Category: Get the Facts

The Cato Institute has produced a recap of the many research papers, data compilations, and other reports or posts it produced in 2018 relevant to actual and proposed changes in the U.S. immigration landscape under the Trump administration.

These reports cut through myths and rhetoric by citing to facts and data. MeBIC has cited to many of them previously when posting on particular immigration topics.  While Cato sometimes draws conclusions with which MeBIC disagrees, they engage in honest debate and their work product is always worth a read.

The recap breaks down their reports by topic for ease of reference.  You can find it here.

 

A new report from the Pew Research Center gives an updated portrait of the undocumented population in the U.S., which stood at 10.7 million people in 2016, down 13% from a high of 12.2 million in 2007, and the lowest number since 2004.    In 2016, unauthorized immigrants represented 24% of the foreign born in the U.S., compared to 30% in 2007.

The population of individuals lacking legal authorization to be in the U.S. would actually be about 9.7 million, since Pew included in its count the approximately 700,000 individuals with work permission and temporary status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as well as the over 300,000 persons with work permission who have Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

The report finds that the drop is largely attributable to a decrease  in undocumented immigrants from Mexico, while the number increased of those from Central America,  particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, countries where gangs, violence, and political unrest have caused people to flee.

Two-thirds of 10.7 million population that Pew studied had lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, typically for nearly fifteen years, with 43% of them having U.S. citizen children.  Only 18% had lived in the U.S. for five or fewer years.

Two-thirds of the undocumented population also were of the prime working  ages of 18 to 44, compared to about one-third of native U.S. citizens.  As of 2016, undocumented men aged 18-65 had high labor force participation: 91% compared to 79% for native born men.  Undocumented women were less likely to be in the labor force, 61% compared to 73% for native born women, largely due to being more likely to have young children at home.

While the undocumented population represented about 5% of the labor force in 2016, they were over-represented in certain industries, including agriculture, construction, leisure/hospitality, among others, all of which are critical components of Maine’s economy.

For more details, you can find the report here.

 

 

 

 

 

A column in Forbes reports on a study of 91 of the nation’s  start-up companies valued at over $1 billion as of October 2018 (think Uber, Avant, SpaceX, etc.) which found that 50 of them (55%) of them have at least one immigrant founder.

Twenty-two percent of these companies were founded by individuals who came to the U.S. as international students, with six of them founded by former refugees.  The immigrant-founded businesses have a collective value of $248 billion, and have created an average of 1200 jobs per company.

The column goes on to highlight troubling policy directions from the current administration that raise barriers  to or discourage international graduate students and high tech professionals from coming to and staying in the U.S.  In addition, drastic cuts to refugee admissions, and a proposed rule that, if enacted, would slash immediate family immigration, would deprive the nation of the new energy that immigrants of all types bring to the U.S.

We should think long and hard about whether the administration’s moves to restrict immigration of all kinds, from foreign professionals, to refugees, immediate family immigrants, and asylum seekers at the southern border, represent our nation’s values, or even, our economic interests.

Immigration is in the news every day, it seems, not to mention pervading social media.  But for those whose work does not involve daily contact with immigration law and policy, understanding context and sorting fact from fiction in order to understand what is happening currently can be a challenge.

Two resources are available to provide baseline information to help you parse what you read and hear about refugees, immigrants, and immigration to the U.S., as well as about current U.S. policies on these issues.

The Pew Research Center has developed a series of five mini-lessons on past and current immigration data and policies, delivered to your in-box each day.  Each email takes only a couple of minutes to read.  You can learn more about the lessons here.

The Urban Institute issued Bringing Evidence to the Refugee Integration Debate, which includes background information on who refugees are, how they get to the U.S., recent policy changes under the Trump Administration, and information about their social and economic integration into and contributions to U.S. communities and the economy.   You can find the report here.

A Dozen Facts about Immigration, new report by the Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution, provides “a set of economic facts about the role of immigration in the U.S. economy.”

The summary notes that the

facts suggest that immigrants are taking on a larger role in the U.S. economy…. immigrants generally have positive impacts on both government finances and the innovation that leads to productivity growth.

See the full report here, or view a summary of it here.

Immigrants to the U.S. are often starting over from scratch.  Even highly skilled immigrants such as doctors and lawyers may have to take jobs far below their skill and education levels due to licensure barriers and language limitations.  It is unsurprising that immigrants often start at the bottom rung of the wage ladder when they first arrive in the U.S.

A report from the Cato Institute confirms that new immigrants, including those with and without legal status, have wages lower than their native-U.S. born counterparts, but finds that within 20 years, the wage gap diminishes or disappears entirely.   The report notes that undocumented immigrants experience a far greater wage penalty, likely due to their lack of legal authorization to work.  The report surmises that convergence of immigrant and native-born wages would occur more quickly if undocumented immigrants had a path to legal status.

You can find the report here.

A September 2018 report by MeBIC partner New American Economy details the economic contributions of immigrants in Portland.  The report was the product of a collaboration including the City of Portland’s Office of Economic Opportunity and the Greater Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce as part of the Gateways for Growth Challenge.

Among the highlights of the report:

• In 2016, metro-Portland’s immigrants contribute $1.2 billion to the region’s GDP.
• In 2016, metro-Portland’s immigrants paid $195 million in federal, state and local taxes as well as $72 million towards Social Security and Medicare.
• They outperform their numbers in entrepreneurship and in their participation in the labor force.
• Nearly 37% of metro-Portland’s immigrants have bachelors or advanced degrees (compared to 30% for U.S. born Mainers), and over 56% are homeowners.
• Over 75% of population growth in Portland and surrounding cities from 2011 to 2016 was due to immigrants.

Read the full report here.

Migration and the Economy: Economic Realities, Social Impacts, & Political Choices is a September 2018 report by Citi GPS and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.    The 172 page report looks at the impact of “immigration on advanced economies”, drawing the overall conclusion that immigration is vital for economic growth.  The report also attempts to “throw light on the growing disconnect between public perceptions regarding migration and the actual trends.”

Some of the report’s key findings (paraphrased from the executive summary) include:

The stock of migrants has grown materially worldwide since 1990 but still accounts for only around 3% of the global population.  As the earth’s population has grown, the number of immigrants has too, but as a percentage, the number of immigrants remains the same as a century ago.

Skilled migration is especially concentrated in certain countries and urban centers.   The 34 member countries (including the U.S.) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) absorb about two-thirds of high-skilled immigrants worldwide, but the U.S. is the destination country for nearly half of those, and for nearly a third of high-skilled immigrants worldwide.  Immigrants also cluster in certain “dynamic” urban areas, with policy implications.

Even at times of acute crisis, evidence indicates most people do not emigrate, and data rebuts nationalist rhetoric “portraying migration as an unstoppable tsunami.”  The report examined countries with periods of sustained financial crisis, and found that most people prefer to stay put where they could rely on family and friends for support.

Migration will be essential to alleviate demographic headwinds.  Worldwide, the population of people over 60 is expected to more than double by 2050, while over half of all countries (the U.S. included) now have fertility rates that are below replacement level.  Meanwhile, in 2017, three-quarters of the world’s immigrants were of working age, compared to only 57 percent of the global population.  Ironically, some of the countries with the worst demographic challenges are currently the most opposed to immigration.

Overall, immigration is conducive to native and aggregate prosperity, especially over the long term. For example, the report finds that from 1990-2014, economic growth in the U.S. would have been 15% lower without immigration – enough to cancel out the post-recession economic gains.

The fiscal impacts of immigration are positive, with some “small, short-lived and localized” costs.   Overall, immigrants consume fewer benefits than natives, and make up for any costs through their tax contributions over time.

Immigration drives innovation.  The report finds that ideas and innovation are stimulated by increases in highly educated workers and by diverse workplaces, both of which immigration generates.  In the U.S., the industries accounting for the highest economic and productivity growth have high concentrations of immigrants.  Over 40% of global patents are filed by immigrants.

Public attitudes towards immigration relate to factors other than reality. Factors such as solidarity of social values, that can inspire nationalism, and the belief that resources are scarce, influence public attitudes.  The greater the nationalistic outlook and belief in scarce resources, the greater the likelihood that a person will oppose immigration.  Multiple polls show that the public often believes there are far more immigrants in their country, and that they use far more public benefits, than is truly the case, compounding the problem.

The report goes on to note that the “growing politicization of migration on a value basis, rather than an economic one, is …. making it difficult to properly highlight the economic case for migration,”  which in turn will harm the economies that have benefited from immigration.   It urges that “balance and perspective” be restored to the debate around immigration.

Among many recommendations, the report notes that academia, government, communities and national policy makers have important roles to play to stem the tide of anti-immigrant sentiment that is disconnected from reality and threatens continued growth of the nations that have long benefited from immigration.

The report includes the business community in its recommendations, noting that businesses must “(b)e more vocal in articulating their needs and the overall benefits of migration.”

You can find the full report here.

Two recent reports highlight specific impacts of immigration in the U.S.

Revival and Opportunity: Immigrants in Rural America is a September 2018 report examining how immigrants have helped stave off or reduce population decline in rural areas,  and have revitalized communities that were experiencing the detrimental effects of population loss.  It also looks at the challenges of integrating newcomers into insular communities.  Citing to several towns as examples,  it notes how proactive responses from policy makers and community members can facilitate integration, benefiting new immigrants and long term native residents alike.

Another September 2018 report, Immigrants as Economic Contributors:  Immigrant Tax Contributions and Spending Power outlines the enormous positive fiscal impact of U.S. immigrants, including the undocumented and refugees.  The report finds that in 2014, immigrants paid over $328 billion in federal, state and local taxes, and  their after-tax spending power was $927 billion.  Immigrants who arrived between 2011 and 2015 had higher levels of education than earlier immigrants, with over half having a bachelor’s degree, and are expected to earn higher incomes and contribute even more in taxes and consumption over their working lifetimes than their predecessors.

This report also looks at the contributions of undocumented immigrants, finding that they paid $11.7 billion in state and local taxes, and would pay an estimated $2.2 billion more if Congress created a pathway for them to apply for permanent residency.  Conversely, if the undocumented were no longer part of the economy, the resultant labor shortages would cause private sector economic output to shrink by as much as an estimated $623 billion.

Finally, the report also analyzes refugees’ economic impact.  Unlike immigrants, refugees get short-term government aid when they first arrive in the U.S. to help them restart their lives after having to leave everything behind.   The report cites to various studies, including a federal report that the current administration chose not to officially release,  finding that refugees contribute more in tax revenues than they receive in benefits and services, and produce a net gain for the country’s coffers.  Refugees also have spending power, estimated at $56 billion in 2015.

Taken together, the two reports recognize that while there can be challenges to absorbing new immigrants, overall, the country benefits greatly.  These reports join a growing body of literature and data that overwhelmingly reaches similar conclusions.

Today, the City of Portland, together with MeBIC partners, the Greater Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce and New American Economy released a report highlighting the economic and demographic power of immigrants in Portland and the surrounding metropolitan area.

Some highlights from the report:

* From 2011-2016, immigrants were responsible for 75% of the population growth in Portland, South Portland and Westbrook.

* In 2016, immigrants in the Portland metropolitan area (including parts of Cumberland, Sagadahoc and York counties) contributed $1.2 billion to the area’s GDP and paid over $133 million in federal taxes, including over $57 million in Social Security and nearly $15 million in Medicare taxes.  They also paid $62 million in state and local taxes.

* In 2016,  at 4.6% of the population in metro Portland, immigrants were also 4.6% of the employed labor force, and were over-represented in STEM professions at 6%.   Nearly 8% of immigrants were entrepreneurs in 2016.

* Metro Portland’s immigrants had over $521 million in spending power in 2016, and spent $42 million in rent.  Nearly 57% of immigrants owned their own homes.  

* Over 55% of metro Portland’s immigrants were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2016, with another 24% eligible to naturalize.

By joining the local workforce, immigrants in the metro Portland area helped create or keep nearly 1,120 local manufacturing jobs that might otherwise have disappeared or moved out of Maine or the U.S. by 2016.

This report highlights the importance of immigrants in stemming Portland’s (and Maine’s) population decline, shoring up the labor supply, and helping Maine have the conditions needed so that our communities and our economy can remain vibrant and grow.

Read the report here.

 

MeBIC partner, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, together with the Maine Development Foundation and Educate Maine have released the 2018 Making Maine Work report. The report lays out a blueprint of policy recommendations for the state’s next Governor and Legislature in order to keep Maine’s economy growing.

Unsurprisingly, the first goal cited in the report addresses Maine’s shrinking workforce.   With the increasing percentage of Mainers reaching retirement age and the state’s low birthrates, ensuring that Maine is able to attract, welcome, and integrate immigrants is identified as a top priority (see Goal A.4) to help counteract Maine’s looming labor crisis.

The report’s findings echo national data about the U.S.’s aging workforce and declining birthrates, as MeBIC has noted previously.  Recent writings continue to point out the need for immigrants nationwide if the nation’s economy is not doomed to shrink, such as this June 2018 report from the National Immigration Forum and this recent opinion piece in Barron’s.

MeBIC will continue to work with our partners to help ensure that Maine and the U.S. prioritize opening channels and not raising barriers to the immigrants we need for thriving communities and a vibrant economy.

 

The Cato Institute has released a report analyzing immigrant use of public benefits.  The takeaway?

Overall, immigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans.

You can read the Cato report here.

The National Academy of Science has published The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, an exhaustive analysis of the impact of immigration on the United States.

The 2017 report, the result of efforts by a panel of experts with divergent views convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, examined a broad range of important issues, including:

(t)o what extent do the skills brought to market by immigrants
complement those of native-born workers, thereby improving their prospects; and to what extent do immigrants displace native workers in the labor market or lower their wages? How does immigration contribute to vibrancy in construction, agriculture, high tech, and other sectors? What is the role of immigration in driving productivity gains and long-term economic growth?

Other questions arise about taxes and public spending: What are the fiscal impacts of immigration on state, local, and federal governments—do immigrants cost more than they contribute in taxes? How do impacts change when traced over the life cycle of immigrants and their children? How does their impact on public finances compare with that of the native born population? To what extent is the sustainability of programs such as Social Security and Medicare affected by immigration and immigration policy?

The report finds overall that immigrants have a net positive effect.  Among the summarized conclusions, the report states that

 immigration is integral to the nation’s economic growth. Immigration supplies workers who have helped the United States to avoid the problems facing stagnant economies created by unfavorable demographics—in particular, an aging (and, in the case of Japan, a shrinking) workforce. Moreover, the infusion by high-skilled immigration of human capital has boosted the nation’s capacity for innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological change. The literature on immigrants and innovation suggests that immigrants raise patenting per capita, which ultimately contributes to productivity growth. The prospects for long-run economic growth in the United States would be considerably dimmed without the contributions of high-skilled immigrants.

Even for workers not in high-skilled fields,  the report finds that

over a period of more than 10 years, the impact of immigration on the  wages of natives overall is very small….  To the extent that negative wage effects are found, prior immigrants—who are often the closest substitutes for new immigrants—are most likely to experience them…. The literature on employment impacts finds little evidence that immigration significantly affects the overall employment levels of native-born workers. However, recent research finds that immigration reduces the number of hours worked by native teens (but not their employment rate). Moreover, as with wage impacts, there is some evidence that recent immigrants reduce the employment rate of prior immigrants—again suggesting a higher degree of substitutability between new and prior immigrants than between new immigrants and natives.

As for fiscal impacts, the report includes this information:

An immigrant and a native-born person with similar characteristics will likely have about the same fiscal impact. Persons with higher levels of education contribute more positively to government finances regardless of their generational status. Furthermore, within age and education categories, immigrants generally have a more salutary effect on budgets because they are disqualified from some benefit programs and because their children tend to have higher levels of education, earnings, and tax paying than the children of similar third-plus generation adults.

At more than 600 pages, the report is a credible and authoritative analysis of a complex topic that too often is reduced to overly simplistic talking points, debunking myths such as the often cited “immigrants take jobs from U.S. citizens”.

An April 2018 report,  The Case for Protecting Legal Immigration Against Recent Attacks, was just released by FWD.us, an organization whose mission is “to mobilize the tech community to support policies that keep the American Dream achievable in the 21st century.”

The relatively succinct report outlines some, though by no means all, of the current Administration’s immigration actions that not only fly in the face of the U.S.’s long immigration tradition and values, but also harm our economy and our competitiveness in the short and long-term.   As the report’s introduction states:

Recent efforts to further stymie immigration reflect a growing attack on legal immigration that undermines the U.S.’ global standing, threatens our economic leadership, and fundamentally contradicts our nation’s heritage as a country that welcomes immigrants from every corner of the globe. Moreover, eliminating avenues for people to immigrate to the United States would devastate economic growth in the United  States causing as much as a two percent drop in GDP by 2040, with 4.6 million fewer jobs.¹ This report will outline the overall benefits of immigrants and immigration, as well as the policies and regulations that have been pursued over the last year, and the impact on our families, communities, and economy.

Echoing the above report’s findings, a recent piece in Forbes by Stuart Anderson, a former Executive Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning at the then-INS under the Bush Administration and former Republican staffer of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, delineates the concerted effort of the current Administration to effectively gut the U.S.’s ability to attract and retain top global talent.  Prior MeBIC posts give more detail about the specific proposals to take away work permission for spouses of H-1B holders, and to roll back the Immigrant Entrepreneur Rule described in the Forbes op-ed.

See this earlier MeBIC post for a detailed report outlining even more measures taken by the current Administration that have eroded our nation’s ability to attract and retain the immigrants we need to keep our communities and our economy vibrant.