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Report; Immigration doesn’t increase unemployment

Posted May 20, 2009 by Patrick Young, Esq.

A new report argues that immigration does not increase unemployment. The report from the Immigration Policy Center looked at whether unemployment and demographic statistics show any link between concentrations of immigrants and higher unemployment. This is likely to be a major focus in the upcoming immigration reform debate. According to the report:
With Congress once again poised to consider comprehensive immigration reform, while the U.S. economy remains mired in a recession characterized by high levels of unemployment, a key question confronting lawmakers is to what extent immigration and unemployment are related. Opponents of immigration reform frequently argue that immigrants “take” jobs away from many native-born workers, especially during economic hard times. If this is true, then one would expect to find high unemployment rates in those parts of the country with large numbers of immigrants—especially immigrants who have come to the United States recently and, presumably, are more willing to work for lower wages and under worse conditions than either long-term immigrants or native-born workers. Yet an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau clearly reveals that this is not the case. In fact, there is little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level.
Locales with high unemployment rates do not necessarily have large numbers of recent immigrants, and locales with many recent immigrants do not necessarily have high unemployment rates. In other words, unemployment rates in a particular area offer no clue as to how many recent immigrants live there, and the numbers of recent immigrants in an area provide no indication of what the unemployment rate might be.
A Note on Definitions and Data Sources “Recent immigrants” and unemployment This report focuses on the impact of recent, as opposed to long-term, immigrants. We measure the impact of recent immigrants by using 2000 Census data on the percent of a census division, a state, or a county that was composed of persons who arrived in the United States within the previous 10 years. Recent immigrants are of particular interest because most of the debate concerning the economic impact of immigration centerson the effect of newer arrivals rather than on persons who came here decades ago. Immigrants who arrived many years ago are more likely to be naturalized and to be deeply integrated into the economy. Using 2000 Census data to define “recent immigrants” While information on recent immigrants is available for census divisions and states as of 2008, such information is unavailable for counties. To maintain uniformity, we use 2000 Census data on recent immigrants for all geographic areas in this report.
Recent immigrants comprise 8.4 percent of the population in the Pacific region (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii), but only 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central region (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin). Yet these two regions have nearly the same unemployment rate: 10.8 percent in the Pacific region and 10.0 percent in the East North Central region.
Recent immigrants are 7.3 percent of the population in New Jersey, but only 0.8 percent of the population in Maine. Yet unemployment rates in both states are almost identical: 8.3 percent in New Jersey and 8.1 percent in Maine. ÙÄÇæ On average, recent immigrants comprise 3.1 percent of the population in counties with the highest unemployment rates (over 13.4 percent). But recent immigrants account for a higher share of the population (4.6 percent) in counties with the lowest unemployment rates (below 4.8 percent).
The highest unemployment rates are found in counties located in manufacturing centers and rural areas—which tend to have relatively few recent immigrants. Recent immigrants usually go where the jobs are: metropolitan and non-manufacturing counties where unemployment rates are lower.
The absence of a discernible statistical relationship between recent immigration and unemployment is not surprising given that recent immigrants are such a small portion of the overall labor force. As of 2008, immigrants who arrived during the last decade were only 5.5 percent of the U.S. workforce.
Immigration to the United States has long been driven largely by labor demand. Immigration is highest during periods of economic expansion, and declines during economic downturns such as the current recession.
Similar unemployment rates are found in locales with very different levels of recent immigration. By comparing unemployment rates across locations with different levels of recent immigration, we can determine whether or not a pronounced relationship exists between unemployment and the presence of recent immigrants:
If unemployment is high where recent immigration is high, and unemployment is low where recent immigration is low, this would suggest a strong relationship between recent immigration and unemployment.
Conversely, if unemployment is comparable in places with both high and low levels of recent immigration, this would suggest that there is not a strong relationship between recent immigration and unemployment.
We compared the share of the population composed of recent immigrants to March 2009 unemployment rates in the nine U.S. Census Bureau divisions (which cover all 50 states), as well as in key individual states. It is clear from this comparison that unemployment rates are similar in areas with both high and low levels of recent immigrtion. For instance, the East North Central Division and the Pacific Division had similar unemployment rates in March 2009. Yet recent immigrants are 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central Division and 8.4 percent of the population i the Pacific Division 1 Census divisions, states, and counties in this report were ranked on the basis of the percent of their population that was composed of immigrants who arived in the United States within the past 10 years, as reported by the 2000 Census.
We found similar results when comparing states with high and low levels of recent immigration. In Maine, for example, recent immigrants are 0.8 percent of the population, while in New Jersey they are 7.3 percent of the population. Yet both states had nearly the same unemployment rate as of March 2009.