Letter: Citizens' wages are barely affected by immigrants

Editor,

A common argument against Mexican immigrants is that they push down wages of American workers, especially among high school dropouts.

The evidence for this argument is inconclusive, and, in fact, there is a growing body of evidence against it.

According to the 2000 census, immigrants made up 28 percent of workers without a high school education and 13 percent of total workers. George Borjas of Harvard University conducted a study comparing wage trends between groups with different education and work experience. By comparing groups with a large proportion of immigrants to groups with few immigrants, he concluded that, between 1980 and 2000, immigration caused wages to be 3 percent lower than they would have been. For high school dropouts, wages were 8 percent lower.

Critics of immigration use this to support their case. They overlook what Borjas reports about immigrants' affect on investment. Firms who use cheaper immigrant labor use that surplus to invest more, creating more jobs in the process. Adjusted for capital stock, overall wages are unaffected and the loss of wages for high school dropouts is only 5 percent.

Gianmarco Ottaviano of the University of Bologna and Giovanni Peri of the University of California-Davis point out that these findings should be adjusted, further considering that immigrants and natives often work in different types of jobs.

Immigrants are often found doing construction, gardening and housework, while low-skilled natives often do logging and mining. Taking this into account, they conclude that immigrants' affect on the wages of high school dropouts is virtually nil.

Jason Snyder

UNM student