No one really knows. But in the meantime, in terms of what we can definitely measure, immigration is costing most Americans considerably. Those who benefit from it primarily are the profiteers of cheap labor—which explains why they and their friends in the media support mass immigration so fervently.