The Impact of Illegal

Immigration

on the Wages

and Employment

Opportunities

of Black Workers

A Briefing Before

The United States Commission on Civil Rights

Held in Washington, DC

Briefing Report

Letter of Transmittal

The President

The President of the Senate

The Speaker of the House

Sirs and Madam:

The United States Commission on Civil Rights (Commission) is pleased to transmit this report,

The Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages and Employment Opportunities of Black

Workers. A panel of experts briefed members of the Commission on April 4, 2008 regarding the

evidence for economic loss and job opportunity costs to black workers attributable to illegal

immigration. The panelists also described non-economic factors contributing to the depression of

black wages and employment rates. Based on that discussion, the Commission developed the

findings and recommendation that are included in this report.

Among its findings, the Commission notes that the illegal workers are estimated to account for as

much as one-third of total immigrants in the United States, and that illegal immigration has

tended to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor available. The Commission found

also that about six in 10 adult black males have a high school diploma or less, and are

disproportionately employed in the low-skilled labor market in likely competition with

immigrants. Evidence for negative effects of such competition ranged from modest to

significant, according to the experts who testified, but even those experts who viewed the effects

as modest overall found significant effects in occupations such as meatpacking and construction.

The Commission views this topic as complex, and therefore makes no specific recommendations

at this time. The Commission recommends generally, however, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics and

other appropriate governmental agencies collect data concerning the presence of illegal workers

in the U.S. workforce and on the employment and wage rate effects of such workers on lowskilled and low-wage workers of all races. The Commission believes that such data should be

made available to the public.

Part A, which consists of the body of this report, was approved on January 15, 2010 by Chairman

Reynolds and Commissioners Kirsanow, Heriot, and Taylor. Vice Chair Thernstrom and

Commissioners Gaziano and Melendez abstained. Commissioner Yaki voted against. Vote tallies

for each of the Commission’s findings and recommendation, which make up Part B of the report,

are noted therein.

For the Commissioners,

Gerald A. Reynolds

Chairman

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Executive Summary.................................................................................................................. 1

Findings and Recommendation................................................................................................. 3

Summary of Proceedings .......................................................................................................... 5

Panel One.............................................................................................................................. 5

Gordon Hanson ................................................................................................................. 5

Gerald Jaynes .................................................................................................................... 6

Vernon Briggs, Jr. ............................................................................................................. 7

Harry Holzer ..................................................................................................................... 9

Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 10

Panel Two ........................................................................................................................... 15

Julie Hotchkiss ................................................................................................................ 15

Steven Camarota ............................................................................................................. 17

Richard Nadler ................................................................................................................ 18

Carol Swain..................................................................................................................... 19

Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 20

Statements............................................................................................................................... 24

Gordon H. Hanson .............................................................................................................. 24

Gerald D. Jaynes ................................................................................................................. 27

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. ......................................................................................................... 35

Harry J. Holzer.................................................................................................................... 40

Julie Hotchkiss.................................................................................................................... 44

Steven A. Camarota ............................................................................................................ 48

Richard Nadler.................................................................................................................... 53

Carol M. Swain................................................................................................................... 62

Public Comment ................................................................................................................. 65

Speaker Biographies ............................................................................................................... 66

Gordon Hanson ................................................................................................................... 66

Gerald Jaynes...................................................................................................................... 66

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. ......................................................................................................... 66
Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Harry J. Holzer.................................................................................................................... 67

Julie Hotchkiss.................................................................................................................... 67

Steven A. Camarota ............................................................................................................ 67

Richard Nadler.................................................................................................................... 68

Carol M. Swain................................................................................................................... 68

Statements of Commissioners..........................................................................69

Dissent of Commissioners Michael Yaki and Arlan Melendez.................................69

Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Gail Heriot..........................................69

Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Peter N. Kirsanow..................................71

Rebuttal of Commissioners Michael Yaki and Arlan Melendez................................79
Executive Summary 1

Executive Summary

In the midst of public debate over immigration reform, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

voted to examine the possible effects of illegal immigration on particularly vulnerable

segments of the U.S. working population, specifically low-skill black workers.1 Since the

April 4, 2008 briefing, the severe economic downturn has affected workers in general, and--if

unemployment rates are any indication--has had an even more severe impact on low-skill

workers.2

To help air important aspects of the debate, the Commission invited experts who have

published and spoken on this issue to weigh the relative effects of factors that influence black

low-skill workers’ wages, job gains or losses and report their conclusions to the Commission.

The speakers discussed factors that included the economic costs to this particular group,3

fiscal costs to taxpayers of social services for low-skill workers, competing skill levels of

affected workers, the economic gains to the U.S. economy as a whole from flexible, low-cost

labor,4 and what constitutes a fair comparison between legal and illegal workers and their job

opportunities.5

The Commission selected balanced panels that included Harry Holzer, professor of public

policy at Georgetown University; Gordon H. Hanson, professor of economics at the

University of California, San Diego; Julie Hotchkiss, research economist and policy advisor

at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Vernon Briggs, professor emeritus of labor

economics at Cornell University; Gerald Jaynes, professor of economics and African

American Studies at Yale University; Richard Nadler, president of Americas Majority

Foundation; Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University; and

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington,

DC.

1 See, e.g., Lori Montgomery, “Immigration Lifts Wages, Report Says, White House Asserts Only Least-Skilled

Native Workers Are Hurt,” Washington Post, June 21, 2007, at D3.; Charles Herman, “Illegals: Will They Be

Taking Jobs Away From U.S. Citizens?” ABC News Business Unit, May 18, 2007,

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=3189288&page=1; “Illegal Aliens Depress Wages for

Some in US,” New York Times, March 20, 1988, at section 1, p. 25.

2 The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that as of November 2008, unemployment rates for individuals over the

age of 25 with less than a high school diploma was 15.0%, 5 percent more than the national unemployment

average of 10 percent for the same time period.

3 See, e.g., Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., “The Economic Well-Being of Black Americans: The Overarching Influence

of U.S. Immigration Policies,” The Review of Black Political Economy, 15-42 (2003).

4 See, e.g., Gordon H. Hanson, “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration,” Council on Foreign Relations,

CSR No. 26, April 2007, http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/ImmigrationCSR26.pdf.

(accessed August 31, 2009).

5 See, e.g., George J. Borjas, Jeffrey Grogger, and Gordon H. Hanson, “Imperfect Substitution Between

Immigrants and Natives: A Reappraisal,” March, 2008, http://irps.ucsd.edu/assets/022/8778.pdf (accessed

August 31, 2009); but see Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, “The Effects of Immigration on U.S. Wages

and Rents: A General Equilibrium Approach,” September 26, 2007,

http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gperi/Papers/Perott_city_Sept_2007.pdf (accessed September 9, 2009).
2 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Although available data did not distinguish precisely between legal and illegal immigration

in their effects on wages and employment of black workers, most panelists agreed that illegal

immigration appears to have had at least some negative effects on the wages and employment

of workers in the low-skill labor market. The panelists disagreed as to the magnitude of that

effect, which ranged from very small to substantial. Three of the panelists who were

economists argued that immigration, both legal and illegal, has economically benefited the

United States on a national basis in the form of lower prices to consumers and increased

economic investment in the country.6 One presented employment statistics only for the State

of Georgia that she asserted could be generalized to a nationwide inquiry, but did not express

an opinion as to the magnitude of the national effects.7 Another panelist spoke to the specific

negative effects of illegal immigration on the population at risk, black male workers.8

The panelists addressed the following issues in response to Commissioners’ questions:

x The consensus by panelists that there is a negative effect on wages of low-skill black

workers and the range of the negative effects;

x The importance of other factors contributing to low-skill black unemployment;

x Possible discrimination resulting from the use of ethnic networks;

x Benefits and costs to the U.S. economy from illegal immigration;

x Policy recommendations from panelists, including strict enforcement of existing

immigration laws;

x Effect of capital flows, including those across and within national borders, that

decrease the negative effects of immigration;

x Tradeoffs to employers between increasing their capital investment versus hiring

more low-wage workers;

x The potential disruption to the economy and to low-wage workers and communities

of abrupt economic changes resulting from enforcing immigration laws strictly;

x The sharp differences between the employment opportunities of low-skill black men

and low-skill black women;

x The ethical and civil rights implications of using immigration to drive down low-skill

wages.

6 Dr. Hanson, Dr. Jaynes, and Dr. Holzer.

7 Dr. Hotchkiss.

8 Dr. Swain.
Findings and Recommendation 3

Findings and Recommendation

Findings

1. There has been a significant rise in U.S. immigration, both legal and illegal, over the

past four decades. Experts at our briefing testified that immigrant workers now make

up approximately one-seventh of the American workforce, and they estimated that

illegal workers account for one-third of the total immigrants now in the U.S.

[Approved (4-1): Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners Gaziano, Heriot and

Kirsanow voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted against; Commissioner Taylor

did not vote.]

2. Illegal immigration to the United States in recent decades has tended to increase the

supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor available in the U.S. labor market. [Approved

(5-1): Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners Gaziano, Heriot, Kirsanow, and

Taylor voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted against.]

3. About six in 10 adult black males have a high school diploma or less, and black men

are disproportionately employed in the low-skilled labor market, where they are more

likely to be in labor competition with immigrants. [Approved (4-1): Chairman

Reynolds and Commissioners Heriot, Kirsanow and Taylor voted in favor;

Commissioner Yaki voted against; Commissioner Gaziano abstained.]

4. The average worker with a high school degree or less earns less today, adjusted for

inflation, than someone with a similar education earned thirty-five years ago.

[Approved (5-1): Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners Gaziano, Heriot,

Kirsanow, and Taylor voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted against.]

5. Illegal immigration to the United States in recent decades has tended to depress both

wages and employment rates for low-skilled American citizens, a disproportionate

number of whom are black men. Expert economic opinions concerning the negative

effects range from modest to significant. Those panelists that found modest effects

overall nonetheless found significant effects in industry sectors such as meatpacking

and construction. [Approved (5-1): Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners Gaziano,

Heriot, Kirsanow, and Taylor voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted against.]

6. To be sure, factors other than illegal immigration contribute to black unemployment.

The problem cannot be solved without solving the problems of the high school

dropout rate, high rates of family instability, and low job-retention rates. Moreover,

halting illegal immigration is not a panacea even for the problem of depressed wage

rates for low-skilled jobs. If upward pressure is brought to bear on low-skilled wages,

increasing globalization of the economy may result in some of these jobs simply

being exported to other countries. Still, the effect of illegal immigration on the wages

of low-skilled workers, who are disproportionately minority members, is a piece of

the puzzle that must be considered by policymakers in formulating sound

immigration policy. [Approved (5-1): Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners

Gaziano, Heriot, Kirsanow, and Taylor voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted

against.]
4 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

7. Data collection and analysis of the effects of illegal immigration are necessary to

develop sound public policy. Much of the data on this question is currently limited

by the fact that it does not distinguish clearly between legal and illegal immigration.

[Approved (5-1: Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners Gaziano, Heriot, Kirsanow,

and Taylor voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted against.]

Recommendation

The issue of illegal immigration is so complex that it would not be appropriate for us

to make specific recommendations at this time. However, the Commission does

recommend that the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other appropriate governmental

agencies should collect data concerning the presence of illegal workers in the U.S.

workforce and compile data on the employment and wage rate effects of such

workers on low-skilled and low-wage workers of all races, making such data

available to the public. [Approved (5-1): Chairman Reynolds and Commissioners

Gaziano, Heriot, Kirsanow, and Taylor voted in favor; Commissioner Yaki voted

against.]
Summary of Proceedings 5

Summary of Proceedings

Panel One

Gordon Hanson

Professor Hanson9 began his remarks by noting the dramatic rise in U.S. immigration, which

rose from 5 percent in the 1970s to 12 percent by 2006. According to Dr. Hanson, immigrant

workers make up one-seventh of the American workforce, and illegal workers account for

one-third of the total immigrants now in the U.S. Dr. Hanson stated that around 60 percent

of illegal immigrants have less than a high school education and compete for low-skilled jobs

with native workers. He observed that economic theory would predict downward wage

pressure as the result of the increase in the supply of workers in the U.S. economy. He noted

the disagreement among economists, however, as to whether the data allows such a

conclusion, indicating that studies on wage trends in different local labor markets often find

small effects, and studies that look at wages on a national basis find larger effects. He stated

that the strongest adverse impacts would be felt by workers competing for jobs with

immigrants directly, that is, by low-skilled native workers.

His co-authored study10 based on these data found that the employment rate of black high

school dropouts fell from 72 percent in 1960 to 42 percent in 2000, compared to an 83 to 64

percent decline among white high school dropouts. In addition, the number of black men in

correctional institutions rapidly increased during a shorter period (1980–2000), going from

1.4 percent of black high school dropouts to 21 percent.

Dr. Hanson noted that, surprisingly, there is little research on the connection between

immigration and the employment and incarceration of black men. He questioned whether

diminished wages resulting from immigration have encouraged some black men to leave the

labor force and turn to crime.

To find the specific effects of immigration on black low-wage workers, Professor Hanson

and his coauthors examined U.S. census data from 1960 to 2000 and found a strong

correlation between immigration, wages, employment rates, and incarceration rates for

9 Gordon Hanson, testimony, pp. 8–16. Briefing transcript of record before the U.S. Commission on Civil

Rights, Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers, Washington, DC, Apr.

4, 2008, (Hereinafter cited as “Briefing Transcript”).

10 Borjas, Grogger and Hanson, “Immigration and African-American Employment Opportunities: The

Response of Wages, Employment and Incarceration to Labor Supply Shocks,” 2006, NBER Working Paper

12518, http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~GBorjas/Papers/Borjas,%20Grogger,%20Hanson,%202006.pdf; see also

Borjas, Grogger and Hanson, “Immigration and the Economic Status of African-American Men,” January,

2009, http://irps.ucsd.edu/assets/027/9473.pdf, cf. Footnote 11; for a related inquiry concerning the United

Kingdom, see also “The Economic Impact of Immigration,” House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, HL

Paper 82-I, 2008, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/82.pdf (all accessed

Apr. 1, 2009)
6 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

blacks. He did not address the effects of illegal immigration separately. Dr. Hanson’s

coauthored research suggested that a 10 percent immigrant-induced increase in the labor

supply is associated with a 4 percent decrease in black wages, a 3.5 percent decrease in the

black employment rate, and a 0.8 percent increase in the black incarceration rate.11 This

correlation held true in both national and state-level data, according to Hanson. The same

data source showed that the effect of immigration on white men also produced a 4.1 percent

decrease in wages, but had much less effect on employment and incarceration rates. Thus,

wages went down for the skill group generally, but black men lost proportionally more jobs

and disproportionally increased in incarceration rates.

Dr. Hanson stated that the economic changes created by the large immigrant inflow from

1980 to 2000 (half of which he attributes to illegal immigration) resulted in a labor supply

shock that increased the number of workers in the U.S. by 10 percent, with an increase in the

number of high school dropouts in the population by over 20 percent. These adjustments

account for about 40 percent of the overall 18 percent decline in black employment rates and

10 of the 20 percentage point increase in the incarceration rate of black high school dropouts

over the same period. Dr. Hanson noted that this influx reduced the employment rate of lowskill black men by eight percentage points. Dr. Hanson emphasized that although

immigration played an important role in generating these trends, much of the decline in

employment and increase in jail time would have occurred with a far smaller immigrant

influx, and remains unexplained. He recommended that it not be restricted. In his opinion,

the inflow of foreign workers accompanies more productive use of resources such as

technology, plants, and equipment, and has brought overall benefits to the U.S. economy;

therefore, he recommended instead that the country find ways to help those who have been

hurt by immigration.

Gerald Jaynes

Professor Jaynes12 began his remarks by stating that his views on this topic had changed on

the basis of his research on immigration and its effects on race and ethnic relations. He

contrasted his initial view that immigration had negative effects on the jobs and wages of

blacks with his present view that negative effects are mostly absent or modest at worst, for a

small segment of the lowest skilled workers. His thinking changed, he said, due to a largescale statistical analysis of the U.S. labor market he conducted with University of Wisconsin

social demographer Franklin Wilson, which was published in 2000. Among other variables,

their study looked at race, ethnicity, gender, and blue-collar versus white-collar workers. Dr.

11 A later paper by Hanson and his colleagues, published in January 2009, only slightly modified these original

findings, noting that “a 10 percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply side of a particular skill group is

associated with a reduction in the black wage of 2.5 percent, a reduction in the black employment rate of 5.9

percentage points, and an increase in the black institutionalization rate of 1.3 percentage points.” See Borjas,

Grogger and Hanson, Immigration and the Economic Status of African-American Men (Jan. 2009), at

http://irps.ucsd.edu/assets/027/9473.pdf.

12 Briefing Transcript, pp. 17–23. See also, Gerald Jaynes, Immigration and Race: New Challenges for

American Democracy, Yale Univ. Press, 2000; “Economic Effects of Contemporary Immigration,” Gerald

Jaynes, Testimony presented to the Subcommittee on Immigration, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee

on the Judiciary, 110th Congress, May 3, 2007.
Summary of Proceedings 7

Jaynes said he was surprised to discover that employment effects were negligible and wage

effects only modestly negative for the least-skilled blacks.

Dr. Jaynes’ written testimony recognized that the surge in immigration over the past thirtyfive years occurred simultaneously with a large drop in the inflation-adjusted wages of lesseducated American workers.13 Between 1969 and 1984 (measuring in 1984 constant dollars),

black male high school graduates’ mean weekly wages fell 22 percent from $357 to $278 per

week, and for black male dropouts, 32 percent, from $312 to $213. By 1985, the average

weekly salary of a black male high school graduate aged 20-24 was $165 per week; for black

male dropouts the same age, it was $146 per week. Black male high school dropouts also

experienced precipitous increases in unemployment over the same period. Black high-school

dropouts had an unemployment rate of 45 percent by the mid-1980s, whereas in 1970,

dropouts had an employment rate of 85 percent. But he cautioned that a host of

socioeconomic changes provide an alternative explanation for the deteriorating economic

circumstances of low-skilled black workers.

Similarly, in his briefing testimony, Dr. Jaynes acknowledged that since his study was

published, other economic studies had found negative effects, but he referred to the difficulty

of controlling for the increases in competition and international trade, declines in

unionization and in blue-collar employment, changes in discrimination that more negatively

affect low-skill black workers, and anti-social trends such as lower marital rates. He pointed

out that the impact of illegal immigration was difficult to quantify because the data were not

precise as to illegal immigrants.14 As a result of his skepticism of the available data, Dr.

Jaynes stated that he would not make recommendations for policy changes relating to the

negative effects on the least-skilled black workers.15

Vernon Briggs, Jr.

In both his written and oral testimony, Professor Briggs16 stated that no issue has negatively

“affected the economic well-being of African Americans more” than immigration17. His view

is that blacks have been both victims of involuntary immigration themselves (through

slavery) and unintentional, but significant victims of job losses and lowered wages as a result

of the mass, low-skilled immigration that has occurred since 1965. Dr. Briggs viewed such

losses as a denial of basic civil rights and economic opportunity.18

13 In particular, the earnings of full-time high school graduate men fell significantly compared to the earnings of

male college graduates of the same age. Jaynes Written Statement, p. 29 of this briefing report.

14 But see Dr. Jaynes’s submitted written statement, in which he notes that in some job markets, immigrants

exert significant influence on natives’ job prospects, showing a significant drop in meatpacking, where

undocumented workers composed 25 percent of the workforce in Iowa and Nebraska, and in the poultry

industry in the South. Latino immigrants constitute about three-quarters of the poultry workers in Arkansas, for

example.

15 Briefing Transcript, p. 22.

16 Id. at 23-31. 17 Id. at 23.

18 “[W]ith the accidental revival of mass immigration in the years since 1965 that has continued to this day,

immigration has served largely to marginalize the imperative to address squarely and affirmatively the legacy of

the denial of equal opportunity that had resulted from the previous centuries of slavery and segregation which
8 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Dr. Briggs stated that about 12 million illegal immigrants are currently in the U.S. labor

market, which represents about 30 percent of the total foreign-born population in the United

States. He added that there have been seven amnesties since 1986, and that in his view,

further legalization of such immigrants with family reunification would be economically

devastating to low-wage workers of all races and black workers in particular.

Dr. Briggs emphasized that the distinguishing characteristic of the illegal immigrant

population is that 81 percent of them are probably in the low-skill sector of the job market;

about 57 percent of them are without a high school diploma, and 24 percent have only a high

school diploma. Since they often come from poor countries, he said, the quality of their

education is likely poor, and they frequently lack English language skills. According to Dr.

Briggs, the competition they pose for native youth and 43 million low-skilled U.S. workers

causes the low-skilled labor market to suffer the highest unemployment levels of any

measured segment. He further noted that the low skilled labor market is most vulnerable to

economic hardship. During an economic downturn, higher skilled workers back up into the

low skilled labor market, producing even more competition for low-skilled jobs.

Dr. Briggs noted that blacks account for approximately 10 percent of the total low-skilled

workforce that numbers about 50 million, but have the highest unemployment rates of any of

the four racial or ethnic groups in the data; in February 2008 this rate was 12.8 percent. Black

youths also have the highest unemployment rates—in February 2008, it was 31.7 percent,

which does not count those discouraged from seeking work, or those who were incarcerated.

Dr. Briggs stated that both black Americans and illegal immigrants are disproportionately

concentrated in many central cities of large metropolitan areas where job competition

between them is likely to be extensive. In non-metropolitan areas, blacks are found in large

numbers only in the rural Southeast—a legacy, he said, of the area’s history of slavery—but

in recent decades, they have been joined in that labor market by the foreign-born who have

grown to be a significant population segment in these rural areas.19

He noted that to an immigrant worker, the low wages offered in the U.S. are still higher than

in his home country, and thus relatively acceptable, often regardless of the conditions that

accompany it.20 That employers take advantage of this comparison by preferring illegal

workers reflects pragmatism by employers, not necessarily bad intent, according to Dr.

Briggs. He stated that this occurs because the federal government has not enforced its labor

and immigration laws in such workplaces, leaving employers who wish to follow the law at a

competitive disadvantage to those who find it more profitable to break it.

the civil rights movement and legislation of the 1960s sought to redress.” Briggs Written Testimony at p. 36 of

this briefing report.

19 In his briefing testimony, Briggs noted that 26 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population now resides in

the rural Southeast. Briefing Transcript, p. 29.

20 For example, illegal immigrants are more likely to take lower wages and work under harsh or dangerous

conditions and less likely to complain about sub-minimum wage pay or denial of overtime pay because of the

vulnerability imposed by their illegal status. See Briggs Written Testimony at p. 39 of this briefing report.
Summary of Proceedings 9

Dr. Briggs also stated that the inflow of immigrants has resulted in low-skilled wages not

rising over time.21 He viewed the reduction of both wages and jobs as a massive violation of

the civil rights of all low-skilled workers, and of black workers in particular. He

recommended, therefore, that the federal government should adhere to the findings of the

U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by the late Congresswoman Barbara

Jordan (D-TX): “People who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in, are kept

out; and people who are judged deportable, are required to leave.”22

Harry Holzer

Professor Holzer23 made four major points in his remarks to the Commission. The first was

his assertion that most statistical evidence suggests that immigration over the past few

decades has had a modest negative effect on the employment outcomes of blacks, especially

those without high school diplomas. Dr. Holzer’s review of economic studies indicated that

work by Borjas, Grogger, and Hanson showed the greatest negative effects on wages and

employment of black male high school dropouts. He cautioned, however, that this result was

likely overstated, since it was based on significant statistical assumptions and limited also by

its short-run assessment of the effect of immigration, which did not take into account capital

inflows (meaning investments) that likely mitigated such impacts on black workers. Dr.

Holzer added that recent scholarly papers using data across metropolitan areas had found

effects ranging from very modest for black men to somewhat larger where black and white

teens were studied, but that these effects lessened as they aged into their twenties.

Dr. Holzer’s next point was that other evidence, including that by ethnographers, indicates

that employers filling low-wage jobs that require little reading/writing or communication,

clearly prefer immigrants to native-born blacks, and encourage informal networks through

which immigrants gain better access to these jobs. Dr. Holzer’s review found that employers

prefer immigrants because of a perceived superior work ethic and tolerance for low wages,

and use ethnic networks to recruit. He suggested that this might reflect discrimination,

although it might also merely reflect real differences, on average, in attitudes and behaviors

of workers from different racial and ethnic groups.24

His third point was that the evidence does not allow economists to distinguish the effects of

legal versus illegal immigration on black workers. Dr. Holzer stated that many black men

would likely take residential construction or transportation jobs but doubted whether they

would be drawn by the wages offered in agricultural or service jobs, even if the absence of

immigrant wages led to an increase in such wages. He said the evidence does not allow clear

21 See Vernon Briggs, “U.S. Immigration Policy and the Plight of Unskilled Workers,” 1999,

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=cahrswp (accessed September

9, 2009).

22 Briefing Transcript, p. 31 (citing testimony of former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (D-TX), Chair,

U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary

Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, Feb. 24, 1995, http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/uscir/022495.html

(accessed Oct. 29, 2008)).

23 Briefing Transcript, pp. 31–38.

24 Harry Holzer, “The Labor Market and Young Black Men,” September, 2007,

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001111_moynihan_perspective.pdf (accessed September 9, 2009).
10 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

distinctions regarding the impact of legal versus illegal immigration on native-born black

workers.

Fourth, Dr. Holzer concluded from the modest negative impact of immigration that other

factors are much more responsible for the negative trends in employment of black men and

their rising incarceration rates, and, therefore, that other policies besides immigration reform

might be needed to change these trends. Dr. Holzer suggested that immigration should have

similarly affected black women, yet the employment rates of low-income black women

improved dramatically during the 1990s because of welfare reform and the expansion of

programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and child support subsidies.

Dr. Holzer enumerated the forces he believed were more responsible than immigration for

the decline in jobs and wages for low-skilled black men and the increase in incarceration

rates.25 These included the decline of well-paying jobs available to less-educated males in

general, especially outside the service sector; rising returns to illegal drug trade in the 1980s;

growing numbers of blacks in single-parent families in poor neighborhoods; changes in

attitudes and behavioral norms related to schooling, marriage and employment; increases in

jail sentence time for convictions involving the drug trade; and increased enforcement of

child support orders resulting in default judgments.

Dr. Holzer suggested remedies that did not require changes in immigration law, since he said

that such changes would be unlikely to produce improved outcomes for low-skilled black

workers. These proposed remedies included 1) policies improving educational outcomes

throughout all school grades, 2) enhancing youth development opportunities and mentoring

for adolescents in black communities, 3) improving early work experience and training with

high-quality education, 4) reducing incarceration rates without increasing crime and reducing

barriers to work by ex-offenders, 5) extending the Earned Income Tax Credit to childless

adults, including non-custodial fathers, and 6) reforming child support regulations to

encourage non-custodial fathers to seek and find work.

Discussion

Vice Chair Thernstrom began by asking the first panel, all of whom were labor economists,

to comment on each others’ remarks in order to clarify the points of agreement and

disagreement among those using similar data sets and with similar academic training.

Commissioner Kirsanow observed that there appeared to be a consensus that illegal

immigration had an impact on wages and that most of the economists viewed it as small, with

the exception of Dr. Briggs, who found it egregious.

Dr. Briggs objected to viewing this issue purely in terms of numbers because of what he

believed were limitations of the data sets used by econometricians. He specifically criticized

the practice of lumping all foreign-born persons together into one category and drawing

economic inferences from that grouping as an untenable concept. He stated that some

25 See also, “Economic Impacts of Immigration,” Holzer, H., Testimony to the Committee on Education and the

Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, Nov. 16, 2005,

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/900908_Holzer_111605.pdf (accessed September 9, 2009).
Summary of Proceedings 11

workers in the data sets were naturalized citizens, permanent resident aliens, or nonimmigrant workers and others were illegal immigrants, but there was no distinction made

between them. He objected strongly on civil rights grounds to permitting competition from

illegal sources to depress the wages and job numbers of what he believed are the most

vulnerable citizens in our society. He pointed to the depressed wages caused by the

desperation of illegal workers for any job and the unfair displacement their sheer numbers

(12 to 14 million) are having on the legal low-skill labor force.26

Although recognizing the various studies’ limitations, Dr. Holzer defended the quality of the

data, citing a long tradition of many good empirical comparisons, such as Dr. Hanson’s, that

looked across metropolitan areas or states, and at aggregated views over time.27 Dr. Holzer

stated that economists’ comparisons across geographic areas may understate the effects

somewhat, and the comparisons over time perhaps overstate the effects somewhat, but most

economists have arrived at a consensus that the effects are modest. He added that the forces

affecting wages and employment are much more complicated than Dr. Briggs indicated, and

include immigrants as consumers who affect demand for products and services as well as

supply. He suggested that immigrants likely generate more capital flowing into the country,

more efficiency in the use of capital, and higher economic growth, which offset some of the

negative effects on low-skilled black workers. In addition, where there is a lot of low-wage

labor available, employers will switch production to more labor-intensive methods, whereas

employers without such labor availability will choose more capital-intensive methods rather

than raise wages. Finally, he stated that workers sort themselves into different kinds of jobs

rather than compete for the same jobs.28

Dr. Briggs interjected that Dr. Holzer was referring to all immigration, whereas he (Dr.

Briggs) was referring only to illegal immigration.

Dr. Hanson agreed with Dr. Holzer’s arguments, and added that the important issue for a

policy discussion was how to resolve the problem. Dr. Hanson stated that immigration policy

was a very blunt instrument with which to improve the livelihoods of disadvantaged workers,

and that even in the absence of illegal immigration there were many factors that negatively

affected their opportunities and labor market outcomes. Also, he stated that even in the

absence of illegal immigration, changes in the economy resulting from globalization and

technological change, and conditions affecting inner cities, would also likely outweigh

effects from immigration policy changes.29 Dr. Jaynes reaffirmed his agreement with Dr.

Hanson’s remarks, and stated that changes in either public policy or immigration flows were

low on his list of what could affect jobs and wages of native-born low-wage workers.

Commissioner Kirsanow observed that perceptions depend very much on context, referring

specifically to his conversations with inner-city low-skill workers in Cleveland who believed

that illegal immigration had a big impact on them. He asked the panelists whether the

26 Briefing Transcript, pp. 40-41.

27 Id. at 43. 28 Id. at 43–44. 29 Id. at 45–47.
12 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

perception of the problem had an effect on the workers, and whether ethnic networking

limited opportunities for those outside the network.30

Dr. Briggs responded that if illegal immigrants in such great numbers were competing for the

jobs of professors, lawyers, and doctors, the debate would not be occurring because public

policy would already have demanded reform. But because many illegal immigrants go into

low-income jobs, Dr. Briggs viewed policy makers as deciding that freshman economics (the

law of supply and demand) does not apply. Dr. Briggs objected strongly to loading up a labor

market with a big labor force that is not legally in the country. He said that while ethnic

networking is illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sociology recognizes its strength,

especially in finding employment.31 Vice Chair Thernstrom observed that there has never

been a black labor market network in the same sense as other ethnic networks.

Commissioner Kirsanow then asked Dr. Briggs about testimony on this topic that he had

provided to the House of Representatives in 1999, and whether he had any policy

prescriptions now that differed from those offered in that testimony. While he could not

recall the specific testimony, Dr. Briggs responded that his views had not changed over the

years. He advocated strict enforcement of employer sanctions, but noted also that possible

solutions should include more than border enforcement, since 40 percent of illegal

immigrants violate immigration laws by overstaying their visas. He emphasized his

opposition to amnesty because it would perpetuate the problem, due to family reunification

provisions that continue to bring in low-skilled immigrants.32

Commissioner Heriot then asked about the effect of the movement of capital across borders;

specifically, if illegal immigration were to end immediately and low-skill wages went up,

would capital then move away from some industries or cause industries to move jobs out of

the country—in effect hiring from the same pool of workers but in their native countries. Dr.

Holzer responded that it varied a great deal, depending on which sector of the economy. For

instance, he noted that garment or textile industry jobs have already largely left the country,

and many more would leave even without illegal immigration. Other low-skilled jobs could

not leave, such as construction, retail, restaurant, and health care work, where the work has to

be done locally. He cautioned, however, that mobility of capital across borders was only one

force, and that equally important were other forces, such as improvements in technology that

gave employers more choices of how to produce. This would result in employers investing in

such improvements and reducing their dependence on low-wage labor. He suggested that

over time, in the absence of illegal immigration, some jobs would see wages rise but many

would not. He also warned that if there were dramatic reductions in the presence of illegal

workers, the economic disruption to some of the affected sectors in the short run would be

enormous.33

30 Id. at 48–49.

31 Id. at 49–51. 32 Id. at 53. 33 Id. at 54–56.
Summary of Proceedings 13

Dr. Hanson agreed, adding that if the experiment being considered was dramatic reduction in

immigration for the purpose of creating jobs, there was a parallel to consider in the case of

Mexico’s liberalization of its foreign investment laws in the 1990s: There was a huge surge

of investment by the United States in Mexico during that period, but nonetheless a continuing

increase in Mexican immigration to the United States. Dr. Hanson concluded that the

expected increase in capital spending following a halt in illegal immigration would likely

increase jobs available to native-born workers or raise wages only somewhat.34 Dr. Briggs

objected, saying that Mexico had also devalued its currency dramatically after the passage of

the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which meant that low-wage workers

would still earn more in the United States.

Dr. Jaynes agreed with Dr. Hanson that simply stopping all illegal immigration would not

automatically result in a transfer of jobs to native-born workers, even in industries such as

meat processing in Southern and Western states, because the formerly high wages were

unsustainable for reasons unconnected to immigration. He gave the example of immigrant

women working in household services, an occupation formerly filled by black women, and

stated that even if immigrants were suddenly absent, there would not be an influx of black

women into such occupations. His second example was the meat processing industries in

Arkansas, Georgia, and Nebraska, in which high wages circa 1979 (approximately $22 an

hour in today’s prices) were, in his view, unsustainable even absent the influx of immigrant

workers willing to accept lower wages. He argued that those jobs would have moved

elsewhere, or there would have been changes in capital techniques and allocation if

immigrants had not taken those jobs.35

Dr. Briggs disagreed, recounting instances in which immigration enforcement had forced

employers to raise wages and thereby attract native-born workers, particularly in the

meatpacking industry in the South. Dr. Jaynes said that that was precisely his point, that there

would be higher wages, but that those wages were unsustainable. Dr. Briggs objected

strongly to what he viewed as the use of public policy to drive down wages artificially. Dr.

Jaynes agreed on that point, noting that this is indeed a civil rights issue, since such policy

was being used to trample on the rights of all workers by driving down wages and avoiding

employment rights.36 Vice Chair Thernstrom asked whether “artificial” was the correct word.

Dr. Briggs responded that it was, since deliberate failure to enforce the law was responsible

for the wage suppression, and such action was indefensible. He also disagreed with the

contention that black women would not do household service work. Dr. Jaynes again

questioned the duration of any rise in wages, a point joined by Dr. Holzer. Dr. Holzer added

that no one in the room was arguing in favor of illegal immigration, but the fact remained

that it exists and that legal and illegal workers were complements rather than substitutes. He

stated that there were benefits and costs to changing the current numbers of illegal workers,

and that such change creates disruptions that are hard to predict.37

34 Id. at 56–57.

35 Id. at 57–59. 36 Id. at 59–60. 37 Id. at 61–64.
14 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Commissioner Yaki objected to the focus on race, and asked the panel whether race in this

particular debate was a proxy for lack of educational and job training opportunities. Dr.

Hanson agreed that education was very much an issue, but stated that talking about the wage

impact of immigration was not a statement about race, but necessary to an analysis of

distributional impacts. He added that negative effects of immigration on wages of low-skilled

workers were consistent with immigration raising overall gross national product, although

those gains could be undone by importing low-skilled workers who use more in benefits and

government services than they pay in taxes.38

Commissioner Yaki asked for views on whether our society has failed to provide blacks in

inner cities with adequate education and job training and whether discrimination has had an

effect as well. Dr. Holzer responded that extreme residential isolation affects where people

live and go to school, and thereby the skills they bring to the labor market. He added that

men of all racial groups with low skills have been negatively affected by illegal immigration,

although behaviors such as unwed parenthood and child support obligations have hindered

employment viability among low-skilled workers.39

Dr. Briggs addressed Commissioner Yaki’s objection to discussing and collecting

information about illegal versus legal immigration because of its potential to foster an “us”

versus “them” attitude. Briggs pointed out that the only way to measure the impact of

immigration was to collect and analyze data, and that every Western nation was a nation of

immigrants, making immigration policy a central issue. Dr. Briggs viewed the quality of data

in this case as problematic, but said that raising the immigration issue should not lead to

accusations of racism to stifle important policy debates.40 He reiterated his objection to

illegal immigration because it undermines the integrity of U.S. immigration policy and

violates public policies directed at ensuring a minimum wage and occupational health and

safety standards by promoting unfair competition.

Vice Chair Thernstrom disagreed with the view that urban school systems are starved for

money, since the per-pupil spending in those districts is much higher than the average in the

rest of the country. Dr. Holzer responded that he did not make that claim, although there was

evidence that pre-kindergarten educational programs would benefit from more funds. He

claimed that better teachers were fundamental to improvement, but Vice Chair Thernstrom

pointed out that getting better teachers had been attempted and failed, and that no one knew

how to make it succeed.41

38 Id. at 68–69. The Commission did not solicit testimony on the costs of social services or benefits to

communities with large influxes of illegal immigrants, or the effect, positive or negative, of illegal immigration

on urban social pathologies such as crime, disease, and overcrowding in high-immigration areas. See, for

example, chapter three (“Immigrant Demands on Public Benefits”) of Why Does Immigration Divide America?

Public Finance and Political Opposition to Open Borders, by Dr. Gordon Hanson (Washington, DC: Institute

for International Economics 2005).

39 Id. at 72–73. 40 Id. at 73–75. 41 Id. at 80.
Summary of Proceedings 15

Commissioner Kirsanow noted that a number of people say that the effect of unwed

motherhood in the black community is the principal civil rights issue, and that social

pathologies flow from that. He asked if illegal immigration had a domino effect on rates of

unemployment, wages, marriage, and incarceration in the black community, and, if so, to

what extent. Dr. Holzer did not see direct links, but posited that illegal immigration could

drive down wage and employment opportunities that, in turn, could affect the marriageability

of black males. Commissioner Kirsanow asked if the competition for jobs between illegal

workers and young workers robbed young people of the typical path of progressive

employment. Dr. Holzer agreed that young black men probably do not see how they are

going to get good jobs, and, as a result, may disengage from school, the labor market, and the

mainstream society. He concluded, however, that low marriage rates, the disappearance of

strong career and technical education, and the deterioration of job networks, among other

factors, far outweighed immigration in limiting access to good jobs and wages.42

Dr. Briggs again disagreed that the size of the immigration effect justified the abandonment

of immigration law enforcement. Dr. Jaynes responded that it was more important to address

much bigger causative elements such as unwed motherhood and lack of education, which

predated the growth in immigration.43 Commissioner Kirsanow stated that births to unwed

black mothers had grown from about 24 to 70 percent during the same period as the increase

in immigration. Dr. Jaynes agreed with these growth figures, but disagreed that they occurred

contemporaneously. He stated that the urban illegitimacy rate was already in the 40 percent

range by the mid 1960s at the start of the great influx of immigration, and that fundamental

attitudes responsible for the rise were formed already. Dr. Briggs added that the black female

labor force exceeded that of black males, a statistic he found alarming.44

Panel Two

Julie Hotchkiss

Dr. Hotchkiss,45 speaking on her own behalf, presented an economic analysis that she had

undertaken with Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, currently a research economist and assistant policy

adviser in the Latin America Research Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which

addressed three questions: 1) How are wages affected when the concentration of

undocumented workers increases? 2) Is there any evidence that documented workers are

displaced when firms fire a greater share of undocumented workers? and 3) Does the

presence of undocumented workers exert more downward pressure on wages than the

presence of legal immigrants?

According to Dr. Hotchkiss, this analysis, based on restricted data from the Georgia

Department of Labor in administering Georgia’s unemployment insurance program, can be

generalized to the Commission’s nationwide inquiry because Georgia had the fastest growth

42 Id. at 80–83.

43 Id. at 84. 44 Id. at 84–85. 45 Id. at 88–96.
16 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

in undocumented persons of any state between 2000 and 2006; is ranked sixth in the country

for the size of the undocumented population; and is fourth in the nation for the size of the

black population (30 percent of the state’s population self-identifies as black). Dr.

Hotchkiss’s data set allowed her to distinguish between wages of documented and

undocumented Georgia workers, to estimate movement within and outside of particular

employment sectors and thus to quantify the effect of undocumented workers on documented

workers, but did not include racial categories or information on workers’ education levels.

Dr. Hotchkiss’s data found dramatic growth of undocumented workers in expected sectors

such as construction, leisure and hospitality, and services such as landscaping. She noted,

that estimates by the Center for Immigration Studies suggest that her data set

undercounts the number of undocumented workers in Georgia

substantially

primarily because it does not

include workers not reported on official wage reports.

Dr. Hotchkiss performed several separate statistical analyses to isolate effects on wages from

other effects such as job losses as a result of an influx of illegal immigrant workers. Her first

statistical analysis considered the effects of undocumented workers on wages, holding all

other factors constant. Given the increase in the share of undocumented workers in Georgia

from 4 to 7 percent between 2000 and 2007, Dr. Hotchkiss found that the annual earnings of

the average documented worker in 2007 were 2.9 percent or $960 lower than in 2000. In the

leisure and hospitality industry, average documented worker earnings were 9.1 percent or

$1520 lower than in 2000.

Dr. Hotchkiss’s next statistical analysis showed that, holding all other factors constant

including wages, an increase in a business’s undocumented workers led to a decrease in the

separation of documented workers. Instead, newly arrived undocumented workers displaced

existing undocumented workers, suggesting greater substitutability among undocumented

workers than between undocumented and documented workers. (The data could not

distinguish between different types of separation—e.g., voluntary versus involuntary) She

suggested that her analysis showed that newly arriving undocumented workers had no

adverse effect on separation of documented workers.

Dr. Hotchkiss attributed this result to two forces. One is that the influx of undocumented

workers exerted a downward pressure on wages, which led businesses to hire greater

numbers of workers at lower salaries, in effect, substituting lower labor costs for capital

expenditures. Second, businesses benefited from less expensive total production costs as a

result of undocumented workers’ smaller wages.

Finally, Dr. Hotchkiss observed that the impact of undocumented workers on wages is

expected to be and, in her data, was greater than the impact of immigrants as a whole on

wages. When workers, such as undocumented workers, do not have many alternative job

prospects, Dr. Hotchkiss’s analysis showed that they were only about half as likely as

documented workers to leave their jobs in response to a lower wage. Businesses take

advantage of this by paying lower wages. The sensitivity to wage changes varies

considerably among documented workers, depending on their alternative job prospects.

Generally, these workers are more responsive to such changes than undocumented workers.

however,
Summary of Proceedings 17

Dr. Hotchkiss’s conclusions were that 1) wages will be higher in the absence of

undocumented workers; 2) employment will not necessarily be higher, and may even be

lower, in the absence of undocumented workers; and 3) any effective policy that increases

undocumented workers’ employment and grievance rights will lead to higher wages for all

workers on average.

Steven Camarota

Dr. Camarota,46 a public policy analyst, agreed that illegal immigration increases the supply

of workers in the low-skilled labor market, where black men are already disproportionately

employed. He agreed, also, that in recent times, less-educated workers have fared relatively

worse than better-educated workers, regardless of the measure—wages, benefits, or job

security.

He reported on studies that looked at the impact of immigration generally, stating that the

primary effect of immigration on wages and jobs comes about because of the increase in the

supply of workers competing for the same jobs, which would be true regardless of their legal

or illegal status. He did not view workers at that skill level as scarce.47

Dr. Camarota summarized the studies that discussed the effects of immigration on wages of

minorities, and claimed that it is difficult to measure because we live in a national economy:

x A 1995 statistical analysis by Augustina Kposowa found that “non-whites appear to

lose jobs to immigrants and their earning are depressed by immigrants.”48

x A 1998 study by Howell and Mueller found that each 1 percent increase in the

immigrant proportion of an occupation reduced wages for blacks in that occupation

by about half a percentage point.49

x More recent research from Sum, Herrington, and Khatiwada found negative effects

from immigration on less-educated natives overall, particularly on less educated

minorities under the age of 30.50

x A qualitative study by anthropologists Newman and Lennon examining the fast food

industry in Harlem indicated that immigrants had an advantage over native-born

46 Id. at 96–104. 47 See also, Steven Camarota, “Immigration Employment Gains and Native Losses, 2000-2004” in Debating

Immigration at 139-156 (Carol Swain, ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007); Steven Camarota, “Dropping Out:

Immigrant Entry and Native Exit From the Labor Market, 2000-2005”(March 2006) (CIS Backgrounder),

http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back206.html (last accessed September 9, 2009).

48 See Augustine J. Kposowa, “The Impact of Immigration on Unemployment and Earnings among Racial

Minorities in the United States,”Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 18, no. 3 (July 1995).

49 See David Howell, Elizabeth J. Mueller, “The Effects of Immigrants on African-American Earnings: A JobsLevel Analysis of the New York City Labor Market, 1979-89” (November 1997), Levy Economics Institute

Working Paper No. 210, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=104648 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.104648.

50 See Andrew Sum, Paul Harrington, and Ishwar Khatiwada (hereafter Sum, Harrington, and Khatiwada), “The

Impact of New Immigrants on Young Native-Born Workers, 2000–2005,” Center for Immigration Studies

(Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, September 2006), available at

http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back806.html.
18 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

blacks, and that this advantage almost certainly reflected the prejudices and biases of

employers.51

x Other studies had not found an impact from immigration on blacks.

Dr. Camarota stated that the movement of labor and investment across cities creates an

equilibrium that includes wages and employment, and as a result, studies looking at the

country as one labor market have found a larger impact.

Dr. Camarota concluded that there is no debate that 1) immigration generally increases the

supply of low-skilled workers; 2) a significant share of native-born blacks are more likely to

be in labor competition with immigrants; and 3) employment and wages have declined for

less-educated men. However, he believed that the question of whether immigration reduces

wages or employment among black Americans was not entirely settled, but that if one is

concerned about the prospects of less-educated workers in the country, it would be difficult

to justify continuing high levels of immigration that disproportionately affect the bottom end

of the labor market.

He noted a 1997 study, The New Americans,

52 conducted by the National Research Council,

which found that immigration caused the poorest 10 percent of workers to lose about 5

percent of their wages, while the wages of the remaining workforce increased by 0.1 to 0.2

percent. As such, Dr. Camarota said that a central part of the immigration debate was how we

weigh these benefits against the losses suffered by the poorest and least-educated

Americans.53

Richard Nadler

Mr. Nadler54 questioned the assumption of an oversupply of low-wage labor in analyzing the

connection between immigration and unemployment of low-wage black workers. Focusing

particularly on state-by-state trends from 2000 to 2007, Mr. Nadler matched the immigration

patterns of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to data that immigration ostensibly

affects, including gross state product, personal income, disposable income, median income,

rates of poverty, unemployment, and crime.

Mr. Nadler’s analysis examined what he termed “high immigration jurisdictions” (“HIJs”),

meaning 1) states with the highest proportion of immigrants in their resident population, 2)

high-influx states (those states whose population in 2007 was most altered as a percentage by

an influx of immigrants since 2000), and 3) states with the highest number of foreign-born

individuals, regardless of percentages. Together, these 19 states contained over 80 percent of

the immigrant population, and about 60 percent of the native-born black population.

51 See Katherine Newman, Chauncy Lennon, “Finding Work in the Inner City: How Hard is it Now? How Hard

Will It Be for AFDC Recipients?” (Russell Sage Foundation Working Paper 76, Oct. 1995).

52 See James P. Smith, Barry Edmonston, eds., The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal

Effects of Immigration, National Research Council, (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997).

53 See also, “Sum, Harrington, and Khatiwada, “The Impact of New Immigrants on Young Native-Born

Workers, 2000-2005 (CIS Backgrounder), http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back806.pdf (accessed September 9,

2009).

54 Briefing Transcript, pp. 104-112.
Summary of Proceedings 19

His analysis showed that the HIJs had gross state product growth that was significantly

higher than in low-immigration jurisdictions (LIJs). According to Mr. Nadler, this ran

contrary to the expectation that high immigration resulted in a decrease in gross state product

because of a slow-down in capitalization per worker. He found that in HIJs, personal income

per capita and median income were higher, personal income grew faster, and disposable

income and disposable income per capita, whether measured in dollars or rates of increase,

were higher. Based on a comparison of state and local tax rates in all 50 states and the

District of Columbia, he concluded that the tax burden in the HIJs did not vary from that of

the LIJs. He concluded that this finding undermined the assumption that high levels of

immigration resulted in increased taxes to pay for the social services used by immigrants. He

found that, in general, unemployment was lower in HIJs than in LIJs, and that the crime rates

for HIJs were virtually identical to those in the LIJs.55 His summary was that high levels of

immigration correlated with above-average performance in the measures mentioned above

and with below-average rates of individual and household poverty and unemployment.

Mr. Nadler next analyzed black unemployment data, and found that although black rates are

higher than non-black rates, they were lower in HIJs than in LIJs. His data did not separate

low-wage employment from black employment as a whole, but he examined state data on

child poverty to find an analogy to low-wage employment effects among blacks. He found

that child poverty rates among blacks in the HIJs was lower than both the national average

and in the LIJs, although he noted that child poverty is not the same as household poverty.

He concluded that the migration of labor to HIJs reflected a cause, not just an effect of

prosperity. He expressed support for comprehensive immigration reform that would provide

a path to legalization for illegal immigrant workers.

Carol Swain

Dr. Swain,56 editor of Debating Immigration,

57 invoked the memory of Dr. Martin Luther

King, Jr. and noted that this briefing occurred on the 40th anniversary of his assassination, a

day on which he had gone to Memphis to support black sanitation workers on strike to

protest poor working conditions. Dr. Swain referred to national surveys showing general

support among all Americans for immigration reform, and observed that well-recognized

problems that stem from illegal immigration affect the social, political and economic wellbeing of black and other Americans together. She also noted that it was important to find the

systemic causes of black unemployment, which has not only been consistently greater than

unemployment among the general population, but even rose at a time when unemployment

among non-black workers fell.

Dr. Swain observed that a disproportionate number of black unemployed are high school

dropouts. In addition, she stated that the 40 percent of the black population who are high

school graduates were more adversely affected by the 2003 recession than members of other

55 Id. at 108. 56 Id. at 112-119. 57 Debating Immigration, (Carol Swain, ed., Cambridge Univ. Press 2007).
20 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

racial and ethnic groups. Of those who are newly employed, the gains have more often

occurred in low-wage, dead-end jobs.

Dr. Swain put forth several possible causes for high rates of black unemployment: 1) an

oversupply of low-skilled workers, 2) racial discrimination by employers, and 3) inadequate

education and training. She referred to figures developed by another panelist, Dr. Steven

Camarota, which showed that new low-skilled immigrants have increased the supply of labor

by 25 percent since 1990, and constituted 40 percent of workers without a high school

diploma. This created competition among what she termed “people at the margins of

society,”58 a group that includes less-educated workers of all races generally. She believed

that black males, however, faced more employment discrimination in general, and that

employers preferred whites, even those with worse employment credentials than blacks. In

her view, low-skilled workers of any race receive inadequate education as a result of cuts in

state and federal education programs.

Dr. Swain concluded by stating that blacks are facing increased competition for jobs by

immigrants that is unlikely to end. Dr. Swain also stated that black unemployment might be a

contributing factor to neighborhood dysfunctions in the African-American community. These

dysfunctions also include violent crime, single-parent households, illegitimacy, infant

mortality, drug use, and infectious diseases. She recommended that an independent

commission take on the responsibility of reforming immigration, making it costlier for

employers to discriminate against native-born workers and increasing penalties for anyone in

this country illegally. Investments in education, training, and a tamper-proof Social Security

card, she said, would help protect all disadvantaged workers.

Discussion

Dr. Robert Lerner59 asked for clarification of Dr. Hotchkiss’s results. She responded that her

statistical estimate of the impact of illegal workers in Georgia was greater than what other

scholars found for immigrants as a whole—an expected result, she said, due to the absence of

legal protections afforded illegal workers and the resulting financial advantages to

employers. She added, however, that because there were fewer illegal workers than

immigrant workers as a whole, the practical impact on wages was small, about 2.9 percent

lower wages for workers generally, but was much larger (9 percent) in sectors such as leisure

and hospitality that employed a larger share of illegal workers.60 In response to another

question from Dr. Lerner, Dr. Hotchkiss stated that 2.9 percent is about $960 on an annual

basis, and 9 percent is about $1,500 annually.61 Commissioner Yaki inquired as to the

presence of unionization, and Dr. Hotchkiss answered that it was low in Georgia, as it was

considered to be in all Southeastern states.

58 Briefing Transcript, p. 117.

59 Assistant Staff Director, Office of Civil Rights Evaluation, United States Commission on Civil Rights. 60 Briefing Transcript, p. 120.

61 Id. at 121–22.
Summary of Proceedings 21

Dr. Camarota pointed out that the National Research Council had estimated that immigration

reduced wages of the poorest 10 percent of workers by about 5 percent, and that such

reduced wages were similar in effect to a cut in the Earned Income Tax Credit of about 50

percent. He considered this reduction large.62

Mr. Nadler objected to using non-longitudinal skill levels (skill levels not measured over

time) as a measure, since he did not view the labor market as a zero-sum pie; nor did he

believe that skill-level categories captured actual large wage trends that showed gains in

those areas with the most immigration. Dr. Camarota disagreed, referring to statistics

showing that as immigrants move into an area, less-educated natives move out, and those

who would have moved in, do not. For example, workers moved from the East during the

1960s and 1970s to Southern California, but as immigration greatly increased in Southern

California, domestic migration to that area diminished considerably. Mr. Nadler agreed that

there were labor flows on a nationwide basis, and concluded that it was not sound public

policy to disrupt the natural flows of capital and labor throughout the economy, which is why

the high-immigration jurisdictions that he studied showed higher median income.63 Dr.

Camarota found unconvincing Mr. Nadler’s assertion that immigration contributed to higher

median incomes, noting that Nadler’s statistics are more likely a reflection that immigrants

are more likely to be attracted to areas experiencing high employment growth.

Dr. Hotchkiss stated that most economic analyses that showed negligible or positive

employment outcomes in high-immigration areas were good quality studies that controlled

for self-selection. Dr. Camarota objected to this view, arguing that the gains to the economy

as a whole were miniscule, and lowering the wages to the poor by even a small amount was

substantial, since they had so little income. Mr. Nadler disagreed with Dr. Camarota entirely,

reiterating his point that the unemployment data did not support that view.64

Dr. Swain described the perceptions of blacks and Hispanics, and also low-income whites,

that immigration has hurt the American worker.65 She said that the discussion should take

account of the ethnic violence between blacks and Hispanics and how perceptions lead to

violence. She also stated that black unemployment is a contributing factor to dysfunctional

conditions in black communities, such as violent crime, single-parent households,

illegitimacy, infant mortality, drug use, and infectious diseases, and that these are all loosely

connected.

Mr. Nadler interjected that Dr. Hanson’s research had been misrepresented to create

resentment against immigrants.66 Dr. Swain disagreed, stating that until recently, the

discussion assumed that immigration was a win-win situation and that even black leaders and

groups have not spoken up for low-skilled black workers.

62 Id. at 123–24. 63 Id. at 124–28.

64 Id. at 128–30. 65 Id. at 130–31. 66 Id. at 132.
22 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Commissioner Yaki disagreed with Dr. Swain’s view, arguing instead that the issue of

immigration effects is a proxy for the failure to discuss the plight of young men in inner

cities for whom education and job training are unavailable, and that immigration was being

made a scapegoat for such failures. Commissioner Yaki complained also that the

Commission briefing itself was oversimplifying the issue.67

Dr. Swain disagreed with Commissioner Yaki, stating that one of the reasons she compiled

her book, Debating Immigration, was that the discussion up to then had been one-sided on

the part of the pro-immigration debaters, and that anyone in disagreement had been

demonized.68

Vice Chair Thernstrom asked in what way the educational needs of ethnic minorities and

working class whites in inner cities had not been addressed, considering that the amount of

money spent per pupil in inner cities frequently was double the amount spent elsewhere.69

Dr. Swain answered that teachers who invest themselves in the students and encourage them

are important, and also that it is important to offer alternatives, such as vocational training,

for those who do not belong in college or on an academic track. Dr. Swain felt that

community colleges should be available to all students and were under-valued as a resource.

Vice Chair Thernstrom disagreed that community colleges are not available, but agreed that

inner city students may not know of the existence of such colleges.70

Commissioner Melendez asked the panel whether economic research on this topic had been

communicated to the public effectively, and whether the research had been misused to build

anti-immigrant sentiment and other discriminatory messages. Mr. Nadler agreed that it had

been misused. Dr. Swain disagreed, stating that the general public does not think about data

or research, but instead looks at what they see around them.71

Dr. Camarota agreed with Dr. Swain that raising questions about illegal immigration and its

potential impact on job competition and low income workers is received with hostility and

accusations of bigotry, and also that the general public does not pay attention to research. Mr.

Nadler stated that, to the contrary, it had been discussed on cable news channels extensively.

Dr. Swain agreed with Dr. Camarota that it is difficult to hold views that are not politically

palatable, and she felt pressure to conform her views to what is considered politically

acceptable.72

Commissioner Heriot asked Mr. Nadler that, if economic boomtowns raised average wages,

then why were they not attracting low-skilled labor from other more economically depressed

67 Id. at 133–34. 68 Id. at 136–38. 69 Id. at 138.

70 Id. at 142. 71 Id. at 143. 72 Id. at 144.
Summary of Proceedings 23

geographic areas. Mr. Nadler did not address that question, but observed only that mobility

of labor is not dependent on the numbers of immigrants in the workforce.73

Vice Chair Thernstrom asked Mr. Nadler to clarify his testimony about crime rates. He stated

that immigration is very far down on the list of factors that have some correlation with crime,

so that high-influx states ranged from low to high crime, and low-influx states also ranged

from low to high crime. Vice Chair Thernstrom pointed out that he had not controlled for

other demographic factors that would distinguish those states. Mr. Nadler responded that the

high immigration states had 60 percent of the black population and roughly half of the

Hispanic population.74

In reference to Vice Chair Thernstrom’s question about mobility of low-skilled labor, Dr.

Swain observed that poor people cannot always afford to relocate to find jobs, and may lack

good credit for such things as paying for a security deposit on housing. Therefore, when

immigrants displace native-born workers, it is more difficult for such workers to find work

elsewhere. Mr. Nadler again disagreed on the grounds that his unemployment data did not

reflect this finding. Dr. Camarota pointed out that unemployment statistics are aggregates of

all workers, not just low-wage workers, and the statistics are usually quite different for lowwage workers. In addition, those who have fallen entirely out of the workforce do not even

show up in the statistics. He surmised that if illegal immigration decreased, those workers

would attempt to get jobs. Dr. Swain then offered a personal view drawn from her own

family: that to a low-skilled worker the paperwork and administrative requirements for

obtaining required documentation are overwhelming. Dr. Camarota countered, observing that

low-skill workers would probably be more likely to seek work if immigration were reduced

and there was a scarcity of workers.75

73 Id. at 146–49. 74 Id. at 149–50. 75 Id. at 150–54.
24 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Statements

Gordon H. Hanson

University of California, San Diego and National Bureau of Economic Research

Immigration and Labor Market Outcomes for African-Americans

During the last several decades, there has been a dramatic rise in U.S. immigration. In 1970,

5 percent of the U.S. population was foreign born; by 2006, the foreign born population share

was 12 percent. In terms of employment, immigrants now account for one out of every seven

U.S. workers.

There is considerable interest in the impact of immigration on the U.S. labor market.

Following the logic of economic theory, since immigration increases the supply of workers in

the U.S. economy, it should put downward pressure on the wages of native labor. The

adverse wage impacts are strongest for workers that compete most directly with immigrants

for jobs. With over 30 percent of immigrants having less than a high school education, it is

low skilled native workers who are likely to feel the greatest effects from immigration.

Among economists, there is disagreement about whether the data bear out the negative

predictions of immigration for U.S. labor. Without rehashing this debate, I will share with

you that my own view—based on extensive data analysis—is that immigration has lowered

wages for native born U.S. high school dropouts. What I would like to focus on in my brief

remarks today is some specific research I have done of the impact of immigration on the

wages, employment, and incarceration rates of African-American men. This work was

written jointly with George Borjas of Harvard University and Jeffrey Grogger of the

University of Chicago. I will summarize the results of our recent National Bureau of

Economic Research Working Paper, “Immigration and African-American Employment

Opportunities: The Response of Wages, Employment, and Incarceration to Labor Supply

Shocks.”

Low skilled black men have had a rough past few decades in the U.S. labor market. The

employment rate of African-American men fell from 75 percent in 1960 to 68 percent in

2000.76 This stands in contrast to the contemporaneous decline from 87 to 85 percent among

white men. The employment gap widened even more for low-skill persons: the employment

rate of black high school dropouts fell from 72 to 42 percent, whereas it fell from 83 to 64

percent among white high school dropouts. The decline in labor market participation among

black men was accompanied by a rapid increase in the number of black men in correctional

institutions. In 1980, only 0.8 percent of black men (and 1.4 percent of black high school

76 The “employment rate” gives the average fraction of weeks worked during the calendar year prior to the

Census (the ratio of weeks worked, including zeros, to 52). The “incarceration rate” gives the fraction of

persons who are institutionalized at the time of the Census.
Statements 25

dropouts) were incarcerated. By 2000, 10 percent of black men (and 21 percent of black high

school dropouts) were incarcerated.77

A large body of academic research examines wage and employment trends for AfricanAmericans. One strand emphasizes impacts of government programs, such as the Social

Security disability program or the minimum wage, in driving black men out of the labor

market. Another analyzes whether the decline in the real wage of low-skill workers

discouraged low-skill black men from entering the labor market. A third examines whether

black incarceration rates were shaped by the crack epidemic of the 1980s.

Remarkably, there is little work on the link between immigration and the employment and

incarceration of black men. Immigration has disproportionately increased the number of lowskill workers in the United States, but, as I have mentioned, there is disagreement over

whether this influx has adversely affected competing native workers. The conflicting

evidence hinges crucially on the nature of the empirical exercise: studies that measure the

impact of immigration by looking at wage trends across local labor markets tend to find

small effects, while studies that examine the evolution of the national wage structure find

large effects. Regardless of the geographic unit used to analyze the impact of immigration,

any such impact would presumably be larger in the black workforce. (In fact, some of the

early studies in this literature specifically attempted to measure the impact of immigration on

black wages.)

In our research, we examine the relation between immigration and black employment

outcomes. Our empirical analysis shows that immigration has indeed lowered the wage of

blacks. Our main interest, however, is on the consequences of this reduction in market wages.

In particular, has the immigration-induced reduction in the black wage encouraged some

black men to exit the labor force and shift to crime?

Using data drawn from the 1960–2000 U.S. Censuses, we find a strong correlation between

immigration and wages, employment rates, and incarceration rates for blacks. Our study

suggests that a 10 percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a skill group is

associated with a reduction in the black wage of 4.0 percent, a reduction in the black

employment rate of 3.5 percentage points, and an increase in the black institutionalization

rate of 0.8 percentage points. Among white men, the same increase in supply reduces the

wage by 4.1 percent, but has much weaker employment and incarceration effects: a 1.6

percentage point reduction in the employment rate and a 0.1 percentage point increase in the

incarceration rate. These correlations are found in both national and state-level data.

What do these estimates imply about the cumulative effect of recent immigration on AfricanAmerican men? The economic adjustments unleashed by the large 1980–2000 immigrant

influx, a labor supply shock that increased the number of workers in the United States by

nearly 10 percent and the number of high school dropouts by over 20 percent, reduced the

employment rate of low-skill black men by about 8 percentage points. Immigration,

therefore, accounts for about 40 percent of the 18 percentage point decline in black

77 Ignoring the prevalence of incarceration rates provides a very misleading picture of employment trends in the

black population.
26 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

employment rates. Similarly, the changes in economic opportunities caused by the 1980–

2000 immigrant influx raised the incarceration rate of black high school dropouts by 1.7

percentage points, accounting for about 10 percent of the 20 percentage point increase

observed during that period. Although immigration played an important role, much of the

decline in employment and increase in incarceration for the low-skill black population would

have taken place even if the immigrant influx had been far smaller.

These potentially controversial findings can be easily misinterpreted. Although we have

attempted to control for other factors that may account for the large shifts in black

employment and incarceration rates over the 40–year period that we examine, no study can

control for all possible factors. It is equally important to emphasize that although the

evidence suggests that immigration played a role in generating these trends, much of the

decline in employment or increase in incarceration in the black population remains

unexplained.

In closing, suppose one believes our results that immigration has lowered wages and raised

incarceration rates among black men. Does this mean that restrictions on immigration are

called for? The short answer is no. Most economists believe that immigration, like

international trade, has beneficial effects for the U.S. economy overall. An inflow of foreign

workers allows U.S. technology, plant and equipment, and other resources to be used more

productively, raising national income. Yet, while immigration benefits U.S. employers and

consumers, we’ve seen that it harms some groups, including the low skilled. The appropriate

policy response to immigration’s negative effects would not be to restrict immigration, which

would deny the U.S. economy the overall gains that foreign labor brings, but to seek ways to

help the losers from immigration.
Statements 27

Gerald D. Jaynes

Professor of Economics and African American Studies, Yale University

Economic Effects of Immigration on Black Workers

Chairman Reynolds and members of the Commission, my name is Gerald Jaynes and I am

Professor in the department of economics and in the department of African American Studies

at Yale University. One of my major research interests during the past decade and a half has

been immigration and its effects on race and ethnic relations and the economy. It is my

pleasure to offer you my thoughts on the economic effects of immigration on the wages and

employment of African American workers. My conclusions carry the weight of one whose

views have been converted by objective evidence and personal research. Several years past, a

colleague (Franklin Wilson—University of Wisconsin) and I were convinced that

immigration had profound negative effects on the jobs and wages of African Americans. To

ascertain the quantitative effect of immigration, we undertook a large scale statistical analysis

of the U.S. labor market. Despite strong convictions for our hypothesis that immigration had

large negative effects on black workers in particular, the data forced us to conclude

otherwise: negative effects were mostly absent and modest at worst for only a small segment

of lowest skilled workers.

Summarizing my views today, I know of no credible analysis separating the effects of

documented and undocumented immigration, but the evidence supports the conclusion that

from an economic standpoint immigration’s broader benefits to the nation outweigh its costs.

An assessment of the effects of immigration on the employment prospects of less educated

native born black workers is that the effect is negative but modest, and probably is significant

in some specific industries and geographic locations. A small set of specific labor markets

are negatively impacted by undocumented immigration; important examples are meat

packing in several areas of the South and Midwest and certain types of construction work

throughout the nation. However, the relative importance of less educated black workers’ job

losses due to the competition of immigrants is swamped by a constellation of other factors

diminishing their economic status. A significant minority of our most disadvantaged young

people persist in low educational achievement, dropping out of high school, and engaging in

negative behaviors such as criminal activity. Substantial improvement of the economic status

of disadvantaged African American workers will require considerable change in their social

status on many dimensions.

Labor Market Losers?

The charge that immigrants reduce the wages and employment of native-born black

Americans is one of the most contentious issues of the debate over immigration. Despite the

highly organized and publicly visible forces touting evidence of immigrants’ devastating

effects on native workers, and especially young black workers, how immigrant workers

affect native labor markets remains a topic of uneasy debate among both lay people and

economists. Some people argue current levels of immigration are literally destroying

communities because undocumented workers are driving blue-collar wages so low a middle

class standard of living is becoming unattainable for many working Americans. Such
28 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

arguments often claim foreign workers are particularly detrimental to the job prospects of

young African-American men lacking high school diplomas. Yet, according to polls, at least

until very recently, possibly a majority of American citizens believes otherwise. Many

Americans are more likely to believe immigrants fill jobs that without them would remain

vacant and that their labor accelerates economic growth and expands overall employment.

Consistent with these polls, rigorous analyses of the effects of immigration on less-educated

native workers suggests these effects are relatively small and in any event secondary to other

causes of less educated native workers’ often dismal employment experience. As I have

commented elsewhere, in addition to an abundance of anecdotal evidence showing immigrant

“takeover” of specific jobs (Jaynes, 2000:23), both common sense and straightforward economic reasoning explain why some Americans say they believe immigrants lower wages and

displace native-born workers from jobs. The common sense behind these fears emerges from

the most basic principles of supply and demand; mass immigration of millions of migrants

looking for work in a new country should be expected to exert a large and negative effect on

the wage and employment opportunities of workers already in the country. The strongest

evidence concerns male employment, and we focus on it.

Recent Labor Market Experience of Black Males

Supply and demand theory is supported by the fact that the surge in immigration during the

past 35 years occurred simultaneously with a large drop in the inflation-adjusted wages of

less-educated American workers. The adverse trend in the wages of less educated men in

particular was both absolute and relative to the wages of college educated men (Jaynes,

2006). As the average education levels of arriving immigrants declined significantly after

1980, the compensation of less-educated U.S. workers fell dramatically relative to wages of

the highly educated. One way to understand the increases in earnings inequality is to

compare the earnings of high school and college graduates. The earnings of full-time high

school graduate men fell significantly compared to the earnings of college graduate men of

the same age. Underlying the disadvantageous change in high school men’s relative wages

were two basic trends; while the inflation adjusted earnings of college graduates increased

significantly after the mid-seventies, the inflation adjusted earnings of high school graduates

at best stagnated and at times declined.

The largest reductions in earnings occurred among less educated men and women and for all

races. During the decade and a half period encompassed by the early 1970s and the late

1980s, the earnings of the poorest 10 percent of working men fell more than 30 percent even

as the earnings of the most affluent 40 percent held steady. To illustrate the point, between

the years 1969 and 1984 (measuring in 1984 constant dollars) the mean weekly wages of

white male high school graduates fell from $481 to $393; this was a reduction of 18 percent.

The fall in mean weekly earnings among white male high school dropouts was much sharper;

37 percent. Sharp reductions in the already lower wages of comparably educated African

American men decimated working conditions among young black males. During this fifteen

year period, black male high school graduates’ mean weekly wages fell 22 percent from $357

to $278, and for black male dropouts mean weekly wages were in a period of free fall,

dropping 32 percent from $312 to $213.
Statements 29

Falling inflation-adjusted wages and rising earnings inequality were accompanied by

increasing male joblessness, and as any one remotely familiar with the recent socioeconomic

history of the United States knows, joblessness and low earnings were especially severe

among young black males. Deteriorating wage opportunities had already precipitated severe

reductions in young black men’s employment during the decade of the 1970s, but their labor

market position deteriorated even further during the 1980s. Overall, the unemployment rate of

black men exceeded 20 percent during the early 1980s. At the midpoint of the eighties

decade, the average black man aged 20 to 24 who had dropped out of high school earned

only $146 per week when employed, unfortunately such black men had an unemployment

rate of 45%. Their high school graduate counterparts fared little better, averaging earnings of

$165 per week. White dropouts that age earned a third more and faced half the

unemployment rate, a situation still burdensome for their communities. The response to these

catastrophically low wages was a marked detachment of many black men from legal market

employment. Thus, although in 1970, black high school graduates and college graduates ages

25–34 had similar employment rates (90 percent versus 90.4 percent), by 1985 high school

graduates had an employment rate 13 percentage points lower (66.3 percent versus 79.6

percent). The employment rate of same age black high school dropouts during 1985 was 57.2

percent, more than 20 points lower than the college graduates. During 1970, even the dropouts

had enjoyed an employment rate of 85 percent. An indicator of the extent to which these young

men took recourse through black and gray market work is that the proportion of black high

school dropouts in this age group reporting no earnings more than tripled, from 7 percent in

1970 to 23 percent in 1985.

More recent labor market experience of young American men has continued to bolster the

claims of critics of immigration who say immigration deteriorates the employment prospects

of African American males. While the wages of full-time working white and Latino male

high school graduates rose sharply during the economic boom between 1995 and 2000, the

wages of similar black men were flat, leading many people to speculate that heavy Latino

immigration during this period was indeed deteriorating employment and wage opportunities

for black men. See Figure 1, which also illustrates the general deterioration in the wages of

young white and Latino men since 2000. The fact that the wages of young Latino men

overtook the wages of similar young black men during this period merely flames the fires of

discontent over immigration.

Assessing the Evidence of Immigration’s Labor Market Effects

One need not search hard to find disturbing evidence that recent immigrants may exert

negative effects on sectors of the U.S. labor market. But how convincing is the evidence?

Social scientists require stronger proof than mere correlation between arriving numbers of

immigrants and deteriorating job market conditions for natives. After all, the last four

decades of U.S. history have encompassed a host of socioeconomic changes, each of which

offers an alternative explanation for the deteriorating economic circumstances of lower

skilled black workers. The specifics of the alternatives make the conjecture especially salient

for young black males. No remotely credible argument blames immigration for the large and

near steady reduction in blue-collar jobs in the U.S. which began during the 1950s. Nor did

immigration cause the weakening of labor unions, automation, growth of the computerized

information economy, or deteriorating U.S. import-export balances that suck up good paying
30 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

jobs.

Figure 1: Weekly Wages of Male HS Grads Age 18-24 by

Ethnicity

$0

$100

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

Black

Latino

White

Data calculated from CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 2006, Table PINC-04; 2001 March Supplement, Table

PINC-04; 1996, Table PINC-06A. Wages of Full-time workers are annual earnings divided by 52.

And, indeed, social scientists’ rigorous statistical analyses initially stood upon its head the

common sense of straightforward supply and demand theory. Until well into the 1990s, the

great preponderance of rigorously designed and executed studies of immigration’s effects on

the economic position of U.S. citizens concluded that the effects were either ambiguous and

in any case negligible or that immigrants in fact had a positive effect on the employment and

wages of natives. These results held for both skilled and unskilled native-born workers and

for women, minorities, and whites. The one demographic group providing an exception to the

findings of no negative effects was recent Latino immigrants, who were found to be hurt by

those who arrived behind them.

The counterintuitive results of this research were explained in the following terms. The job

skills brought into the country by less-educated immigrants were complementary to the skills

of higher educated and trained natives; therefore immigrants did not compete for natives’

jobs. On the contrary, the rising supply of immigrant workers ready and able to work hard for

low wages is said to spur the expansion of many existing firms and the growth of new firms

able to profit from the low wages. The expanding firms based on low wage immigrant labor

also hired more skilled native labor as their revenues grew. Janitorial services, car washes,

landscapers, and poultry processing plants with growing numbers of employees require more

supervisors, clerical workers, accountants, etc. Using this literature, proponents of

immigration argued that immigrants in fact improved the working position of natives.

More Recent Analyses

Dissatisfaction with the statistical methods used in early studies of the effects of immigration

on the employment opportunities of natives led to the use of different models. Using more

sophisticated statistical methods than the earlier literature, Borjas, Freeman, and Katz (1992)

estimated that during the 1980s increased imports of goods produced with lower-skilled labor

and rising immigration of lower-skilled labor were important contributors to the adverse turn
Statements 31

in the weekly wages of American high school dropouts as they compared to the weekly

wages of American college graduates. These authors estimated the "implicit" increase in the

supply of lower-skilled labor within the U.S. that is consistent with the increased volume of

U.S. imports and immigrant labor supply. They estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of the

decline in the relative weekly wage of high school dropouts between 1980 and 1988 should

be attributed to increased immigration and trade. Wilson and Jaynes (2000:22-3) decomposed

the effects of immigration on geographic labor markets into separate effects of flows and

stocks of immigrant workers. Their analysis also estimated separate effects for various

native-born ethnicities and skill-education groups. They found that immigration flows across

geographic areas were a negligible factor on the declining wages and employment of less

educated native born workers. That finding is consistent with the no effects findings of

earlier literature. However, they also found that the size of the immigrant population within a

given area did have a modest negative affect on the employment of less educated African

Americans.

More recently, Borjas and Katz (2005) have refined earlier methods even further and updated

analysis of the effects of Mexican immigration on low skilled workers to cover the 1990s.

They conclude that the large growth in immigration during the eighties and nineties

(particularly the acceleration of low-skilled Mexican laborers) lowered the wages of nativeborn high school dropouts by about 8 percent and exerted a modest influence in widening

overall wage inequality within the U.S (2005: 37-38,Table 11, p. 63).

Special Labor Markets

Despite the relatively modest effects on natives’ wages in the U.S. overall, there are

obviously some job markets where immigrants exert significant influences on natives’ job

prospects. Meatpacking is a salient example of an industry where case study provides strong

evidence that low-wage undocumented immigrant workers have displaced native-born

workers. Always an especially dirty, physically demanding, and often dangerous occupation,

meatpacking jobs have historically attracted only the least educated members of the

workforce. The industry has typically offered employment to large numbers of African

Americans. Today immigrants dominate jobs in meatpacking and the undocumented are a

significant force. During the late nineties, the Immigration and Naturalization Service

estimated that undocumented workers composed 25 percent of the labor in meatpacking

plants in Iowa and Nebraska. During the past two decades, immigrant labor has come to

dominate the poultry industry in the Southern states. In these earliest years of the 21st

century, Latino immigrants are about three-fourths of the workers in the poultry plants

located in Northwest Arkansas, the vast majority of the remaining workers are from

Southeast Asia and the Marshall Islands. Native-born workers are now rare.

Through the 1970s and into the eighties, larger meat packing firms were heavily unionized

with nearly one-half (46 percent) of the industry’s workers unionized. The larger unionized

plants paid a wage premium, and during 1982 the base wage rate of the largest union was

$10.69 per hour ($22.33 per hour in terms of 2006 inflation adjusted prices). Rapid

immigration of workers from Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Central America during the 1980s

coincided with firm demands that workers accept wage cuts. Extremely turbulent employerunion relations in terms of strikes and corporate attacks on unions characterized the 1980s.
32 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

During the period 1983–1986 there were 158 work stoppages involving some 40,000 workers

in cattle and hog plants. By 1987, the union percentage of the workforce had been cut to 21

percent, and wages were down to the $8 to $9 range in union and non-union plants. A sharp

decrease in workers’ health and safety accompanied the collapse of the unions. Even though

the meatpacking industry already had the highest rates of occupational injuries and illness of

all U.S. industry, on the job illness and injury rates peaked in 1991 at 45.5 per 100 workers.

Jobs in the industry deteriorated so badly that only the steady influx of cheap immigrant

labor compensated for the extraordinarily high turnover rates, reaching as high as 100 percent

annually at some plants during the 1990s. Under these conditions, it is true that meatpacking

plants have difficulties attracting native workers (Macdonald, et al, 1999:15-16).

Further Policy Directions

What are the policy implications of findings that low-skill immigrants lower the employment

opportunities of some less educated native workers? If the United States allocates much

larger resources to border security to significantly reduce the number of undocumented

workers while also tightening legal channels of immigration, would the reduction in

immigrant workers result in more and higher pay jobs for American citizens? The easy

answer is that the reduced labor supply would indeed raise wages and allow more

employment of the native-born. However, as with any question of economic effects, the

demand side of the equation must also be considered. Undocumented workers with few legal

protections take jobs for lower pay and do them under more undesirable working conditions.

Such immigrant workers lower employers’ costs. Take away the immigrants and the result

will be increased costs and lower business profits. Where possible, a greater proportion of

jobs will be outsourced. Some of the more marginal businesses that will have to pay higher

wages to workers who are not as productive will not survive, and the demand for less

educated workers will likely decrease. The net effect is that wages and employment of

native-born workers will likely rise, but not nearly as much as a simple comparison of raw

numbers suggests.

Low-wage labor conditions unbecoming an affluent democratic society exist because in the

present climate of immigrant bashing there is little support for social and political action

saying let’s protect illegal workers. But this is short sighted, ultimately, if working conditions

are allowed to deteriorate to levels where migrants are exploited, all labor with whom the

migrants compete become exploited as well. This is true even if natives’ exploitation

materializes in the form of joblessness and poverty. The terms of the debate must be changed

to a desire to protect the integrity of the nation’s low-wage labor markets and the citizens

working in them from conditions inconsistent with standards of living and values of justice in

affluent representative democracies.

It is crucial that the nation adopt social policies designed to protect the rights and living

standards of all low wage workers. Such policies need not require draconian migration

polices that ban immigrants. Indeed, the worldwide globalization of markets ensures such

migration will continue. However, migration must be better regulated to ensure numbers

consistent with work conditions appropriate to the living standards in host countries. Wages

consistent with standards of decency for the least remunerated workers will need to be

supported by a program of explicit policies and reforms:
Statements 33

x minimum wage laws covering all workers

x enhancement of earnings by expanding the current Earned Income Tax Credit system

to all citizen households who work fulltime

x documented immigrant workers must be guaranteed reasonable paths to citizenship

x protection of low wage markets through stronger enforcement of existing laws against

undocumented migration

There are costs to instituting these policies. If employment conditions and compensation are

increased enough to attract citizen workers, employers’ profits will fall, and prices of some

services and products will rise. This will necessarily raise strong opposition to these policies

from obvious political constituencies. The simple fact that high migration of poor low skilled

workers into more affluent geographic regions raises the profits of employers of lesseducated workers explains why employers continue to clamor for more migrants and guest

workers (documented or not). In so far as middle class households employ such labor to

clean houses, landscape, do repair work or consume products and services priced lower

because of the cheap labor, a wide spectrum of middle class and affluent citizens gain

economically from migration. Other interest groups demand an end to all immigration,

claiming the migrants are devastating the employment prospects of young, less educated

native workers and depriving poor unassimilated minorities the opportunity to work

themselves into the lower middle class.

On average, Americans receive positive economic benefits from immigration, but, at least in

the short run, residents of particular localities and members of certain groups may lose. Cost

benefit analysis is only concerned with a comparison of aggregate costs and benefits; who

bears the costs is not considered. But in any large-scale social reorganization, there are

inevitably winners and losers. Economists call the welfare principle that legitimates costbenefit analysis as a decision-making criterion for social policy the Hicks Compensation

Principle. Stated succinctly, it merely says that if aggregate benefits of immigration exceed

costs, the gains of all society’s winners are sufficient to adequately compensate all society’s

losers. In theory, such payments from winners to losers would make everyone better off. In

practice, such compensation is seldom forthcoming. Along with localities hosting

disproportionately few immigrant residents but benefiting from the employment of many

immigrant workers, owners of capital, and most consumers and workers gain at the expense

of some native-born workers. The losers are low-skilled, poorly paid, and disproportionately

minority.

Democratic concepts of justice suggest the losses of a few should not override the gains of

the many. Democratic concepts of justice also demand that society’s least advantaged

members should not be paying for the immigration benefits enjoyed by the entire nation. A

democratic society benefiting from immigration and debating how to reshape its immigration

policies should also be discussing social policies to compensate less-skilled workers through

combinations of better training, relocation, and educational opportunities. It should also be

debating how the federal government should address the unequal burdens of immigration

among localities.
34 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Citations

Borjas, George, Richard B. Freeman, and Lawrence F. Katz. “On The Labor Market Effects

of Immigration and Trade,” in Richard B. Freeman and George Borhas eds, Immigration

and the Workforce, Economic Consequences for the United States and Source Areas.

Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1992.

Borjas George J. and Lawrence F. Katz “The Evolution of the Mexican-Born Workforce in

the United States,” Working Paper 11281, NBER, Cambridge, Mass: April, 2005.

Human Rights Watch, Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry

Plants, 2004, http://hrw.org/reports/2005/usa0105/index.htm.

Jaynes, Gerald D. Race and Immigration: New Dilemmas for American Democracy. New

Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press, 2000.

Jaynes, Gerald D. Two Evolutions: Black Affluence, Black Poverty—The Economics of

African American Citizenship Since Emancipation. Manuscript, Yale University, 2006.

MacDonald, J., M. Ollinger, K. Nelson, and C. Handy. 1999. “Consolidation in U.S.

Meatpacking.” Agricultural Economic Report 785. Washington, D.C.: Economic

Research Service, USDA.

U.S. Census Bureau, Press Release, May 10, 2006.

Wilson, Franklin D. and Gerald D. Jaynes, “Migration and the Employment and Wages of

Native and Immigrant Workers,” Work and Occupations, Vol. 27 No. 2, May 2000.
Statements 35

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr.

Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics, Cornell University

Illegal Immigration: The Impact on Wages and Employment of Black Workers

Overall Perspective

Before addressing the specific issue of illegal immigration and its economic effects on black

Americans, the broad subject needs to be placed in perspective. No issue has affected the

economic well-being of African Americans more than the phenomenon of immigration and

its related policy manifestations. Immigration defined the entry experience of the ancestors of

most the nation’s contemporary black American community (as slaves who were brought as

involuntary immigrants); it placed them disproportionately in the states that today comprise

the “South”( at no point in American history has less than half the black population ever

lived outside the South); it disproportionately tied them for centuries to the rural sector of the

Southern economy, where they were linked with the region’s vast agricultural economy (the

black migration out of the South did not begin until after 1915, when the mass immigration

of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries from Europe and Asia were cut off by war from

1914–1918 and by restrictive legislation from 1921–1965); and, with the accidental revival

of mass immigration in the years since 1965 that has continued to this day, immigration has

served largely to marginalize the imperative to address squarely and affirmatively the legacy

of the denial of equal economic opportunity that had resulted from the previous centuries of

slavery and segregation, which the civil rights movement and legislation of the 1960s sought

to redress. In this post-1965 era of mass immigration, no racial or ethnic group has benefited

less or been harmed more than the nation’s African American community.

From 1965 to 2007, the foreign-born population of the United States has soared from 8.4

million persons to 39.3 million persons (from being 4.4 percent of the nation’s population to

being 12.7 percent). As for origin of this current wave of mass immigration, only 2.5 percent

of the nation’s foreign born population in 2000 (when the last Census was conducted) were

from Africa [whereas 51 percent were from Latin America (including Mexico and Central

America); 25.5 percent were from Asia; and 15.3 percent were from Europe; and the residual

from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and various Pacific Islands]. Indeed, by 2004, the

surge in immigration led to the replacement for the first time in the nation’s history of black

Americans as the nation’s largest minority group by Hispanics, who now hold that

distinction. Although black Americans were 13.5 percent of the nation’s native–born

population, they were only 7.8 percent of the foreign-born population in 2000. Hispanics, on

the other hand, were only 8.5 percent of the native-born population while being 45.2 percent

of the foreign-born population.

Illegal Immigration and the Low Wage Labor Market

A major explanation for the rapid growth of the nation’s post-1965 immigrant population has

been—and continues to be—illegal immigration. It is estimated that there are ll.3 million

illegal immigrants in the country as of 2007 (plus another 1.1 million persons who are

believed to be undercounted in the published estimates). This means that about 30 percent of

the total foreign-born population are illegal immigrants. When one recalls that there have
36 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

been seven amnesties given by Congress since 1986 that have legalized the status of over 6

million former illegal immigrants, it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to

conclude that upwards of half the current foreign-born population of the country entered in

violation of the nation’s immigration laws.

The most distinguishing characteristic of the illegal immigrant population is their paucity of

human capital. It is currently estimated that 57 percent of the adult illegal immigrant

population have not completed high school while an additional 24 percent have only a high

school diploma. Thus, less than 19 percent of the illegal immigrant adult population have

more than a high school education as of 2007. Since most illegal immigrants come from

some of the world’s poorest nations, the quality of the education received is likely to be poor

as well, which means that the low levels of educational attainment are only part of the story.

Because of the low levels of human capital and the fact that they often lack adequate Englishspeaking skills, the vast majority of illegal immigrant workers are employed in low skilled

occupations. Even those few with higher skills are often forced to work in the low skilled

sector because their illegal status means that they often cannot use their credentials to get

better jobs. Thus, the estimated 7.4 million illegal immigrant workers (who are about onethird of the total foreign-born labor force) compete for jobs and income with the other 43

million adult members of the low skilled labor force who are legally entitled to work in the

civilian labor force (i.e., native born workers and the remainder of the foreign-born

workforce who are naturalized citizens, permanent resident aliens, and non-immigrants with

visa authorizations to work) in 2007.

In part due to the large supply of workers who comprise the low skilled labor force of the

United States and in part due to the fact that higher skilled workers can (and often do) also

work in this low skilled sector when they cannot find jobs for their talents, the low skilled

labor market always has the highest level of unemployment of any of the segments of the

U.S. labor force for whom educational attainment is measured. In February 2008, for

instance, the national unemployment rate was 4.8 percent, but the unemployment rate for

adults (over 25 years old) without a high school diploma was 7.3 percent. Low skilled adults

also often must compete with youth who seek employment in large sectors of the unskilled

labor market. Youths usually lose in this competition for jobs as employers typically prefer

adults, who are more dependent on the labor market for their income than are young people.

The unemployment rate for youth 16–19 years old was 16.8 percent and for young adults 20–

24 years old was 8.9 percent in February, 2008.

Black Employment in the Low Skilled Labor Market

Of the 50 million low skilled adults (those 25 years of age and over) in the civilian labor

force in 2007, black Americans accounted for about 5.6 million of such workers (or about 10

percent of the total). These black American workers, however, had the highest

unemployment rates of any of the four racial and ethnic groups for which the data was

collected. Black American adult workers without a high school diploma had an

unemployment rate of 12.0 percent, and those with only a high school diploma had an

unemployment rate of 7.3 percent in 2007. These 5.6 million low skilled black workers

accounted for one-third of the entire black labor force of slightly over 17 million workers.
Statements 37

Black youths (16–19 years old) also had the highest unemployment rate of any of the racial

groups for whom data is collected. Their unemployment rate for February 2008 was an

astounding 31.7 percent. These data are, of course, only for those still actively seeking

employment and who are not institutionalized. They do not include those who have been

discouraged from seeking employment because they feel it would not be worthwhile even to

try to find a job under these conditions of high unemployment among their peers. Nor do

they include any of the more than 1 million black youth and adults who are incarcerated in

the nation’s penal system (often because of the inability to find regular employment).

Clearly, black American workers who are poorly skilled have the greatest difficulty finding

jobs of all such workers similarly situated in the U.S. labor force.

Illegal Immigration and Black Workers

Illegal immigrant workers tend to concentrate in labor markets that have high concentrations

of legal immigrants and citizens (native born and naturalized who are from similar ethnic and

racial backgrounds). It is more difficult for authorities to identify them under these

circumstances, and they can rely on networks of friends and family members as well as other

employers and community assistance organizations composed of members of their same

backgrounds to find employment. As a consequence, there is a tendency for illegal

immigrants to cluster in metropolitan areas (especially central cities) or in rural areas that

already have concentrations of persons from similar backgrounds.

Black workers also tend to be concentrated in metropolitan areas—especially in central

cities. The only rural labor markets where black Americans are of significant number are in

the Southeastern states—a legacy of the slavery heritage of yesteryear.

Thus, it is not everywhere that there is likely to be significant competition between low

skilled black workers and illegal immigrant workers, but there are ample circumstances

where there is—such as the large metropolitan labor markets of Los Angles, New York, San

Francisco, Chicago, Miami and Washington-Baltimore. Moreover, some of the fastest

growing immigrant concentrations are now taking place in the urban and rural labor markets

of the states of the Southeast—such as Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, which never

before were significant immigrant receiving states in previous eras of mass immigration.

Indeed, about 26 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population are now found in the states

of the South—the highest percentage ever for this region. There is mounting evidence that

many of these new immigrants in this region are illegal immigrants.

Because most illegal immigrants overwhelmingly seek work in the low skilled labor market

and because the black American labor force is so disproportionately concentrated in this

same low wage sector, there is little doubt that there is significant overlap in competition for

jobs in this sector of the labor market. Given the inordinately high unemployment rates for

low skilled black workers (the highest for all racial and ethnic groups for whom data is

collected), it is obvious that the major looser in this competition are low skilled black

workers. This is not surprising, since if employers have an opportunity to hire illegal

immigrant workers, they will always give them preference over legal workers of any race or
38 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

ethnic background. This is because illegal immigrant workers view low skilled jobs in the

American economy as being highly preferable to the job opportunities in their homelands

that they have left. A job that pays the federal minimum wage of $7.15 an hour (some states

and localities have even higher minimum wages) is often several times higher than the daily

wage they could earn in their homelands, if they could get a job at all. Even the worst

working conditions in the United States are typically better than what many have experienced

before they came to this country. Illegal immigrants, therefore, are often grateful to receive

these low wages, and they will do whatever it takes to get these jobs (even if it means living

in crowded and substandard living conditions and working under harsh and dangerous

conditions). It is also easier for some employers to exploit illegal immigrant workers by

paying them less than the minimum wage and not paying them overtime wages because they

are fearful of revealing their vulnerable status if they were to complain. Citizen workers

know that paying the minimum wages means that the employer values your work at the

lowest level that he/she can legally pay. Furthermore, citizen workers expect labor and safety

laws to be enforced because they believe they have legal rights to job protections. It is not

that citizen workers will not do the work that illegal immigrants are willing to do. Rather, it

is that citizens often will not do the work for the same pay and under the same working

conditions as will illegal immigrants—nor should they.

It is not that employers are evil in their willingness to give preference to illegal immigrants.

It is that they are pragmatic in their decision making. Illegal immigrants are available

because the federal government has chosen to do little to monitor the work sites of the nation.

Seldom are any penalties placed on employers who violate the ban against hiring illegal

immigrants working even though it has existed since 1986. Moreover, because of this selfimposed impotence by the federal government, employers who try to follow the law are

penalized because they must compete with employers who violate the law and benefit by

paying lower wages and providing cheaper working conditions that are more profitable to

these employers but hazardous to the illegal workers. The status quo, therefore, is a

perversity of justice. Law breakers are rewarded while law abiders are punished.

Economists long ago have realized that there is no way to prove or to measure the job

displacement of citizens by illegal immigrants. This is because when immigrants (including

the large illegal immigrant component) move into a local labor market, citizens tend to move

out. Mass immigration has affected the internal migration patterns of citizen workers. As

they leave the area or as they drop out of the labor market because they cannot find jobs,

immigrants move in to claim the jobs But there is no way to measure the loss since many of

the victims are no longer in the local labor market.

As for wage suppression, all studies show that the large infusion of immigrants has depressed

the wages of low skilled workers. It is the illegal immigrant component of the immigration

flow that has most certainly caused the most damage, but there is no way to isolate their

singular harm. But even these studies most likely underestimate the true adverse impact

because there is a floor on legal wages set by minimum wage laws that do not allow the

market to set the actual wage level. What is known is that wages in the low wage labor

market have tended to stagnate for some time. It is not just that the availability of massive

numbers of illegal immigrants depress wages, it is the fact that their sheer numbers keep
Statements 39

wages from rising over time, and that is the real harm experienced by citizen workers in the

low skilled labor market.

What is apparent is that the unemployment rates in the low skilled labor market are the

highest in the entire national labor force. This means that the low skilled labor market is

in a surplus condition. Willing workers are available at existing wage rates. By definition,

therefore, illegal immigrants who are overwhelmingly present in that same labor market

sector adversely affect the economic opportunities of legal citizen workers because the illegal

workers are preferred workers. No group pays a higher penalty for this unfair competition

than do low skilled black Americans, given their inordinately high unemployment levels

The willingness of policy makers to tolerate the presence of illegal immigrants in the nation’s

labor force exposes a seamy side of the nation’s collective consciousness. Illegal

immigrants—who themselves are often exploited even though they may not think so—are

allowed to cause harm in the form of unemployment and depressed wages to the most

vulnerable workers in the American workforce. The continued reluctance by our national

government to get illegal immigrants out of the labor force—and to keep them out—by

enforcing the existing sanctions at the work site against employers of illegal immigrants is

itself a massive violation of the civil rights of all low skilled workers in the United States and

of low skilled black American workers in particular. Illegal immigrants have no right to work

in the United States. In fact, they have no right to even be in the country. Enforcing our

nation’s labor laws—including the protection of the legal labor force from the presence of

illegal immigrant workers—is the civil rights issue of this generation of American workers.

It is time, therefore, to make our immigration laws credible. The way to do this is to adhere

to the findings of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform chaired by the late Barbara

Jordan, who boldly stated what should be the goal of public policy: “The credibility of

immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people who should get in, do get

in; people who should not get in, are kept out; and people who are judged deportable, are

required to leave.”

No one would benefit more by the adherence to that standard than would low skilled black

American workers and their families.
40 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Harry J. Holzer

The Effects of Immigration on the Employment Outcomes of Black Americans

I’d like to address the question of how immigration—whether legal or illegal—affects the

labor market opportunities and outcomes of native-born African-Americans. In doing so, I’d

like to make several points.

x Most econometric evidence suggests that immigration over the past few decades has

had a modest negative effect on the employment outcomes of blacks, especially those

without high school diplomas.

The strongest evidence of negative effects comes from work by Borjas, Grogger and Hanson

(2006). They find quite strong negative effects on the wages and employment of black male

high school dropouts, and somewhat less on these outcomes for high school graduates, plus

very small impacts on black incarceration rates for either group.78

This evidence is based on some quite strong statistical assumptions, and only considers the

effects of immigration in the short-run—in other words, before capital inflows have occurred

that would mitigate the negative impacts of immigrants on native-born workers. It is

therefore likely that the these estimates overstate any real negative impacts, even though

some of these estimates themselves are already small.79

But the notion that there are at least some negative effects is bolstered by some newer papers

that have been written more recently. For instance, Deborah Reed and Sheldon Danziger

(2007) also find some very modest negative effects of immigration on the employment of

black men, using a simpler methodology that compares outcomes across metropolitan areas.

In an MIT doctoral dissertation, Christopher Smith (2008) has found somewhat larger

negative effects on the employment rates of both white and black teens, but much more

modest effects as they age into their 20s.80 These papers are significant, because analysis of

78 For instance, their estimates suggest that immigration between 1980 and 2000 has reduced wages by 8.3

percent, reduced employment by 7.4 percentage points, but raised incarceration by only 1.7 percentage points

among black male high school dropouts (among whom over 60 percent now spend some time in prison). The

corresponding estimates for black male high school graduates are 3.2 percent, 2.8 percentage points and 0.6

percentage points.

79 Borjas et al. assume a stable demand function over a 40-year period. They allow for only a limited number of

shifts by education or experience but otherwise assume constant employment responses to wage changes over

time and across groups. In a period where labor demand has shifted so dramatically against less educated

groups, it is very possible that some effects of demand shifts are attributed in this work to immigrant-induced

labor supply shifts. Also, capital inflows in the long run are expected to fully offset the higher supplies of

immigrant labor on average, thereby also dampening any negative effects for particular groups. See Ottavania

and Peri (2006).

80 Reed and Danziger estimate that immigration over the 1990s reduced the employment of black males with or

without high school degrees by roughly one percentage point, and reduced their wages by 3.5 percent. Smith

estimates that immigration over the past 15 years might have reduced teen employment rates by 5 percentage

points overall, and about 4 points for blacks, but these effects diminish very quickly for young people over age

20.
Statements 41

differences across metropolitan areas (by Prof. David Card of Berkeley and others) have

traditionally found much weaker evidence of negative impacts of immigration.

x Other evidence, including that by ethnographers, indicates that employers filling lowwage jobs requiring little reading/writing or communication clearly prefer immigrants

to native-born blacks, and encourage informal networks through which immigrants

gain better access to these jobs. The native-born black workers likely would be

interested in some, but not all of these jobs, depending on their wages.

The ethnographic work (Moss and Tilly, 2001; Kirschenman and Neckerman, 1991) shows

that employers perceive stronger work ethic among the immigrants, and a greater willingness

to tolerate low wages. They use networks to encourage a ready flow of applicants from the

friends and relatives of their immigrant workers. Some of these perceptions and the hiring

behavior they generate might well reflect discrimination, especially against black men whom

employers generally fear; some of it also likely reflects real differences in the attitudes and

behaviors of workers from different groups, on average.81

As for the workers themselves, their interest will likely vary across the wages paid and

sectors of the economy in which these jobs are found. I am inclined to believe that many

black men would be interested in the residential construction or transportation jobs often

filled by immigrants, but somewhat less interested in the low-wage agricultural or service

jobs. Of course, in the absence of immigrants, these wages would rise somewhat. But

whether they would rise sufficiently to induce a greater supply of black labor is

questionable.82

x Our evidence does not allow us to distinguish the effects of legal v. illegal

immigration on black Americans, though we can speculate about these differences to

some extent.

On the one hand, illegal immigrants will often be paid sub-market wages, so the competition

they generate will be even more intense for native-born workers; while their willingness to

accept poor working conditions is greater than that of legal immigrants. On the other hand,

the extent of their relative presence in the sectors where native-born blacks might really be

interested in employment is unclear.

x The fact that the impacts of immigration are modest suggests that other factors are

much more responsible for the negative trends in employment of black men and their

81 Survey data in Holzer (1996) on application and hiring rates by race confirm that employers generally prefer

Hispanic (including immigrant) applicants to those of blacks, while Holzer (1987) shows some of the

difficulties blacks have using informal networks to gain employment. Falcon and Melendez (2001) also show

that Hispanics use informal networks very effectively, though the jobs generated pay quite low wages. Evidence

of continuing discrimination against black men in hiring clearly appears in the tester studies conducted by Pager

(2003), while employer fears of this group are well-documented by Kirschenman and Neckerman op. cit.

82 Evidence on the “reservation wages” (or minimally necessary wages for accepting employment) of young

blacks relative to those of whites appears in Holzer (1986), while ethnographic data on the occupational

perceptions and preferences of young black men appears in Young (2003). Lewis (2006) shows that employers

who face fewer immigrants frequently use more capital-intensive production techniques, at least within

manufacturing industries, rather than creating many higher-wage jobs. Thus, many such jobs would disappear in

the absence of immigration before reaching the wages that might induce young blacks and other native-born

workers to accept them.
42 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

rising incarceration rates, and therefore that other policies besides immigration reform

might be needed to change these trends.

Interestingly, we might expect black women to have suffered as much from the influx of

immigrants as did black men; yet the employment rates of low-income black women

improved dramatically in the 1990s, as a result of welfare reform and the expansion of

financial supports for the working poor (like the Earned Income Tax Credit and child support

subsidies).83

Likewise, other forces are likely much more responsible for the decline in employment

outcomes of black men and their rising incarceration rates. These include: 1) The declining

availability of good-paying jobs to less-educated (and lower achieving) male workers,

especially outside of the service sector; 2) The rising returns to illegal work, especially in the

“crack” trade, in the 1980s; 3) The growing numbers of young blacks growing up in singleparent families and in poor neighborhoods; 4) Changes in attitudes and behavioral norms, on

issues like schooling, employment and marriage; 5) Criminal justice policies that resulted in

dramatically higher incarceration rates for those in the drug trade; and 6) Changes in child

support enforcement that resulted in many default orders being set and many young men

going into “arrears” on their payments.84

Accordingly, it is unlikely that any changes in immigration law will dramatically improve

employment opportunities and outcomes for young blacks. To the extent that we “reform”

immigration, we would want to carefully consider the full range of benefits that accrue to our

economy and society from immigration, as well as its costs.85 But, when considering how to

improve outcomes of young blacks, we should instead focus mostly on:

1. Improving educational outcomes and achievement, starting with pre-kindergarten

programs and continuing into higher education;

2. Enhancing youth development opportunities and mentoring for adolescents;

3. Improving their early work experience and occupational training with high-quality

career and technical education;

4. Reducing incarceration rates (without increasing crime) and also the barriers to work

faced by ex-offenders;

5. Extending the EITC to childless adults, including non-custodial fathers; and

6. Reforming child support regulations and taxes on “arrears” to encourage more labor

force participation by non-custodial fathers.

83 See Blank (2002). 84 See Edelman et al. (2006) and Holzer et al. (2005) for more evidence and discussion of these issues. 85 The benefits include lower prices for important consumer commodities, like food and housing, that are

heavily used by lower-income families; these lower prices help raise their real incomes and offset the lower

wages that might be generated by competition with immigrants. The provision of health care and elder care,

which frequently suffer from worker shortages, is likely enhanced by immigration as well.
Statements 43

References

Blank, Rebecca. 2002. “Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States.” Journal of

Economic Literature. 40:4, 1105-66.

Borjas, George; Jeffrey Grogger and Gordon Hanson. 2006. “Immigration and AfricanAmerican Employment Opportunities: The Response of Wages, Employment and

Incarceration to Labor Supply Shocks.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working

Paper No. 12518.

Edelman, Peter; Harry Holzer and Paul Offner. 2006. Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young

Men. Washington DC: Urban Institute Press.

Falcon, Luis and Edwin Melendez. 2001. “The Social Context of Job Search for Racial

Groups in Urban Centers.” In L. Bobo et al. eds. Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four

Cities. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Holzer, Harry J. 1987. “Informal Job Search and Black Youth Unemployment.” American

Economic Review. 77:2.

Holzer, Harry J. 1986. “Reservation Wages and their Labor Market Effects for Young White

and Black Males.” Journal of Human Resources. 21:2.

Holzer, Harry J. 1996. What Employers Want: Job Prospects for Less-Educated Workers.

New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Holzer, Harry; Paul Offner and Elaine Sorensen. 2005. “Declining Employment among

Young Black Men: The Role of Incarceration and Child Support.” Journal of Policy

Analysis and Management. 24:2.

Kischenman, Joleen and Kathryn Neckerman. 1991. “We’d Love to Hire Them But...” In C.

Jencks and P. Peterson eds. The Urban Underclass. Washington DC: Brookings

Institution.

Lewis, Ethan. 2005. “Immigration, Skill Mix and the Choice of Technique.” Federal Reserve

Bank of Philadelphia Working Paper.

Moss, Philip and Chris Tilly. 2001. Stories Employers Tell. New York: Russell Sage

Foundation.

Ottaviano, Gianmarco and Giovanni Peri. 2006. “Rethinking the Effects of Immigration on

Wages.” NBER Working Paper No. 12497.

Pager, Devah. 2003. “The Mark of a Criminal Record.” American Journal of Sociology.

Reed, Deborah and Sheldon Danziger. 2007. “The Effects of Recent Immigration on

Racial/Ethnic Labor Market Differences.” American Economic Review. 97:2.

Smith, Christopher. 2008. “Dude, Where’s My Job? The Impact of Immigration on the Youth

Labor Market.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Economics,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Young, Alford. 2003. The Minds of Marginalized Black Men. Princeton University Press.
44 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Julie Hotchkiss

Research Economist and Policy Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

The Labor Market Experience and Impact of Undocumented Workers

(Version: March 28, 2008) by Julie L. Hotchkiss, Ph.D. and Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, Ph.D.

I. Introduction and Disclaimer

Thank you Mr. Chairman; I appreciate the opportunity to share with you and your fellow

Commissioners the results of recent research I have undertaken with my colleague, Myriam

Quispe-Agnoli, who is also here in the audience, on the issue of the impact and experience of

undocumented workers here in the United States.

Before I begin, let me stress that the statements I make today are my own and do not

represent the opinions or policy of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, or of the Federal

Reserve System. Further, the motivation for undertaking this research was to inform the

policy discussion, not to make specific policy recommendations.

II. Questions of the Analysis

A. How are wages impacted when the concentration of undocumented workers increases?

B. Is there any evidence of displacement of documented workers from firms that hire a

greater share of undocumented workers?

C. Would we expect any greater downward pressure on wages in response to the presence of

undocumented workers than in response to the presence legal immigrants?

III. Structure of the Statistical Analysis and Caveats

While I’m sure you’d rather I get straight to the answers to the questions I just listed, it’s

important to make sure that you are aware of some of the caveats and limitations of the

research. All statistical analysis is limited by the data available, statistical tools at hand, and,

I must admit, the imagination of the researcher.

The analysis is performed with information on workers and firms in the state of Georgia

only. This research was possible as a result of a data sharing agreement that allowed me to

have access to the Georgia Department of Labor administrative records used for

administering the Unemployment Insurance program. These data are highly confidential and

restricted in their access.

While analysis using data from only one state may seem limiting, Georgia was determined by

one study to have experienced the fastest growth in its undocumented population between

2000 and 2006.86 In addition, Georgia is ranked as sixth in the nation for size of

86 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics (August 2007), estimates 123%

growth.
Statements 45

undocumented immigrant population.87 So if this issue has relevance anywhere, certainly

Georgia would be one of those places. It may also be particularly relevant for this hearing to

note that 30 percent of the population in Georgia identifies itself as black or African

American, ranking the state 4th in the U.S.88 The implication is that a significant portion of

the potentially impacted workforce in Georgia is black.

The data that we use contains quarterly earnings and SSNs on approximately 97 percent of

all non-farm workers. We do not have information on workers' education, immigration status,

or hours of work. We attempt to make up for limited worker information by repeating the

analysis by sector, where we might find workers who are more alike than across sector. In

addition, we account for the firm characteristics and any variation in wages that might be

specific to the sector in which the worker is employed.

We identify undocumented workers by determining whether a worker’s SSN is invalid. We

use a simple algorithm based only on the value of the first three digits. This figure shows the

share of workers in each of these broad industries that are identified as undocumented.

0.0%

0.1%

0.2%

0.3%

0.4%

0.5%

0.6%

0.7%

0.8%

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

Construction Leisure & Hospitality Professional & Bus Services

Wholesale Trade Manufacturing Retail Trade

Figure 3. Percent of workers with invalid area numbers by broad industry, 1990:1 - 2006:4

The first thing to note from this figure is that the growth in the share of undocumented

workers is greatest in those sectors we might expect—construction; leisure and hospitality;

and professional and business services, which includes landscaping services.

The second notable feature is that even in construction, the share of undocumented workers

in our sample has reached a maximum of less than 1 percent of all workers in that sector. We

are clearly undercounting the presence of undocumented workers in Georgia. The most

recent estimate suggests that 7 percent of workers in Georgia are undocumented.89 The

87 Center for Immigration Studies (November 2007).

88 American Community Survey (2006).

89 Center for Immigration Studies (November 2007).
46 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

implication is that we are capturing only about two percent of all undocumented workers in

the state, and, perhaps more importantly, this means that any impact of the presence of

undocumented workers that we identify is expected to be an underestimate of the impact we

would measure if we were capturing all undocumented workers in the analysis.

IV. Main Findings

A. Impact on Wages

Based on the most recent estimates of the growth of undocumented workers between 2000

and 2007, the share of undocumented workers in Georgia has increased from four to seven

percent. Our analysis indicates that as a result of this growth in the share of undocumented

workers, the annual earnings of the average documented worker in Georgia in 2007 were 2.9

percent ($960) lower than they were in 2000. The results for the construction industry were

not very precise, but annual earnings for the average documented worker in the leisure and

hospitality sector in 2007 were 9.1 percent ($1,520) lower than they were in 2000. This

impact is expected to be lower for the U.S. overall, where we've seen only a two percentage

point increase in undocumented workers.

In addition, these estimated impacts of the presence of undocumented workers on wages are

larger than what others have found for the impact of immigrants as a whole.

B. Displacement

Our results show that an increase in the share of a firm's new hires that is undocumented

leads to a decrease in documented workers leaving their jobs, but to an increase in

undocumented worker leaving. Like others have found for immigrants overall, we find that

newly arriving undocumented workers seems to displace earlier arriving undocumented

workers, but have no adverse effect on the separation of documented workers.

How could it be that arrival of a new set of workers results in less separation? There are two

mechanisms that could be at work to explain this—we did not test these theories, but offer

them, as others have, to illustrate how this result can be consistent with economic theory.

When an input to the production process becomes less expensive, it should have two effects.

In this case, it is labor that has become relatively less expensive with the arrival of

undocumented workers. The first effect is what is called the substitution effect. The lower

cost of labor entices firms to substitute away from capital inputs and use more labor; this

increases the demand for labor, thus employment.

The second effect is called the scale effect. The idea here is that if one input to the production

process becomes less expensive, total production becomes less expensive, inducing firms to

increase production, which, in turn, increases demand for all inputs, including labor.

C. Why the impact of undocumented workers is expected to be greater

When workers do not have many alternative job prospects, they have been found to be less

sensitive to wage changes than if they could find new employment easily. What this means is

that these limited workers will be less likely to quit their jobs when they face low wages or
Statements 47

hostile work environments. Historically, economists have found that married women, blacks,

and workers with chronic medical conditions have behaved in this way.

When a worker finds himself in a limited employment situation, the worker acts as if the

employer is the only one in town. The firm takes advantage of this position by paying lower

wages. In fact, it's likely that labor market limitations are even greater for undocumented

workers than for immigrants as a whole. This would provide an explanation for why the

downward pressure on wages is even greater in the presence of undocumented workers than

it is merely in the presence of immigrants.

The results of our third analysis indicate that undocumented workers are only about half as

likely as documented workers to leave their jobs in response to a lower wage. This implies

that it is the limited employment and grievance opportunities of undocumented workers that

provide the likely mechanism through which their presence lowers wages.

V. Conclusions

Again, I am not here to promote or comment on any specific policy. However, the results

from our research lead to three conclusions that we hope will be useful for the policy

discussion:

x Wages will be higher in the absence of undocumented workers.

x Employment will not necessarily be higher, and may even be lower, in the absence of

undocumented workers.

x And, any effective policy that reduces or eliminates workers’ limited employment and

grievance opportunities (which would include somehow legitimizing undocumented

workers) will lead to higher wages for all workers, on average.

Thank you for your attention.
48 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Steven A. Camarota

Immigration and Black Americans: Accessing the Impact

The issue of the impact of immigration on black Americans has long been debated. During

the previous great wave of immigration at the turn of the last century, most black leaders

such as D.W. Dubois, Booker T. Washington and A. Phillip Randolph felt that immigration

harmed their community. Job competition has traditionally been the key issue, but other

concerns exist as well. For example, the strain illegal immigration may create on public

services may be particularly problematic for African Americans because, in many cases,

schools and hospitals in some black areas are already stressed. Illegal immigration may add

to this problem. There is also concern that by increasing demand, illegal immigration may

drive up costs for low-income rental housing. When it comes to possible job competition,

there are a number of areas of debate, but there are several areas on which there is general

agreement. These areas of agreement are important because they should help frame the

debate.

I will start my discussion with three areas on which there is general agreement. I will then

move on to areas on which there is less agreement.

Three Areas of Agreement

First, there is little debate that illegal immigration primarily, though not exclusively,

increases the supply of workers at the bottom end of the labor market. Occupational

categories such as building cleaning and maintenance, food service and preparation, and

construction are the most heavily impacted (See Table 1). If illegal immigration has a

negative impact on U.S.-born workers, it will tend to be on those who have the least

education because this is the kind of worker who generally does this type of job.

Second, all of the available data show that black men are disproportionately employed at the

bottom end of the labor market. Compared to white men, a much larger share of native-born

black men have relatively little education. About six out of 10 adult black men have only a

high school degree or failed to graduate high school, compared to about four out of 10 white

men (see Figure 1). I have estimated, as shown in Table 1, that about half (47 percent) of

black men are employed in occupational categories that could be described as illegalimmigrant heavy. And unemployment among black men averages 13 percent in these same

occupations. In contrast, only 34 percent of native-born white men are employed in

occupations that have a heavy concentration of illegal immigrants; unemployment for white

men averages 7 percent.

Third, there is a large body of research showing that less-educated black men, like lesseducated workers overall, have generally not fared well in the U.S. labor market in recent

years. This is true whether we look at wages, benefits, or labor force attachment. Workers

with less than a high school education or those with only a high school education have seen

wages decline or stagnate. The share of these workers offered benefits like health insurance

by their employers has also declined. And while employment is cyclical, there has been a
Statements 49

long-term trend of declining employment and labor force participation for less-educated

native-born men, including less-educated black men.90

The overall deterioration in employment rates, wages, and benefits is a strong indication that

less-educated labor is not in short supply. If such workers were in short supply, wages and

benefits and employment rates would all be rising, as employers try desperately to attract and

retain the relatively few workers available. But this seems to be exactly the opposite of what

has been happening. The deterioration in the labor market for less-educated black men is

particularly problematic because they already tended to make the lowest wages and have the

lowest labor force participation rates.

There may be many possible explanations for the problems experienced by less-educated

workers. But anyone asserting that labor is in short supply must directly address the

declining wages and benefits. For example, if one argues that trade is a key reason for the

decline, then it still means that access to foreign labor, through trade, is increasing the

effective supply of labor in the United States and exerting downward pressure on wages. If

one argues that technological innovation is increasing productivity, which may also increase

the effective supply of workers as well as reduce demand for less-skilled workers, then once

again the supply of workers is being increased, and this undermines the idea that workers are

scarce. Any assertion that less-skilled workers are very scarce must address the

overwhelming economic evidence in wages, benefits, and employment to the contrary.

Testimonials from employers, who understandably wish to keep wages low, are not

systematic evidence.

The Impact of Immigration on Black Workers

Several studies have found that immigration has impacted the wages or employment of

native-born African Americans. This includes recent studies by Borjas, Grogger, and

Hanson that found that immigration reduces labor force participation of the least-educated

black men.91 Research by Andrew Sum, Paul Harrington, and Ishwar Khatiwada at

Northeastern University has found that immigrants are displacing young native-born men in

the labor market and that the largest impact is on blacks and Hispanics.92 In my own

research I have found that blacks are more likely to be in competition with immigrants than

are whites.93 A 1995 study by Augustine Kposowa concluded that, "non-whites appear to

90 See for example, The State of Working America, 2006/07 by Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia

Allegretto.

91Immigration and African-American Employment Opportunities: The Response of Wages, Employment, and

Incarceration to Labor Supply Shocks. By George J. Borjas, Jeffrey Grogger, and Gordon H. Hanson

Working Paper 12518.

92The Impact of New Immigrants on Young Native-Born Workers, 2000-2005, September 2006 By Andrew

Sum, Paul Harrington, and Ishwar Khatiwada.

93In addition to the results shown in Table 1, which focus on illegal immigration, in a 1998 study published by

the Center for Immigration Studies, I found that native-born blacks are more likely to be in competition with

immigrants than are whites. The Wages of Immigration: The Effect on the Low-Skilled Labor Market.
50 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

lose jobs to immigrants and their earnings are depressed by immigrants."94 A 1998 study of

the New York area by Howell and Mueller found that a 10 percentage point increase in the

immigrant share of an occupation reduced wages of black men about five percentage points.

Given the large immigrant share of the occupations they studied, this implies a significant

impact on native-born blacks.95

There certainly is a good deal of anecdotal evidence that employers often prefer immigrants,

particularly Hispanic and Asian immigrants, over native-born black Americans. A more

qualitative study by anthropologist Katherine Newman and Chauncy Lennon of fast food

jobs in Harlem, found that immigrants are much more likely to get hired than are native-born

black Americans.96

Some studies have not found an impact on blacks from immigration. Most studies that have

found little or no impact are based on comparisons of labor market outcomes across cities

with different levels of immigrants. Part of the reason it is hard to estimate the effect of

immigration in this way is that we live in a national economy. The movement of capital,

labor, goods, and services tends to create wage and employment equilibrium between

American cities. Moreover, immigrants are attracted to cities with higher wage and

employment growth. This will tend to mask the impact of immigration. As a result,

comparisons across cities will tend to understate the immigration effect. Studies that have

tended to treat the country as one large labor market have found larger effects than have cross

city comparisons.

Conclusion

There is no debate that illegal immigration, and even immigration more generally, increases

the supply of workers who are employed in lower-skilled, lower-wage sectors of the

economy. It is also uncontested that a significant share of native-born black men have

education levels that make them more likely to compete with illegal immigrants.

Additionally, there is agreement that wages and employment for less-educated men,

including black men, have generally stagnated or declined. The lack of wage growth makes

it very difficult to argue that less-educated workers are in short supply. There are a number

of studies indicating that immigration is harming the labor market prospects of black

Americans. However, the debate over whether immigration reduces wages or employment

among black Americans is not entirely settled. If one is concerned about less-educated

workers in this country, it is difficult to justify continuing high levels of legal and illegal

immigration that disproportionately impact the bottom end of the labor market.

94Augustine J. Kposowa, “The Impact of Immigration on Unemployment and Earnings among Racial

Minorities in the United States,” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 18, Number 3, July 1995. 95 “The Effects of Immigrants on African-American Earnings: A Jobs-Level Analysis of the New York City

Labor Market, 1979-89” (November 1997). Levy Economics Institute Working Paper No. 210. By David

Howell and Elizabeth Mueller.

96 “Finding Work in the Inner City: How Hard Is it Now? How Hard Will it Be for AFDC Recipients?” by

Katherine Newman and Chauncy Lennon.
Statements 51

It is important to understand that immigration does not simply reduce wages or employment.

There is a good deal of agreement among economists that the benefit to more-educated

natives that comes from reducing the wages of the least-educated Americans must be very

small. A 1997 study by the National Research Council, The New Americans, has a good

explanation as to why the gains are so small. There is no body of research showing large

economic gains to native-born Americans from immigration. The primary beneficiary of

immigration seems to be the immigrants themselves. A central part of the immigration

debate is how we weight the benefits that go to immigrants against the losses suffered by the

poorest and least-educated Americans. How one answers this question will have a significant

impact on what immigration policy makes the most sense.

Table 1

Occupation

Illegal

share

(est.)

Total

immigrant

share

(legal &

illegal)

Share of

occup.

comprised

of nativeborn blacks

Share of

occup.

comprised

of nativeborn whites

Share of all

native-born

blacks who

are

employed in

occup.

Nativeborn

black

unemp

rate

Share of all

native-born

whites who

are

employed in

occup.

Nativeborn

white

unemp

rate

Farming, fishing & forestry 22% 36% 5% 53% 1% 10% 1% 7%

Construct. & extraction 18% 30% 5% 56% 8% 19% 10% 9%

Blding cleaning & maintenance 15% 32% 13% 46% 6% 12% 3% 10%

Food service & preparation 14% 29% 9% 50% 5% 17% 3% 7%

Production 8% 19% 9% 63% 10% 8% 8% 5%

Transportation & moving 6% 17% 14% 58% 17% 9% 8% 7%

Installlation & repair 4% 14% 6% 70% 5% 8% 7% 3%

Healthcare support 3% 22% 15% 48% 1% 2% 0% 4%

Computer mathematical 3% 23% 4% 65% 2% 4% 3% 2%

Office & admin. Support 3% 13% 13% 60% 11% 9% 6% 5%

Arts, entertain. & media 2% 12% 5% 74% 1% 8% 2% 5%

Personal care & service 2% 18% 11% 58% 2% 9% 1% 6%

Sales 2% 12% 6% 72% 9% 7% 12% 3%

Life, phy. & soc. science 2% 21% 3% 65% 0% 4% 1% 1%

Education, training 2% 12% 6% 74% 2% 6% 3% 1%

Architecture & engineering 1% 15% 3% 74% 1% 4% 4% 1%

Management occp. 1% 11% 4% 78% 6% 4% 15% 2%

Protective service 1% 6% 14% 70% 5% 4% 3% 3%

Healthcare practitioner 1% 18% 7% 68% 2% 7% 3% 1%

Business & financial 1% 12% 6% 75% 3% 4% 4% 2%

Community & social service 1% 9% 17% 65% 2% 7% 1% 1%

legal occp. 0% 4% 3% 86% 0% 0% 1% 2%

Total Labor Force 6% 18% 8% 65% 100% 10% 4% 100%

Source: Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the March 2007 Current Population Survey. Figures for native-born black and

white men are for those 16 years of age and older who are non-Hispanic and chose only one race.

Highest

Illegal

Occup.

Lowest

Illegal

Occup.

Characteristics by Occupational Category

All Figures Are for Men 16 and Older
52 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Figure 1

Education of Native-born Black Men (18 to 64)

HS only

42%

Some Coll.

28%

Bachelor's or

more

14%

<HS

16%

Education of Native-born Black Men (18 to 64)

HS only

42%

Some Coll.

28%

Bachelor's or

more

14%

<HS

16%

Education of Native-born White Men (18 to 64)

<HS

9%

HS only

32%

Some Coll.

29%

Bachelor's or

more

30%
Statements 53

Richard Nadler

The Impact of Immigration, Legal and Illegal, on the Employment Status of Black

Workers and the Poverty Status of African American Children

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Commission: I’m honored by your invitation to be

here today, to cast such modicum of light as I can on what has become a potentially

explosive social issue. I’m speaking of the impact of mass immigration, roughly threequarters of it Hispanic, on the economic plight of African Americans.

During the first decade of the new century, the immigrant population of the United States has

increased by a million residents per year on net, half of them illegal. This inflow, roughly 3.5

immigrants per 1,000 residents annually, exceeds the normative rate of the past century by

little. But a great debate rages regarding its consequences.

Critics call it an invasion.

A recent ad campaign, sponsored by the Coalition for the Future American Worker, features

Dr. Frank Morris, the former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus

Foundation. In it, Dr. Morris says, quote: “Immigration accounts for 40 percent of the

decline in employment of African American men.”

In another spot, he tells his viewers, quote: “If you’re a Black American, you’ve noticed

many of us are out of work. You’ve probably also noticed the huge increase in immigration.

Those two facts are related.”

Many are the woes attributed to immigration in general, and to illegal immigration in

particular: downward pressure on wages and innovation, and upward pressures on

unemployment, poverty and crime. Many are the remedies proposed to these problems,

ranging from skills-testing to mass deportations.

Immigrations critics of the Left and Right present differing and conflicting analyses of the

impact of contemporary immigration. The conservative critics believe that the free movement

of labor is generally beneficial, but that particular characteristics of the current wave negate

these benefits. Some contend that the low skill level of illegal immigrants retards innovation,

or capitalization per worker. Others say that the cultural mismatch of the Latin American

poor to contemporary American life imposes tax costs that outweigh benefits.

On the Left, critics regard contemporary immigration as an oversupply of labor, particularly

in low-skill jobs, driving unemployment and crime up, and wages down, particularly among

the urban poor.

But on one thing the immigration critics, Left and Right, agree: the market model of Laissez

Faire has broken down, at least as regards the world’s “tired, poor and huddled masses,

yearning to be free.”
54 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

But has it really? As I listened to the unfolding debate over comprehensive immigration

reform, it struck me that the assertions of critics were widely credited as fact; indeed, that the

threshold question was seldom raised, let alone answered.

Do high levels of immigration correlate to high levels of the various ills attributed to it? My

own work in this field, “Immigration and the Wealth of States,” matched the immigration

patterns of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to data that immigration ostensibly

affected—Gross State Product, Personal Income, Disposable Income, Median Income

(household and per capita); rates of poverty and unemployment; and rates of crime. The

study focused particularly on recent trends, state-by-state, 2000 to 2007.

The critics of immigration are not always consistent in what they mean by it. In

disaggregating high-immigrations jurisdictions (states + the District of Columbia), I used all

three definitions suggested by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota in his

paper, “Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born

Population” (CIS, Nov. 2007).

The “high percentage” jurisdictions [ > (%) ] in my study were the 10 states (including DC)

with the highest proportion of immigrants in their resident population. This is a useful

definition, but it does not differentiate between settled immigrants and recent arrivals.

The “high influx” states [ > (+) ] were the 10 whose population in 2007 was most altered,

percentage-wise, by an influx of immigrants since 2000. This set captures a considerable

percentage of the least settled and most mobile immigrants. At least half of the immigration

since 2000 has been illegal.

The “high number” [ > (#) ] states were the 10 states with the most foreign-born individuals,

regardless of percentages. This definition includes one state with many immigrants not

captured in the other two: Illinois.

These three overlapping groups of 10 encompassed 19 separate jurisdictions containing 82.6

percent of the U.S. immigrant population and 60.4 percent of the nation’s African American

population.

In what follows, I will speak of these 19 as the high immigration jurisdictions—HIJs—and

the other 32 states, where 17.4 percent of the immigrant population resides, as “lowimmigration.” The study, which the commission staff has made available to you, lists the

states in each immigration subgroup.

Were it true that high immigration correlated with a slow-down in capitalization per worker,

this should be reflected in Gross State Product trends. It was not. The HIJs—high

immigration jurisdictions—experienced Gross State Product growth significantly higher than

the other 32 states.
Statements 55

Were it true that high immigration decreased income in its broadest measure, then the states

with low immigration should have an advantage in personal income per capita. But in fact,

personal income per capita was not only higher in the HIJs, but was increasing at a

significantly faster rate.

Were it true that the costs associated with high levels of immigration negated its benefits,

then that should be reflected in state statistics on disposable income—after-tax income. But

in fact, the HIJs had a significant advantage over low immigration states in disposable

income and disposable income per capita, whether measured in dollar amounts or in rates of

increase.

“Median income” defines the center of a set of earners—the income point at which half earn

more, and half earn less. If contemporary immigration constitutes a “war against the middle

class,” as Lou Dobbs contends, then median incomes should be declining in HIJs, either

absolutely, or at least in relation to other states.

The opposite is true. Median income, whether household or individual, whether measured in

dollars or by trend-over-time, fared better in the high immigration jurisdictions than in the

rest of the country. This advantage held true not only for the 19 HIJs together, but for the

three component subgroups separately.

No matter how you slice it or dice it, the HIJs have outperformed the 32 low immigration

states economically. But what of the social costs? In 2006, unemployment was 4.6 percent

nationally. In the HIJs, it was lower than average—4.4 percent in the full set, and 4.2 percent

in the rapid influx subset—the group with the highest likely influx of illegals from 2000 to

2007. Unemployment in the low immigrations states was 4.9 percent.

Twelve and seven-tenths percent (12.7%) of U.S. households earned annual income below

the federally defined poverty line in 2006, compared to 12.0 percent in the 19 HIJs, and 10.3

percent in the “rapid influx” subset. In the 32 low immigration states, the household poverty

level stood at 13.7 percent—a percent above the national average.

The F.B.I. unified crime reports define crime rate as crimes committed per 100,000 residents.

In 2006, the HIJs had a crime rate of 3,807 per 100,000 residents compared to 3,809 in the

low-immigration states. In other words, the crime rates were virtually identical.

To summarize: high state levels of immigration, variously defined, correlate with above

average performance in Gross State Product, Personal Income, Disposable Income, and

Median Income, and below average rates of Individual and Household Poverty and

Unemployment. This may not be what you’re hearing on Fox News or CNN. But it happens

to be true.

Now none of these findings relates directly to the impact of contemporary immigration on

African Americans. But they raise some serious questions regarding assertions like those

raised by Dr. Morris.
56 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

The states with 83 percent of the immigrant population contain 60 percent of the black

population as well. If immigrants are themselves heavy users of welfare, and likelier-thanaverage to live in poverty, then why should HIJs have better-than-average rates of poverty

and unemployment?

In preparation for this hearing, I developed additional charts that extend the methodology of

“Immigration and the Wealth of States” to black unemployment and African American child

poverty, state by state. Allow me to summarize them for you.

State Employment Data on Black Unemployment, by Immigration Set and Subset

Despite a steady immigrant flow during the current administration, black unemployment

tracked general unemployment. It increased during the first three years of this administration,

from 7.6 percent in 2000 to 10.8 percent in 2003, then decreased for the next four years to 8.3

percent in 2007. In both 2000 and 2007, black unemployment was 3.6 percent higher than the

national rates of unemployment (4.0 percent in 2000, and 4.6 percent in 2007).

In other words, from 2000 to 2007, unemployment increased an identical 0.6 percent

nationwide and among Blacks. But when we compare black employment trends in the HIJs

and the low immigration states, a different picture emerges. (We note here that the American

Community Survey, from which the numbers are taken, does not report separate black

unemployment results for the high-immigration states of Hawaii and Utah because the

sample sizes render the results insignificant.)

Af American Unemployment in the High Immigration Jurisdictions – 2000

State Bl Labor Force Unemployed No. of

Immigrants

2000

% Black

Unemployed

US 16,603,000 1,269,000 27,022,000 7.6% US

NY 1,386,000 110,000 3,228,000 7.9% NY

GA 1,334,000 86,000 570,000 6.4% GA

FL 1,067,000 67,000 2,385,000 6.3% FL

TX 1,108,000 86,000 2,367,000 7.8% TX

CA 1,086,000 82,000 9,053,000 7.6% CA

MD 845,000 54,000 455,000 6.4% MD

IL 900,000 99,000 1,211,000 11.0% IL

VA 96,000 30,000 580,000 4.3% VA

NJ 595,000 51,000 1,368,000 8.6% NJ

MA 198,000 12,000 694,000 6.1% MA

CT 201,000 8,000 309,000 4.0% CT

DC 158,000 13,000 48,000 8.2% DC

AZ 90,000 2,000 607,000 2.2% AZ

WA 114,000 9,000 483,000 7.9% WA

NV 58,000 4,000 352,000 6.9% NV

DE 89,000 5,000 42,000 5.6% DE

RI 26,000 2,000 119,000 7.7% RI

Fifty-five percent of the African American labor force resides in nine high immigration

states. In six of these (NY, FL, TX, MD, VA, & NJ), including three of the top four, the

African American unemployment rate went down from 2000 to 2007:
Statements 57

Af Am Unemployment in the High Immigration Jurisdictions – 2007

State Bl labor force Unemployed # of Immigrants

2007

% Bl Unemployed

US 17,496,000 1,445,000 37,280,000 8.3% US

NY 1,488,000 113,000 4,105,000 7.6% NY

GA 1,406,000 106,000 953,000 7.5% GA

FL 1,350,000 82,000 3,453,000 6.1% FL

TX 1,291,000 96,000 3,438,000 7.4% TX

CA 1,068,000 103,000 9,980,000 9.6% CA

MD 848,000 45,000 731,000 5.3% MD

IL 842,000 90,000 1,702,000 10.7% IL

VA 748,000 34,000 856,000 4.5% VA

NJ 573,000 46,000 1,869,000 8.0% NJ

MA 193,000 8,000 897,000 4.1% MA

CT 183,000 16,000 443,000 8.7% CT

DC 142,000 13,000 78,000 9.2% DC

AZ 111,000 7,000 891,000 6.3% AZ

WA 106,000 10,000 722,000 9.4% WA

NV 95,000 6,000 457,000 6.3% NV

DE 89,000 4,000 77,000 4.5% DE

RI 35,000 2,000 140,000 5.7% RI

Here is a summary chart of the movement in unemployment, by immigration group and subgroup:

Black Unemployment, 2000 & 2007

2000 2007

U.S. 7.6% U.S. 8.3%

32 states low immigration 8.3% 32 states low immigration 9.6%

17 high immigration 7.2% 17 high immigration 7.4%

10 > (#) 7.4% 10 > (#) 7.6%

9 > (%) 7.4% 9 > (%) 7.5%

9 > (+) 6.2% 9 > (+) 6.1%

x Black unemployment went up three times as much in the U.S. as a whole as in the

HIJs—0.6 percent vs. 0.2 percent

x Black unemployment went up six-and-a-half times as much in the low immigrations

states as in the HIJs—1.3 percent vs. 0.2 percent

x The subgroup of states in which black unemployment actually decreased was the

“high influx” subgroup—the jurisdictions where the immigrant inflow, 2000–2007

constituted the highest percentage of state resident population.

The above tables do not prove that high rates of immigration, taken as a single factor, cause

enhanced rates of black employment. But critics of immigration must explain why black

employment, both as a rate and as a trend, has been generally superior at the points of

immediate impact than in places where no such immigration impact has occurred.
58 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

State Data on Child Poverty, by Immigration Set and Subset

Compiling household poverty data by race and state in the interim between one decennial

census and the next is like painting a bull’s eye on a moving target. The researcher must

work from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic

Supplements. The sample sizes, disaggregated in this way, may be quite small, so it is

customary to merge a number of years into a rolling average. The dollar amount of the

federal poverty level is adjusted year to year, requiring additional adjustments. The date of

this hearing has not allowed me to do this, but the National Center for Children in Poverty at

Columbia University has provided a useful analogue. They have calculated poverty numbers

and rates for African American children, state-by-state. As explained at their website,

http://www.nccp.org/profiles/US_profile_7.html:

“State data were calculated from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement

(the March supplement) of the Current Population Survey from 2005, 2006,

and 2007, representing information from calendar years 2004, 2005, and 2006.

NCCP averaged three years of data because of small sample sizes in less

populated states. The national data were calculated from the 2007 data,

representing information from the previous calendar year... Families and

children are defined as poor if family income is below the federal poverty

threshold. The poverty threshold for a family of four with two children was

$21,200 in 2008, $20,650 in 2007, and $20,000 in 2006.”

The NCCP numbers exclude children of ethnic Latinos who report their race as black, and

children who were reported as “more than one race.”

The NCCP numbers also exclude those states that, even with a three year spread, yield

sample sizes too small for meaningful analysis.

As a result, 15 of our original 19 “high immigrations jurisdictions” remain, and only 19 of

the 32 “low immigration states.” Nonetheless, the included states contain the overwhelming

majority of the NCCP’s estimate of Black children in poverty—10,837,515 of 10,922,206.

The chart below summarizes the findings:

African American Child Poverty, 2006 (est.) by Immigration Group & Subgroup

Total Black

Children

Black Children in

poverty

Black non-poor

children

% in poverty

U.S. (Charted states only) 10,837,515 3,699,034 7,138,481 34%

19 low immigration 4,788,560 1,873,443 7,138,425 39%

15 high immigration 6,048,955 1,825,591 4,223,364 30%

9 (>) states 5,303,562 1,651,147 3,652,415 31%

8 (%) states 3,701,537 1,147,242 2,554,295 31%

8 (+) states 2,168,575 546,716 1,621,859 25%
Statements 59

x The African American child poverty rate in the 15 HIJs was 30 percent–4 percent

lower than the national average, and 9 percent lower than the child poverty rate for

the low-immigration states.

x All three of the high immigration subsets have black child poverty rates below both

the “low immigration state” average and the national average.

x Among the immigration subsets, the lowest black child poverty rate is found in the

“rapid influx” group—the states whose population has been most impacted,

percentage-wise, by an inflow of immigrants since 2007.

The chart on the following page lists the NCCP calculations of African American children in

poverty state-by-state, and the percentage of black children that this number represents. The

shaded states are those that qualify under one or more of the definitions of “high-immigration

states” used in “Immigration and the Wealth of States,” Americas Majority Foundation, Jan.

2008. (See pages 14 and 15.)

Where the NCCP researchers conclude that a sample is too small to be meaningful, I have

listed the state, but left its fields blank.

Now, “child poverty” is not identical to “household poverty.” But it is no far stretch to

recognize that the rates of African American child poverty are reflective of black household

poverty. Again, those who believe that immigration, legal or illegal, is causative of black

poverty have some explaining to do. If immigration were a primary factor, why would its

effect be less where its signature is substantial? Or least where its immediate impact is

greatest?

An easy answer is that “immigrants follow opportunity.” But this begs the question. To a

market economist, voluntary migration of labor is not merely an effect of prosperity, but a

cause. The opportunity that the “poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free” grasp in

America reduces costs to consumers, and liberates capital for new investment. This in turn

increases the demand for labor in other sectors, offsetting the initial loss of wages. Economic

freedom is not a zero sum game.
60 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

African American Child Poverty, 2006 (est.)

Total Black

Children

Black children

in poverty

Black Children

Non-poor

% poverty

U.S. (separately calculated) 10,600,965 3,604,328 6,996,637 34%

Alabama 346,131 145,375 200,756 42%

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas 131,883 55,391 76,492 42%

California 649,241 188,280 460,961 29%

Colorado 330,063 99,019 231,044 30%

Connecticut 91,163 17,321 73,842 19%

Delaware 45,321 8,611 36,710 19%

Dist of Col 78,964 30,796 48,168 39%

Florida 845,814 245,286 600,528 29%

Georgia 784,964 259,038 525,926 33%

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois 566,689 215,342 351,347 38%

Indiana 168,872 77,681 91,191 46%

Iowa 22,838 12,104 10,734 53%

Kansas 48,680 22,393 26,287 46%

Kentucky 95,736 37,337 58,399 39%

Louisiana 429,503 171,801 257,702 40%

Maine

Maryland 453,335 90,667 362,668 20%

Massachusetts 156,903 61,192 95,711 39%

Michigan 432,251 177,223 255,028 41%

Minnesota 75,447 27,161 48,286 36%

Mississippi 330,968 155,555 175,413 47%

Missouri 200,503 78,196 122,307 39%

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada 58,931 21,215 37,716 36%

New Hampshire

New Jersey 328,916 62,494 266,422 19%

New Mexico

New York 787,325 283,437 503,888 36%

North Carolina 541,297 189,454 351,843 35%

North Dakota

Ohio 405,357 190,518 214,839 47%

Oklahoma 85,084 32,332 52,752 38%

Oregon

Pennsylvania 361,964 152,025 209,939 42%

Rhode Island 17,679 5,834 11,845 33%

South Carolina 354,252 95,648 258,604 27%

South Dakota
Statements 61

(continued) Total Black

Children

Black children

in poverty

Black Children

Non-poor

% poverty

Tennessee 314,620 110,117 204,503 35%

Texas 795,444 254,542 540,902 32%

Utah

Vermont

Virginia 388,267 81,536 306,731 21%

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin 113,110 44,113 68,997 39%

Wyoming

Totals: 10,837,515 3,699,034 7,138,481 34%

Now, classical economics does not claim that an increased supply of labor must at all times

tend to the general welfare. Labor is only one element of production, and if other factors

become less free, or more scarce, then a general contraction in living standards may follow.

That, in fact, describes the preconditions for emigration—the reasons why people leave the

country of their birth for a strange land.

But should such a general contraction occur in America—and our studies do not suggest that

this has yet occurred—the optimal solution to an oversupply of labor would be a reduction of

impediments to emigration. As things stand now, the undocumented—or if you prefer,

illegal—immigrant has no practical path to legal work status, and powerful reasons to stay in

America even if the work dries up.

This summer, when Congress rejected comprehensive immigration reform—an approach

simultaneously recognizing the humanity of the immigrant worker, the claims of commerce,

and public demand for border control—it robbed itself of the tools that could fine-tune either

the market forces or the security interests that underlie the current debate.

But these matters lead us into policy areas broader than today’s topic.
62 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Carol M. Swain

Illegal Immigration and Black Unemployment

I would like to commend the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for its decision to investigate the

impact of illegal immigration on the wages and employment prospects of low-income black

Americans.

It is significant that the Civil Rights Commission chose to have this important discussion

today on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. It is

significant because Dr. King was in Memphis to support black sanitation workers who were

striking because of their poor working conditions, and today we come together to discuss

new threats to black employment. In Dr. King’s mountaintop speech the night before he was

killed, he called for us to grapple with issues of injustice and fair treatment for all our

citizens. I’m not sure whether Dr. King could have predicted that black Americans—now

granted full status as citizens—would face threats to their ability to earn a living from noncitizens, from illegal immigrants. But I can say that although much has changed in 40 years,

there are still mountains to climb.

National surveys show that white and black Americans are united in their calls for

immigration reform.97 Many of the problems and issues identified by researchers have a

potentially negative impact on the social, political, and economic wellbeing of non-blacks as

well.

It is crucial, therefore, that we note this when we discuss the impact of immigration on black

America. Otherwise, we risk the dismissal of our findings as attributable to deficiencies

inherent in blacks themselves rather than to larger institutional and systemic forces that work

against the interests of a much wider population.

I am the editor of Debating Immigration, an anthology published last year by Cambridge

University Press. My comments today will be focused primarily on black unemployment and

some of the factors that I believe account for the overrepresentation of blacks among the

nation’s unemployed.

Figure 1 presents unemployment rates by race and year from 1990 through 2006. It shows

that black rates of unemployment are consistently higher than other groups. In June 2004 the

overall unemployment rate was 5.6 percent with white unemployment at 5.0 percent, black

unemployment at 10.2 percent, and Hispanic unemployment at 6.7 percent.

97 Brian DeBose, “Blacks, Whites View Immigration Similarly, Poll Says Think U.S. should limit number,” The

Washington Post, November 17, 2005, A12; Jeff Diamond, “African American Attitudes Towards Immigration

Policy,” Internal Migration Review 32, No.2 (Summer 1998): 451-470; Gallup Poll News Service, “Gallup Poll

Social Series Governance,” Field survey (09/12/2005-09/15/2005), Qn42.
Statements 63

By June 2005 the economy as a whole seemed to be improving. The overall unemployment

rate dropped to 5.0 percent. However, the employment situation for blacks did not improve.

In fact, black unemployment actually increased to 10.3 percent, up from 10.2 percent the

previous year.

So, while white unemployment dropped from 5.0 percent to 4.3 percent and Hispanic

unemployment dropped from 6.9 percent to 5.8 percent, blacks saw their unemployment rate

increase.

Among the black unemployed are a disproportionate percentage of black high school

dropouts and graduates. In fact, during the 2003 recession, blacks aged 16–24 were nearly

two-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed than white workers and, by a slight

margin black graduates, constituting 40 percent of the black population, were more adversely

affected than members of other groups. When job gains have occurred for blacks, it has been

disproportionately in dead end, low sector jobs.

Declining wages adversely impact low skill workers. A study published by the Pew Hispanic

Center in 2004 found significant employment gains for Hispanics in newly created low-wage

jobs although these gains were offset by reduced earnings for the newer immigrants who

were suffering a two-year decline in wages.98

What accounts for high rates of black unemployment?

A few possible causes include:

a) An oversupply of low-skilled workers

b) Racial discrimination by employers

c) Inadequate education and training

Let’s look at each of these more closely. Dr. Steven Camarota has argued that the high black

and Hispanic unemployment rates can be partially attributed to the oversupply of low-skilled

immigrants arriving since 1990. These newcomers have increased the supply of labor by 25

percent for the kinds of jobs traditionally taken by high school dropouts and graduates.99

While immigrant workers constitute 15 percent of the U.S. labor force, they are a whopping

40 percent of workers without high school diplomas.100 Only 12 percent have greater than a

high school diploma.101 As a consequence, the greatest competition occurs among people at

the margins of society, a group that includes poorly educated blacks, whites, and Hispanics

who compete against each other and against new immigrants for low-wage, low-skill jobs.

98 Rakesh Kochbar, “Latino Labor Report, 2004: More Jobs for Immigrants but at Lower Wages,” Report of the

Pew Hispanic Center, 18.

99 Steven A. Camarota, Testimony for U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, November 16,

2005.

100 Ibid. 101 Ibid.
64 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Continued racial discrimination in the labor market is a second documented factor that helps

to explain black unemployment. Princeton University Professor Devah Pager has shown that

some employers confronted with a black male job applicant with similar education, work

history, style of presentation and clean criminal record, is less likely to get a call back than a

white male applicant with a felony conviction.102 Blacks with felony convictions were almost

totally shut out of the labor market.

Inadequate education is another factor. Clearly, our primary and secondary educational

system is failing to meet the needs of many ethnic minorities and working class whites. Cuts

in state and federal programs have made it far more difficult for lower and working class

students to get the preparation needed to prepare themselves for higher paying jobs and

advanced educational opportunities.

Conclusion

Blacks are our nation’s big losers and most undesired group. Few people seriously expect

illegal immigrants to be returned home. When Congress gets around to legalizing the

millions of illegal immigrants residing in the country, there will be even more increased

competition for social welfare programs, educational opportunities, jobs, and low-income

housing. If history repeats itself, black Americans will continue to be the nation’s biggest

losers.

Persistent black unemployment is not helped by the oversupply of labor or by the decisions

of employers who prefer new immigrants and white ex-felons to blacks with no criminal

offenses. Persistent and lingering discrimination fuels the anger and frustration that many

blacks feel towards America, and it contributes to growing ethnic conflict and ethnic violence

between blacks and Hispanics in urban neighborhoods.

Black unemployment is also a likely contributing factor to some of the dysfunctional

conditions found in some black communities, such as high rates of violent crime, single

parent households, illegitimacy, infant mortality, drug use, and infectious diseases. It doesn’t

have to be this way. We can positively impact a range of conditions just by helping to reduce

black unemployment.

What should we do to reform immigration?

I believe that an independent commission akin to those used for military base closings will

be needed to reform immigration. A reform package must restore confidence in the rule of

law, make it costlier for employers to discriminate against native workers, and must increase

penalties for anyone found in the country illegally. To assist native workers, we must invest

in education, create incentives for employers to train and hire new workers, and create a

tamperproof Social Security card. Such efforts would help protect and expand the gains of

historically disadvantaged populations, including poor whites and legal immigrants.

102 Devah Pager, Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in the Era of Mass Incarcerations. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Public Comment 65

Public Comment

Mrs. Kimela Santifer-Berry of Los Angeles, in a letter to the Commission, wrote that the

Commission’s briefing was an acknowledgment that illegal immigration was a problem, and

that in her view, her city was becoming a third-world country. She related that many workers

in businesses and shops where she was a customer had non-English speaking staff, despite

the English-language speaking clientele. She objected also to what she viewed as jobs for

young people being filled by illegal workers, particularly jobs that she believed would

otherwise be filled by African Americans. She invited the Commission to visit Los Angeles

to draw their own conclusions, particularly in the African American communities with high

unemployment.
66 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Speaker Biographies

Gordon Hanson

Gordon H. Hanson is the Director of the Center on Pacific Economies and Professor of

Economics at the University of California at San Diego, where he holds faculty positions in

the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and the Department of

Economics. His current research examines the international migration of high-skilled labor,

the causes of Mexican migration to the United States, the consequences of immigration on

labor-market outcomes in the United States, the relationship between business cycles and

global outsourcing, and international trade in motion pictures. His most recent book is Why

Does Immigration Divide America? Public Finance and Political Opposition to Open

Borders (Institute for International Economics, 2005). He is co-editor of the Journal of

Development Economics, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research,

a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a senior research fellow at the Bureau for

Research and Economic Analysis of Development. He obtained his BA in economics from

Occidental College in 1986 and his Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1992.

Gerald Jaynes

Gerald Jaynes is professor of economics and African American Studies, Yale University.

Currently Director of Graduate Studies for African American Studies, he was Chair during

1990–1996. Jaynes was study director of the National Research Council’s Committee on the

Status of Black Americans and co-edited A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society,

National Academy Press, 1989. Jaynes’ books also include Branches Without Roots: Genesis

of the Black Working Class in the American South, Oxford, 1986 and Immigration and Race:

New Challenges for American Democracy, Yale, 2000. Professor Jaynes has authored many

articles on race relations and has testified to Congress on race and immigration. He holds a

Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois.

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr.

Vernon M. Briggs Jr. is Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at the New York State

School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Cornell University. He also taught at the

University of Texas at Austin for 14 years. Professor Briggs specializes in the area of human

resource economics and public policy, and has also researched the subject of immigration

policy and its effects on American workers. He has authored or co-authored numerous

articles and books, including Immigration Policy and the American Labor Force (1984), The

Internationalization of the U.S. Economy: Its Labor Market Implications, (1986),

Immigration and the U.S. Labor Market: Public Policy Gone Awry, (1993), Still an Open

Door? U.S. Immigration Policy and the American Economy, (1994), and Mass Immigration

and the National Interest: Policy Directions for the New Century, 3rd Edition, (2003).

He was a member of the National Council on Employment Policy from 1977 to 1987 and

Chairman of the Council from 1985–87. He has served on the Board of Directors of the
Biographies 67

Corporation for Public and Private Ventures (1978–1984) and of the Center for Immigration

Studies (1987 to present). He received his B.S. degree in economics from the University of

Maryland and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Michigan State University.

Harry J. Holzer

Harry J. Holzer is a Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow

at the Urban Institute in Washington DC. He is a former Chief Economist for the U.S.

Department of Labor and a former Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He

is a Senior Affiliate of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan and a

Research Affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of WisconsinMadison. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Metropolitan Policy

Program and a member of the editorial board at the Journal of Policy Analysis and

Management. Holzer’s research has focused primarily on the labor market problems of lowwage workers and other disadvantaged groups. His books include The Black Youth

Employment Crisis (1986); What Employers Want: Job Prospects for Less-Educated Workers

(1996); Employers and Welfare Recipients: The Effects of Welfare Reform in the Workplace

(with Michael Stoll, 2001); Moving Up or Moving On: Who Advances in the Low-Wage

Labor Market (with Fredrik Andersson and Julia Lane, 2005); Reconnecting Disadvantaged

Young Men (with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner), Urban Institute Press, 2006; and

Reshaping the American Workforce in a Changing Economy (co-edited with Demetra

Nightingale), Urban Institute Press, 2007. He received his A.B. from Harvard in 1978 and his

Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 1983.

Julie Hotchkiss

Julie Hotchkiss is a research economist and policy advisor in the regional group of the

research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Prior to joining the Bank in

2003, she was professor of economics at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at

Georgia State University, where she still holds an adjunct position. Her major fields of study

are earnings and employment differentials across different groups of workers, variations in

employment and earnings across time, and policy implications of changes in labor supply.

She is a member of the American Economic Association, the Southern Economic

Association, the Western Economic Association, and the Society of Labor Economists. She

serves on the Board of Trustees of the Southern Economic Association, on the Board the

Committee of the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and has served as co-editor

for Southern Economic Journal and the Eastern Economic Journal. She received bachelor of

arts degrees in economics and French from Willamette University. She earned her master’s

degree and doctorate in economics at Cornell University.

Steven A. Camarota

Steven A. Camarota is Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies in

Washington, D.C. He is currently under contract with the Census Bureau as the lead

researcher on a project examining the quality of immigrant data in the American Community

Survey. His writing has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, National Review, New York

Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Public Interest, and Social Science Quarterly. He has
68 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

also appeared on radio and television news programs including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News,

NBC Nightly News, and ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, National Public

Radio, and the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. His recent works with the Center for

Immigration Studies include Immigrants in the United States 2007: A Profile of the

America’s Foreign-born Population and 100 Million More: Projecting the Impact of

Immigration On the U.S. Population, 2007 to 2060, Illegitimate Nation: An Examination of

Out-of-Wedlock Births Among Immigrants, and Natives The High Cost of Cheap Labor:

Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of

Virginia in public policy analysis, and a Masters degree in political science from the

University of Pennsylvania.

Richard Nadler

The late Richard Nadler served as president of the Americas Majority Foundation. His works

with the Foundation included Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino Vote

and Immigration and the Wealth of States. Mr. Nadler previously served as researcher and

writer for the National Advisory Commission on Adult Education in the U.S. Department of

Education. He was a contributor to such publications as National Review, Policy Review, The

Wall Street Journal, Insight Magazine, Education Reform News, and Human Life Review.

Nadler founded the Missouri Taxpayers Watchdog Association, and served as its president

from 1988–2000. He headed the 70/30 Committee (2000), the Republican Ideas Political

Committee (2001), the Council for Better Government (2002), Americas Pac (2004), and

Americas Majority (2005 through December, 2006.). In 2003, he served as political director

of the Republican Leadership Coalition.

Carol M. Swain

Carol M. Swain is a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. Before

joining Vanderbilt in 1999, Professor Swain was a tenured associate professor of politics and

public policy at Princeton University. Her books include Black Faces, Black Interests: The

Representation of African Americans in Congress, Debating Immigration (ed.), The New

White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration, and Contemporary Voices of

White Nationalism (co-authored with Russ Nieli). She has appeared on numerous radio and

television shows including C-Span’s Washington Journal, PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,

ABC World News Tonight, Fox News, CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN’s Anderson Cooper,

CNN’s Showbiz Tonight, CNN’s Paula Zahn, CNBC, Tavis Smiley Show, and National

Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Here and Now, and The Connection. She earned a

bachelor’s degree from Roanoke College, a master’s degree from Virginia Polytechnic and

State University, a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master

of studies in law from Yale University.
Commissioner Statements 69

Commissioner Statements

Dissent Statement of Commissioners Michael Yaki and Arlan Melendez

We respectfully, but strongly, disagree with both the processes and outcomes involved with

this Briefing Hearing and the instant Report. We believe that the Briefing Report and its

findings and recommendations are merely the outcome of the most recent fatally flawed,

inadequate process upon which the conservative majority of the Commission is reporting.

The Report's findings and recommendations are based upon a biased record. We believe that

this underlying record was engineered in order to facilitate the narrow view which the

recommendations embody. We are deeply concerned about the lack of balance on the panels

which testified at the briefing which underlies this Report. Representatives from major,

relevant non-governmental organizations were either not invited to testify or declined to do

so due to mistrust of the motives of the Commission's conservative majority. As a result,

issues affecting Hispanic and Latino Americans were discussed and debated without their

participation or representation. This void in the record vitiates its validity, and, therefore, its

usefulness.

Further, because the process which led to the majority's adoption of Part A was

inappropriate, incomplete, and one-sided, it cannot serve as a basis from which valid findings

can be distilled or meaningful recommendations drawn. Therefore, no useful weight can be

accorded to the recommendations.

Concerns about immigration, falling wages and employment prospects for low-skilled

workers require more than unbalanced panels and sketchy anecdotal testimony. The serious

examination that any disparate impact study requires is completely missing from this report.

During challenging economic times, it is especially easy to target and scapegoat. What

should be foremost in the minds of the Commission (but which are deeply hidden by the

majority) are concerns regarding backlash and discrimination against communities because

they are perceived as residing here illegally. Only in that full context can any meaningful

report be produced. Alas, that is not and never has been the intent of the majority.

Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Gail Heriot

If the reader takes away one point from the Commission’s report, it should be this: One of the

consequences of the on-going illegal immigration of low-skilled workers into the United

States is that it decreases the wages of low-skilled workers generally. This is simple supply

and demand.

To be sure, the lowering of wages for low-skilled jobs is only one among many consequences

of this immigration. There are others–good, bad and hard-to-classify. All of them must be

taken into consideration in formulating sound immigration policy. Most, however, fall

outside the jurisdiction of the Commission. The purpose of this briefing was to highlight a
70 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

particular piece of the immigration puzzle–one that disproportionately affects American

citizens and legal immigrants who are members of racial minorities.103 It should not be

confused with the puzzle as a whole.

It is also important not to overstate the case that illegal immigration depresses wages. Some

critics of current immigration policy imagine that ending illegal immigration would result in

American citizens and legal immigrants taking over all low-skilled jobs at higher wages.

This is unlikely. In the medium- to long-term, some of these jobs would simply migrate to

countries where labor is cheaper.104 Others would be eliminated entirely. Homeowners, for

example, may be willing to employ a gardener or housekeeper so long as wages remain very

low. But if wages go up, they would do the work themselves.

Nevertheless, the fundamental point remains: There is a category of jobs that would remain

in this country and pay higher wages in the absence of continued illegal immigration. No one

should be surprised, therefore, to find that opposition to illegal immigration is very high

among low-skilled workers, who bring home smaller paychecks on account of it. Similarly,

no one should mistake for altruism the comparably greater support for illegal immigration

among high-skilled workers, who sometimes personally benefit from low wages they pay to

gardeners and housekeepers.105

Supporters of the status quo in immigration policy often accuse opponents of deep-seated.

racism. One Senate staff member told Time Magazine, “There is a fear of white people

being overrun by darker-skinned people.”106 The truth is usually more mundane. Many of

those who harbor strong feelings about illegal immigration–whether in support or in

opposition–are motivated at least in part by ordinary self-interest, mostly, though by no

means exclusively, of the economic variety.

The difficult job of Congress is to try to overcome the tendency to cater to one’s own self

interest and instead to determine what is in the interest of the nation as a whole.

103 Several of our witnesses testified to the disproportionality point. See, e.g., Statement of Dr. Vernon Briggs

at 38 (“Because most immigrants overwhelmingly seek work in the low skilled labor market and because the

black American labor force is so disproportionately concentrated in this same low wage sector, there is little

doubt that there is significant overlap in competition for jobs in this sector of the labor market”); Statement of

Dr. Steven Camarota at 49 (“Black men are disproportionately employed at the bottom end of the labor

market”).

104 In response to a question that I posed along these lines at our briefing, Dr. Harry Holzer testified that,

because of the mobility of capital, increased enforcement of immigration laws would create an “enormous”

disruptive effect. Transcript at 54. Dr. Gordon Hanson thought that such increased enforcement would also

lead to capital outflows from the United States, but that such outflows would only partially offset the impact of

increased enforcement on low-skilled wages. Transcript at 57.

105 While illegal immigration is deeply unpopular with the general public, legal immigration is not. See, e.g.

Alan Wolfe, One Nation After All (1998)(The division between legal and illegal immigrants “is one of the more

tenaciously held distinctions in middle class America: the people with whom we spoke overwhelmingly support

legal immigration and express disgust with the illegal variety”).

106 See Massimo Calabresi, “Is Racism Fueling the Immigration Debate?” Time (May 17, 2006).
Commissioner Statements 71

As I understand it, the argument that competition from low-skilled, illegal immigrants has

been a bad thing is more nuanced than the typical competition-is-hurting-us argument.

Almost half a century after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, we now have a

significant number of citizens whose families have been unemployed for three and four

generations. It’s not just that they have never had a job themselves; frequently no one in

their families has had a steady job. The skills necessary for employability that parents

ordinarily pass on to their children–like punctuality, reliability, and the ability to get along

with people outside one’s family and circle of friends–often haven’t been passed on.

Integrating third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients into the American mainstream is a

tough job, although in recent years important steps have been taken to start the process. A

higher demand for low-skilled labor would make the process easier. After decades of federal

and state programs that only foster dependency, this is a step that could foster self-reliance

and independence.

At the same time, welcoming immigrants is a strong tradition in this country. We are indeed

a nation of immigrants and there can be no doubt that much of the nation’s strength and

vitality has come to us as a result of immigration.107

Perhaps the best I can add to this very complex debate is the observation that there should be

a debate–a debate that considers all aspects of the issue, including the one featured in this

briefing. With some luck, that debate will arrive at an immigration policy that a majority of

us can support and that all of us can live with. A country that prides itself on the rule of law

cannot afford to have one set of laws on paper and another in actual practice for long. Such a

practice will ultimately corrode the rule of law.

Statement and Rebuttal of Commissioner Peter N. Kirsanow

In response to its alarming illegal immigration problem, Arizona recently enacted a statute

that would allow state law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration law. Ensuing

controversy surrounding the law, and the reaction of various political actors to it, have once

again thrust the issue of immigration reform to the forefront of the national debate. Beyond

the rhetoric one fact seems clear—aside from encouraging disrespect for the rule of law, the

lack of effective federal enforcement of the nation’s borders108 has produced significant

107 Joel Millman has observed that immigrants are “our oldest and most dependable pool of ‘riser,’ a kind of

demographic yeast that guarantees shared prosperity.” Joel Millman, The Other Americans: How Immigrants

Renew Our Country, Our Economy, and Our Values 314 (1997). Despite knowing little or no English upon

their arrival, children from many immigrant groups often outperform native-born students on standardized tests.

See Julian Lincoln Simon, The Economic Consequences of Immigration 99-100 (1999). Disproportionately

high numbers of winners of the prestigious Westinghouse high school science competition have been born

outside the United States. Id. See also Amanda Fairbanks, “New York Leads the Field in a High School

Science Competition,” The New York Times (January 31, 2008), available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/nyregion/31contest.html. Similarly, a disproportionately high percentage

of American Nobel Prize winners have been immigrants.

108 Dr. Vernon Briggs testified that lack of border management is not the only source of illegal immigration;

some 40 percent of the nation’s illegal immigrants are in the U.S. illegally as a result of overstaying their visas.

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Briefing on the Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages and Employment

Opportunities of Black Workers, Br. Tr. 52 (Apr. 4, 2008) (hereinafter “Impact of Illegal Immigration”).
72 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

economic, political and social consequences for state and local governments and their

associated communities.109 Yet to date, there has been little serious assessment or discussion

of these impacts in crafting federal immigration proposals. Furthermore, as the dissenting

Commissioners’ joint statement to this report demonstrates, hyperbole and

mischaracterizations of opponents’ positions too often substitute for responsible debate

where the issue of illegal immigration is concerned.110

Addressing illegal immigration is difficult without first having a frank and honest debate

about what we want our overall national immigration policy to accomplish. As economist

George Borjas observes in his book Heaven’s Door, only by first defining our objectives can

we answer the fundamental questions of how many immigrants to admit and who should be

admitted.111 As Borjas notes, such questions cut to the heart of our “conception of what the

United States is about.”112 But building a political consensus regarding the purpose of

immigration is no small task. It is also one that is outside of this Commission’s specific

jurisdiction, which is why our briefing was designed to analyze only one of the many

important issues in the immigration debate: the profound economic consequences for

communities of color.

Does illegal immigration exert downward pressure on the wages and employment

opportunities of low-skilled workers, particularly black workers, who tend to be represented

in higher concentrations in the low- and unskilled workforce? Our briefing revealed that

there is general consensus among economists that it does (although that consensus breaks

down over the magnitude of the effect and how or whether our national immigration policy

should be modified as a result). Yet this issue has not generated the kind of scrutiny by

policymakers that its potentially serious consequences merit.113 In its limited treatment of the

issue, much of the media has tended to downplay the impact of illegal immigration on lowskilled workers, tending to focus instead on the alleged overall benefits of the cheap labor

provided by illegal immigrants to the U.S. economy.114 Perhaps a more searching analysis

has been avoided because of the uncomfortable facts it might reveal, particularly to those for

whom even the most speculative harm to minorities is often a trigger for robotic

demagoguery.

109 See Vernon Briggs, The State of U.S. Immigration Policy: The Quandary of Economic Methodology and the

Relevance of Economic Research to Know,5GEO. MAS. L.R. 177, 181 (2009); Impact of Illegal Immigration

Br. Tr. 114 (Testimony of Carol Swain).

110 Joint Dissenting Statement of Commissioners Yaki and Melendez at page 71 of this report. Commissioner

Yaki’s exchange with Dr. Vernon Briggs during the Commission’s Apr. 4, 2008 briefing is similarly instructive.

See Impact of Illegal Immigration Br. Tr. 66-77.

111 GEORGE J. BORJAS, HEAVEN’S DOOR 5 (1999). 112 Id. 113 There have been some developments on this front recently, however: on January 26, 2010, Reps. Lamar

Smith and Gary Miller announced the formation of the “Reclaim American Jobs Caucus” to focus on the impact

of illegal immigration on the unemployment rate of U.S. workers, especially in light of the economic downturn.

Gayle Cinquergrani, Two GOP Lawmakers Form Caucus to Focus on Impact of Illegal Immigration on Jobs,

BNA DAILY LABOR REP., Jan. 28, 2010, at A-7.

114 See, e.g. Chris Isidore, Illegal workers: good for U.S. Economy, CNNMONEY.COM (May 1, 2006).
Commissioner Statements 73

Contrary to the dissenting Commissioners’ assertion, the existence of a “majority” position

regarding whether illegal immigration has some negative impact on the wages and job

opportunities of black workers does not suggest that there is a majority position on the

magnitude of that impact or on how heavily policymakers should weigh this impact in

fashioning immigration reform proposals. Such positions necessarily go to individual

Commissioners’ weighing of the competing economic evidence and their perceptions of what

the purpose of our national immigration policy should be. The Commission has taken no

position on those points. There can be no other credible reading of our very limited and

uncontroversial findings and sole recommendation, so it is difficult to determine the source

of the dissenters’ outrage.

Likewise, the dissenting Commissioners’ contention that the record was biased by

unbalanced panels is a plain misrepresentation of the facts. Particularly because the illegal

immigration debate often tends to be so emotional and highly-charged, the briefing panels

were designed to be research and data-focused. Our goal was to collect raw facts, without

the self-serving interpretations often attached to them by partisans on both sides of the issue.

The Office of the Staff Director contacted more than twenty-five different economists,

academics and researchers who have worked on and contributed to scholarship on the

questions at issue and who come from a variety of perspectives. In response to earlier staff

requests for panelist recommendations, Commissioner Yaki provided names of three

potential panelists with only two weeks to spare before the scheduled briefing, yet even on

such short notice staff managed to secure the participation of one of his recommendations.

Notably, Commissioner Yaki’s list lacked the names of representatives from any advocacy

organizations. Nonetheless, the minority decries the “fatally flawed” processes the

Commission allegedly employs in preparing briefings, generating reports and making

findings and recommendations. 115

I write separately to highlight the available economic evidence pointing to the possibility that

illegal immigration has a significant impact on the wages and employment opportunities of

low-skilled workers, but also to note the limitations of the data, and to say that in certain

respects, I would have gone further than my colleagues in the majority in making

115 To the dissenting Commissioners’ suggestion that “representatives from major, relevant non-governmental

organizations” declined to participate in the briefing “due to their mistrust of the motives of the Commission's

conservative majority,” I will only note that on at least two recent occasions, briefing witnesses who might

share the minority Commissioners’ views, have accepted staff invitations to participate as briefing panelists

only to pull back from participating late in the planning process. The circumstances surrounding these often

last-minute withdrawals are, at the very least, curious. See, e.g., U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Briefing on

Specifying English as the Common Language of the Workplace (Dec. 12, 2008) (in which two panelists

expected to present views opposed to specifying English as the language of the workplace, cancelled the night

before and morning of the briefing, one invoking the minority’s “panel balance concerns” refrain (while

ensuring at the same time the very problem which she alleged)); see also U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,

Briefing on Encouraging Minority Students To Pursue Careers In Science, Technology, Engineering And Math

(STEM) (Sept. 12, 2008) (in which former Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary, President of historically black

Fisk University, cancelled her scheduled appearance only days before the Commission’s briefing. During the

hearing, Commissioner Yaki expressed approval for her cancellation, stating, “I know that former Secretary

O’Leary cancelled from the HBCU, but I am actually kind of glad she did . . ,” right after lamenting the alleged

lack of balance on the briefing panel). STEM Br. Tr. 146.
74 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

recommendations, particularly as they relate to the tenor of the debate over illegal

immigration.

In the ensuing period between our briefing and the issuance of this report, the precarious

economic position of low-skilled workers—and of black workers in particular—has been

demonstrated once again. The nation has experienced what some have termed a “Great

Recession.” But “the pain of this labor market downturn has not been widely shared across

age, educational or occupational groups,”116 with young workers (ages 16-24), non-college

educated male adults, blue collar workers and black males bearing the brunt of the nation’s

economic woes.117

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in April 2010 joblessness for blacks hit 16.5

percent, compared with 9.0 percent for whites and 12.5 percent for Hispanics. The

Washington Post reports that in October 2009 joblessness for young black men aged 16-24

hit Great Depression proportions of 34.5 percent, “more than three times the rate for the

general U.S. population.”118 Since members of this age group are relatively new to the job

market, dislocation caused by the lack or loss of crucial gateway job experiences can have

damaging future consequences, including wholesale labor force withdrawal.

Considering the unemployment rates of low-skilled workers generally, those with less than a

high school diploma had an unemployment rate of 14.7 percent in April 2010. For those with

a high school diploma but no college, the unemployment rate was 10.6 percent. But for those

with a bachelor’s degree it was 4.6 percent—within the range of what labor economists deem

an “acceptable” level of structural unemployment or “full employment.” Unemployment

rates have been higher in industries that employ a high number of illegal immigrant workers.

These rates do not account for the growing percentage of low-skill American workers leaving

the labor market altogether.119

116 ANDREW SUM ET AL., THE DEEP DEPRESSION IN BLUE COLLAR LABOR MARKETS IN THE U.S.: THEIR

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE ECONOMIC STIMULUS AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT POLICIES, (Dec. 2009),

available at http://www.massworkforce.com/documents/NationalBlueCollarWorkersReport.pdf.

117 Id. at 1. See also Eric Eckholm, Working Poor and Young Hard Hit By Economic Downturn, N.Y. TIMES

(Nov. 8, 2008), at A26, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/09young.html; Andrew M. Sum

and Paul E. Harrington, Two Kinds of Immigration, BOS. GLOBE (Oct. 16, 2006), available at

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/16/two_kinds_of_immigration/

(“Available evidence shows that there has been a high rate of displacement of younger, native-born male

workers and younger women without four-year college degrees by newer immigrants, especially undocumented

immigrants.”).

118 See BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS UNEMPLOYMENT DATA (Apr. 2010). See also V. Dion Haynes, Blacks

Hit Hard by Economy’s Punch, WASH. POST (Nov. 24, 2009), available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/11/23/AR2009112304092.html.

119 According to researchers, one possible response to immigration by native workers is wholesale labor force

withdrawal.

Labor force withdrawal is important in its own right since it directly reflects an economic loss and

it weakens the attachment of low-wage native workers to the labor market. But it is also important

because it affects the measurement of the economic consequences of immigration. When native

workers respond to immigration by dropping out of the labor force, they reduce its measured

impact for two reasons. First, dropouts are subtracted out from both the numerator and the

denominator of the unemployment rate. Second, the workers who withdraw are the lowest-wage
Commissioner Statements 75

Incidents of underemployment are also highest among high school dropouts and graduates

with no post-secondary schooling, affecting blacks and Hispanics most heavily.120 Finally,

unemployment has persisted for longer stretches during the latest recession—a mean of 29

weeks at the end of 2009—with a majority of the unemployed leaving the labor market

permanently. 121 Again, workers with the least educational attainment, a disproportionate

share of whom are black males, suffered most.

Indeed, the labor market position of low-skill workers has been steadily eroding over the past

few decades.122 For example, the period between 1980 and 2000 saw a dramatic increase in

the wage gap between high school dropouts and more educated workers.123 With respect to

the economic prospects of black low-skill workers specifically, one panelist testified that the

employment rate of black high school dropouts fell by 30 percentage points over a slightly

longer period—between 1960 to 2000 (from 72 percent to 42 percent).124 Male high school

graduates fared little better, and at both educational levels the situation was dire for white

males but markedly worse for blacks.125

Changing labor market conditions, including a steady reduction in overall low-skill jobs in

the United States, overseas competition from globalization and increased modernization of

industry have all had an impact on the job prospects of low-skill workers. These

developments also coincided with a dramatic rise in the number of immigrants—legal and

native workers who most directly compete with immigrants. Consequently, the average wage of

the native workers who remain in the labor force is increased by sample selection effects.

Hannes Johannsson and Steven Shulman, Immigration and the Employment of African American Workers,

DEBATING IMMIGRATION 79, 78 (Carol M. Swain, ed., 2007).

120 ANDREW SUM ET AL., LABOR UNDERUTILIZATION PROBLEMS OF U.S. WORKERS ACROSS HOUSEHOLD

INCOME GROUPS AT THE END OF THE GREAT RECESSION:ATRULY GREAT DEPRESSION AMONG THE NATION’S

LOW INCOME WORKERS AMIDST FULL EMPLOYMENT AMONG THE MOST AFFLUENT 3, n.4 (Feb. 2010),

available at http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/documents/Labor_Underutilization_Problems_of_U.pdf

(Report Prepared for the C.S. Mott Foundation). The authors note that “underemployment contributes in an

important way to the high and rising degree of income inequality in the United Sates and to growing poverty in

the recession.” Id. at 4.

121 Id. at 7. 122 Several of the briefing panelists acknowledged, and the Commission found, that the average worker with a

high school degree or less earns less today, adjusted for inflation, than someone with a similar education earned

thirty-five years ago. Impact of Illegal Immigration Br. Tr. 49 (Camarota Statement); Impact of Illegal

Immigration Br. Tr. 25 (Hanson Statement); Impact of Illegal Immigration Br. Tr. 29-30 (Jaynes Statement).

Dr. Briggs testified that the low-skilled labor market is most vulnerable to economic hardship, which has been

borne out by recent events. Impact of Illegal Immigration Br. Tr. 26.

123 BORJAS, supra note 4, at 63. 124 Impact of Illegal Immigration Br. Tr. 25 (Hanson Testimony),. See also, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL

RIGHTS, IMPACT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ON THE WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES OF BLACK

WORKERS BRIEFING REPORT (CITE TO ACTUAL TITLE OF REPORT)29-30 (DATE) (Jaynes Submitted

Testimony).

125 IMPACT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BR. REP. 30 (Jaynes Submitted Testimony) (“Thus, although in 1970,

black high school graduates and college graduates ages 25-34 had similar employment rates (90 percent versus

90.4 percent), by 1985 high school graduates had an employment rate 13 percentage point s lower (66.3 percent

versus 79.6 percent). The employment rate of same age black high school dropouts during 1985 was 57.2

percent, more than 20 points lower than the college graduates.”). Id.
76 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

illegal—entering the United States yearly since 1965. The Bureau of National Affairs reports

that between 2000 and 2008 the U.S. foreign-born population grew to 22.1 percent, nearly

four times faster than the 6.3 percent growth of the native-born population, according a Pew

Hispanic Center Survey released earlier this year.126 As of 2008, over 16 percent of the

nation’s full-time civilian labor force was composed of foreign-born workers. In fact,

foreign-born labor accounted for nearly 50 percent of the overall growth in the labor force

between 2000 and 2006.127 It is estimated that nearly 30 percent of the total foreign-born

workforce consists of illegal immigrants (7.1 million of the estimated 12 million illegal

immigrants in the United States).

Of course, an increase in the foreign-born population, standing alone, reveals little, if

anything, about illegal immigration’s role in overall worker dislocation, let alone black

unemployment rates. Somewhat more telling is information regarding foreign-born workers’

educational attainment and skill levels relative to the native-born population,128 the

occupations and industries in which such workers tend to concentrate, and well-known

impediments to black labor force participation. These data raise serious questions for a

society coping with alarming unemployment rates among low and unskilled blacks.

Consider, for example, the following:

x Blacks are represented in high concentrations in the low-skill labor market. One

third of the entire black labor force is made up of low-skilled workers, and blacks

comprise 10 percent of the 50 million low-skilled adults in the civilian labor force in

the United States.129 Six in 10 black adult males have a high school degree or less,

compared with four out of 10 for whites.

x Recent immigrants tend to be low-skilled; this is especially true of illegal immigrants.

Data show that over the last 50 years, there has been a precipitous decline in the

relative educational attainment of immigrants.130 For example, according to 2007

census data, of those immigrants entering the U.S. (both legally and illegally)

between 2000 and 2007, only 24.6 percent had a high school education; 35.5 percent

had not completed high school. This compares with 30.9 percent and 7.5 percent, for

126 Larry Swisher, U.S. Foreign Born Population Increased 22.1 Percent During 2000-2008, Pew Says, BNA

DAILY REP., Jan. 25, 2010, at A-8. 127 Briggs, supra note 2, at 178.

128 Both Borjas and Briggs note the significance of foreign-born workers’ human capital endowments relative to

native-born workers in determining the social and economic consequences of immigration. Borjas, supra note 4

at 19; Impact of Immigration on Recent Immigrants and Black and Hispanic Citizens: Hearing Before the

Subcomm. On Immigration and Claims of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 106th Cong. 69-75 (Mar. 11, 1999)

(Testimony of Vernon M. Briggs).

129 Impact of Illegal Immigration Br. Rep. at 37 (Briggs Submitted Testimony).

130 BORJAS, supra note 4, at 21-22 (Borjas reports that in 1960, 66 percent of immigrant men were high school

dropouts compared with 53 percent of native-born men, but immigrants actually earned about 4 percent more

than natives. But by the late 1990s, immigrants were far more likely than native workers to be high school

dropouts (34 percent compared to only 9 percent for natives). What had previously been an earnings advantage

for foreign-born workers now became a tremendous disadvantage, with immigrants earning about 23 percent

less than natives by 1998).
Commissioner Statements 77

native-born American workers, respectively. Such workers are thus more likely to be

concentrated in the low-skill labor market.

x Native-born low-skill workers appear to be dropping out of the labor market, while

rates of immigrants have increased. A 2006 Center for Immigration Studies analysis

showed that the percentage of native-born Americans in the labor force with either a

high school diploma or less fell from 59 percent to 56 percent in the preceding five

years.131 The study estimated that approximately 1.5 million native-born Americans

with a high school diploma or less left the workforce during that period. During the

same period, the number of immigrants in the workforce (legal and illegal) with high

school diplomas or less increased by almost the same amount—1.6 million.

x Low-skilled immigrants and blacks are concentrated in the same occupations and

specific segments of the labor market, suggesting they compete for work. The same

CIS study referenced above reveals that the occupations with the highest percentage

of illegal immigrants are occupations that also have the highest unemployment rates

for the native born. These same occupations happen to be among those that have

traditionally employed the highest percentage of black workers, e.g., building

cleaning and maintenance,132 food preparation133 and construction.

Thus, while illegal immigration alone cannot be said to have caused negative employment

outcomes for black workers, there is ample evidence to suggest that at a minimum, it has had

an aggravating effect on both the displacement of low-skilled American workers and the

racial divide in employment. This is because illegal immigration tends to increase the supply

of low-skilled, low-wage labor already available in the U.S. labor market. Geographic

131 Steven Camarota, Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit from the Labor Market, 2000-2005, CIS

BACKGROUNDER (Mar. 2006), available at http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back206.pdf. For a discussion of

how the “dropping out” phenomenon impacts reporting of unemployment numbers, see also discussion in

Johannsson and Shulman, supra note 13. 132 A 1988 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study of Los Angeles janitorial services found that when

several small firms began hiring illegal immigrants as janitors for lower pay, building owners dropped contracts

with the companies that employed black workers in favor of the cheaper contractor. As the immigrantemploying firms overtook a larger share of the market, local janitorial industry wages dropped by over a

dollar—from a peak of $6.58 an hour in 1983 to $5.63 an hour in 1985. The number of black janitors in L.A.

also dropped from about 2,500 in the late 1970s to only 600 by 1985. GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE,

GAO/PEMD-99-13BR, ILLEGAL ALIENS: INFLUENCE OF ILLEGAL WORKERS ON WAGES AND WORKING

CONDITIONS OF LEGAL WORKERS, (Mar. 1988).

133 Industry-specific impacts of an influx of illegal immigrant labor are instructive. For a discussion of the

decline of wages, employment opportunities and conditions in the meatpacking/poultry industries, as well as

evidence that strict enforcement produces more job opportunities for native-born, displaced workers at higher

wages, see Evan Perez and Corey Dale, An immigration raid aids blacks for a time, WSJ (Jan. 17, 2007),

available at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07017/754517-28.stm; Joel Dyer, Meatpacking industry has a

long history of reliance on immigrant laborer, FT. COLLINS WKLY. (Dec. 26, 2006), available at

http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20061226/NEWS/112230087; Bill Jackson, More applicants applying

for Swift & Co., THE TRIBUNE (Dec. 20, 2006), available at

http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20061220/BUSINESS/112200084; (MEGAHAN MURPHY IS NOT

LISTED AS AUTHOR ON THIS SITE) Former Dallas employees sue Swift alleging wage manipulation,

ASSOCIATED PRESS (Dec. 18, 2006), available at

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10561323/detail.html.
78 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

proximity (i.e. concentration in large urban centers of both blacks and immigrants), and

illegal immigrants’ low human capital endowments bring them in direct labor competition

with native-born (as well as legal immigrant) low-skill workers, especially blacks and new,

legal immigrants, who are more heavily concentrated in unskilled occupations. Moreover,

wage data shows that this increase has occurred in the absence of any shortage of available

unskilled labor in the U.S.134 A large share of less-educated native born workers are

employed in what are considered high-immigrant occupations; even in such occupations, the

majority of workers are still natives.135 These facts tend to belie the notion that there are jobs

Americans just won’t do. The job market is simply not segmented into “exclusively

immigrant” or “exclusively native jobs,” regardless of where one is in the labor market.136 It

is true that the current recession has hit immigrant workers (both legal and illegal) the hardest

in terms of unemployment numbers, but the least educated immigrants (and thereby the least

skilled) still have a lower unemployment rate than their native-born counterparts.137

According to National Assessment of Educational Progress statistics, the average black high

school graduate continues to lag years behind his white counterparts in academic proficiency.

Low educational attainment signals that a significant percentage of black workers are likely

to be low or unskilled, where they will be competing against illegal immigrants—a cohort

motivated by the fact that the U.S. minimum wage is 10 times higher than what they would

earn in their native countries—for the same low-skilled jobs. These dismal education figures,

combined with the significant impediments that flow from fragile family structures and a 70

percent out-of-wedlock birth rate, portend more deleterious long term implications for blacks

than for other groups. Surely, more serious study is necessary in the run-up to any

immigration reform proposals that may aggravate both the displacement of low-skilled

American workers and the racial divide in employment.

For those of us who value the contributions of immigrants but who maintain that the nation

should adopt an immigration policy that does not increase the social and economic inequities

that already exist in the United States, pointing out that the plight of the nation’s most

vulnerable workers (and of blacks as a subset of those) must be a consideration in any

immigration reform proposals hardly seems like a controversial proposition. Policymakers

would be negligent if they ignored the social and economic implications of increasing the

nation’s low-skilled labor supply. Stemming the tide of illegal immigration alone will not

alone improve the outcomes for legal low-skilled workers, but as my colleague Gail Heriot

notes, it is definitely a piece of the puzzle.

Furthermore, one of the challenges of the debate is honesty regarding what the data show

and what they do not show. This is complicated by methodology and data limitations, which

either cannot or do not assess immigration policy’s effects in the same way or meaningfully

134 PATRICK MCHUGH, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES, TRENDS IN IMMIGRANT AND NATIVE

UNEMPLOYMENT 2 (May 2009) (“There is little evidence of a labor shortage, particularly for less-educated

workers. In the first quarter of 2009 there are almost 31 million natives and immigrants with a high school

degree or less unemployed or not in the labor force,” i.e. neither working nor looking for work.).

135 Camarota, supra note 24, at 15. 136 Id. 137 Id. at 1.
Commissioner Statements 79

distinguish between different categories of immigrants by how they were admitted. I agree

with Dr. Briggs that under these circumstances, it is difficult for policymakers to design

remedies that best promote the national interest rather than the policy preferences of special

interest groups. I further concur with his recommendation that as a result, “a more nuanced

methodology that encourages an understanding of historical experiences, an awareness of

changing domestic economic conditions, and an appreciation of the evolutionary

development of the component policies that comprise immigration policy would be a

preferred option.”138

Given these circumstances, participants in the debate over immigration should take greater

care not to overstate or misrepresent the conclusions that can be drawn from the currently

available data. At the same time, those who express concern regarding the impact of illegal

immigration cannot be dismissed or demonized as being “anti-immigrant.” Intemperate

language and accusations of nativism and racism only further confound the debate.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle should care enough about immigration policy and its

ramifications for the national interest to speak honestly, avoiding the inflammatory words

that have caused the discussions regarding illegal immigration to devolve.

Rebuttal of Commissioners Michael Yaki and Arlan Melendez

The plain truth that the majority refuses to acknowledge is that the record is considerably

mixed on whether illegal immigrants create any measurable or significant impact upon the

wages and employment opportunities of African-Americans. There is even considerable

debate whether, for the group of low-skilled, low-educated Americans, competition with

undocumented workers creates the displacement effects that the majority seems to consider a

fait accompli.139 Labor economist and University of California at Berkeley Professor David

Card has been a leading proponent of the theory that illegal immigration does not have the

significant adverse employment and wage effects on low-skilled, native-born workers that

are commonly presumed.140 In fact, Card reasons, the presence of low-skilled immigrants

may indeed have benefits for such Americans. On this overarching point, Card states that:

More than two decades of research on the local labor market impacts of immigration

has reached a near consensus that increased immigration has a small but discernible

negative effect on the relative wages of low-skilled native workers (i.e., the ratio of

low-skilled wages to wages in the middle of the skill distribution). Less is known

138 Briggs, supra note 2, at 192.

139 And it must be noted – as if it wasn’t patently obvious – that the category of “low-skilled” or “low-educated”

or “high school drop-out” is not, in and of itself, a racial, ethnic, religious, or gender classification that is within

the jurisdiction of the Commission on Civil Rights.

140 Other researchers have also found that the impact of immigrants upon the wages of native-born workers is

minimal at most. For other recent examinations of the economic effects of immigration on native-born racial

minorities and/or low-skilled workers, see George Borjas, Jeffery Grogger & Gordon H. Hanson, Immigration

and African American Employment Opportunities: The Response of Wages, Employment, and Incarceration to

Labor Supply Shocks (NBER Working Paper 12518, 2006); Deborah Reed and Sheldon Danziger, The Effects

of Recent Immigration on Racial/Ethnic Labor Market Differences, AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW 97, No. 2

(2007); Gordon H. Hanson, The Economics and Policy of Illegal Immigration in the United States (Migration

Policy Institute 2009).
80 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

about the impact on the average level of native wages, but theoretical reasoning, as

well as the evidence presented here (and in a few other studies, mainly at the national

level) suggests a small positive effect . . . . Taken together with the labor market

evidence, it seems that the direct economic impacts of immigration on existing native

residents of major U.S. cities are relatively small, and may well be positive.141

Professor Card's own years of research and findings support the conclusions of others which

show that any impact of immigration upon the average wages of native low-skilled workers

is “relatively modest.”142 Specifically, his analysis indicates that in American cities with

high numbers of low-skilled immigrants, “the relative wages of [native] workers in the

lowest skill group are about 3-4 percent lower [than in low-immigrant cities]....”143 Card

further concludes that actual average wages for native, low-skilled workers may actually rise

as much as 10 percent in cities such as Los Angeles with high immigrant numbers.

Obviously, he says, “this effect is more than large enough to offset the 4-5 percent reduction

in the relative wages of low-skilled [native] workers.”144 Therefore, “even though the

relative wages of low-skilled natives are depressed in high-immigrant cities, the absolute

level of their wages appears to be higher” than in low-immigrant cities.145 It appears, then,

that the majority's worries are the proverbial much ado about nothing.

Card's work regarding the impact of immigration on low-skilled native workers is largely,

but not universally, accepted within his field.146 Fellow economists George Borjas and

Lawrence Katz of Harvard University opined in 2005 that immigration between 1980 and

2000 resulted in a wage decline for native-born high school drop-outs by 8.2 percent.147

Given that high-school dropouts are presumed to be low-skilled workers, this figure indicates

approximately double the impact that Card ascertained. But even if Borjas and Katz were

accurate, Card still finds the effect of their number to be minimal. “That's 40 cents an hour

(less) as a result of 20 years of Mexican immigration. In the several studies I've done over

almost 20 years, if there are such effects (lowering of wages), they are very, very small.”148

However, Lawrence Katz himself has minimized the conflict between the percentages (and

related impacts) that he and Borjas published and that of Card. Katz has “acknowledged

[that] the original analysis used some statistically flimsy data,” and that the result should

141 David Card, “How Immigration Effects U.S. Cities” June 2007,

http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/events/fall07/symposium/card.pdf at p. 32. Retrieved May 24, 2010. (emphasis in

original).

142 Id., p. 18 143 Id. 144 Id., p. 20 (emphasis in original). 145 Id. (emphasis in original).

146 Cowen, Tyler, and Rothschild, Daniel M., “Each Is Good For the Other,” Ft. Worth Star Telegram (TX),

May 17, 2006, p. B-15.

147 Borjas, George and Katz, Lawrence, “The Evolution of the Mexican-Born Workforce in the United States,”

NBER Working Paper # 11281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, April 2005 at p. 37.

148 Said, Carolyn, “The Immigration Debate: Effect on Economy Depends on Viewpoint,” San Francisco

Chronicle (CA), May 21, 2006, p. A-13.
Commissioner Statements 81

have been 3.6 percent rather than 8.2 percent.149 Further, “Katz says people are putting too

much emphasis on this analysis and the 8 percent figure in particular. 'This was a back-ofthe-envelope simulation at the end of the papers,' [according to Katz].”150 With Katz's

revision of his figures to be in line with Card's, the challenge to Card is substantively

eviscerated.151 152

The Card analysis, as has been noted, received little to no attention by the majority either in

the preparation of the hearing or this report, despite its abundant acceptance and citations by

scholars and the media.153 The majority's omission of significant, highly respected scholarly

work which is directly on point certainly calls the majority's objectivity and agenda into

question.

Scapegoating is the tried and true method of dealing with all new immigrant populations,

legal or illegal. The fact is that the true civil rights issue that is raised by anti-illegal

immigrant discourse, such as that published by the majority, is discrimination against those

native groups that bear the characteristics of the population targeted for enforcement – in

other words, racial profiling of Americans.154 But that is not, apparently, a concern for the

majority.

149 Porter, Eduardo, “Lowest U.S. Wages Have Fallen But Illegals Aren't Solely to Blame,” Denver Rocky

'Mountain News (CO), April 22, 2006, p. 2C.

150 Pender, Kathleen, “Labor's Complex Situation,” San Francisco Chronicle (CA), April 26, 2006, p. C-1.

151 Borjas has also been involved in research that found a minimal impact on low-skilled native workers similar

to what Card has determined. Borjas served on the Committee on Population of the National Research

Council's Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. This group issued a 1997 report,

“The New Americans: Economics, Demographics, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration,” Borjas' committee

found that “[T]he wages of these [low-skill] native-born Americans may have fallen some 5 percent over the

past 15 years. Yet even in local labor markets with high numbers of new immigrants, overall job opportunities

and wages for the native-born are not significantly affected by immigration. The effects may be minor because

natives who compete directly with immigrants may be moving to other areas, and because immigration brings

overall benefits to most Americans.” Galvin, Molly, “Overall U.S. Economy Gains From Immigration, But It's

Costly to Some States and Localities,” News From the Academies, May 17, 1997, retrieved May 24, 2010 from

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=5779.

152 It is interesting to note that both Card and Borjas are immigrants to the United States. David Card was born

in Canada and George Borjas was born in Cuba. Cowen and Rothschild, supra. 153 On the Fence: Are Illegal Immigrants Good or Bad for the U.S. Economy,

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=175. Retrieved May 24, 2010; Will Illegal

Immigration Offset a Wage Hike? MSNBC, Jan. 10, 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16541091.

Retrieved May 24, 2010. See also “Cost of Illegal Immigration May Be Less Than Meets The Eye,” New York

Times, April 16, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/business/yourmoney/16view.html. Retrieved

May 24, 2010; Q&A: Illegal Immigrants and the Economy, NPR, March 30, 2006,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5312900. Retrieved May 24, 2010.

154 The most obvious, and immediate, example is the law recently enacted by Arizona empowering law

enforcement officers to stop people who they have a “reasonable suspicion” of being undocumented persons.

See, e.g., Michael Yaki, “Why the Arizona Law is Anti-Immigrant, not Anti-Illegal Immigration”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/yaki/detail?entry_id=6219. Retrieved May 24, 2010, and Michael Yaki,

“Arizona Anti-Immigrant Law: How A Law That Is “Neutral” Can Be Racist,” http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/blogs/yaki/detail?entry_id=6243. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
82 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

Commissioner Heriot asserts that if the readers of this briefing report only take away one

point from it that point should be: “One of the consequences of the on-going illegal

immigration of low-skilled workers into the United States is that it decreases the wages of

low-skilled workers generally. This is simple supply and demand.”155 The real world

economic effect of immigration, legal and illegal, on low-skilled workers, however, is not

something that can be so easily simplified. The demand for labor is not static or inelastic

such that an increase in the supply of labor would necessarily depress wages. Rather, both

the demand and the supply of labor are dynamic, and as such, the effect that immigration has

and has had on both has been either difficult to ascertain or miniscule.156

Professor Card's results from his long-term work are in direct conflict with Commissioner

Heriot's generalized assertion. To the contrary, as discussed above, Card finds that, in

American cities with high numbers of low-skilled immigrants, native-born low-skilled

workers appear to have only a 3 to 4 percent loss in relative wages and an increase in actual

wages.157

Further, Card notes that the labor supply which the low-skill immigrant pool provides may

actually be helping some sectors of the American economy grow. When an area has a large

influx of immigrants, Card finds that "[t]he labor market can adjust. It can increase in areas

where there are a lot of unskilled immigrants. Employers can move in who can support

that."158 By way of example, Card has stated that:

20 years ago when I first moved to the U.S., only very rich people had their lawns cut

by someone else. The cost of hiring someone to do that got so low because of the

supply of landscapers and firms that specialized in hiring immigrants, it created a

sector of the economy that ... wasn't counted as part of GDP [Gross Domestic

Product] before.159

Growth in the home health care industry has also been fueled by immigrants willing to work

as home health aides. As Card said, "If those (immigrants) weren't here, most people would

have their mothers and grandmothers living with them. When that kind of labor is available,

people will think of how to exploit it.”160

In line with Card's expectation, the American economy is believed to be absorbing large

numbers of illegal immigrants in an array of industries. Findings indicate that

[i]llegal immigrants make up nearly 5 percent of the U.S. workforce, with large

numbers of them in certain industries that require few skills and little education,

155 Commissioner Heriot's Concurrence, published herewith.

156 The dynamic nature of the labor market, and the extremely limited effects that immigration has upon it, have

been amply demonstrated by those cited in footnote 2, supra.

157 Card at pp. 18, 20.

158 Said, supra. 159 Id. 160 Id.
Commissioner Statements 83

according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They make up about 14 percent of

construction workers, 17 percent of cleaning crews and 12 percent of foodpreparation workers. One in 4 farmhands in America is an illegal immigrant.161

Professor Card's two-plus decades of work on the issues, the minimal impact he finds upon

the low-skilled native worker pool, the complexities and nuances of the questions, and the

large number of illegal immigrants being employed across industries all, we believe, counsel

against acceptance of Commissioner Heriot's one-dimensional assertion.

Commissioner Heriot’s concurrence admits that, “the purpose of this briefing was to

highlight”162 the depression of wages and employment that the conservative majority had

presumed was the effect of immigration, and which they presumed “disproportionately

affects American citizens and legal immigrants who are members of racial minorities.”163

This admission only further supports our contention that these purported negative effects

were seemingly a foregone conclusion for a majority of the Commission. As we have noted

before, the majority's obvious and strong presuppositions seemingly made it impossible for

the Commission to recruit representatives from the immigrant advocacy community for

participation in, and testimony during, our briefing.164

In addition to our substantive disagreements with body of the majority's report, we have a

procedural concern as well. The manner in which the Findings and Recommendations

section of this Briefing Report was adopted only further supports our understanding that this

whole endeavor was one-sided and incomplete. The findings and recommendations were

approved at the February 26, 2010 meeting of the Commission. The findings and

recommendations that were adopted were substitutions proposed by several Commissioners

for the findings and recommendations prepared by the staff.

We of course have no categorical objections to Commissioners drafting and proposing

amendments or substitutions; rather, such input is an important part of the Commission's

internal dialogue. However, in this case, the text of the Commissioner-authored findings and

recommendations were not shared with all Commissioners prior to the meeting and vote.165

Additional amendments to these substitute amendments were made verbally during the

meeting. The result of these sloppy procedures was that no Commissioner at the meeting

could actually repeat the text of what was being voted on—not even the authors of the

amendments themselves!166 Under such circumstances, we find it impossible to think that

161 McGee, Patrick, “Do Immigrants Take Jobs From U.S. Workers?,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX), August

11, 2006, p. A-1.

162 Heriot, supra 163 Id.

164 See Briefing Transcript, pp. 65-67 (Commissioner Yaki speaking). See, also, USCCR Briefing Transcript,

Dec. 12, 2008, pp. 9-10 (Commissioner Yaki speaking).

165 Since the February 26 meeting was a telephonic meeting, it was also not even possible to belatedly share

hard copies of the text of the amendments—although we would have also objected to the failure to provide

adequate time for Commissioners to consider the substantial revisions to the text.

166 See USCCR Meeting Transcript, Feb. 26, 2010, pp. 28, 44.
84 Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages & Employment of Black Workers

the adoption of these findings and recommendations was done in a deliberative manner, and

believe that the public should view them—and rest of this report—with great skepticism.