Opinion
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New immigrants do depress some Americans’ wages.

The Public Policy Institute of California issued a report of a study that shows no evidence that the influx of immigrants over four decades worsened the employment opportunities of native born workers with similar education and experience. This finding seemed contrary to common sense when I read about it in the newspaper. I remain unconvinced after reading the survey report.

Legislators often rely on this type study to support new laws regarding immigration. Therefore, we must be sure the findings are accurate. Giovanni Peri’s report included statistical formulas, charts and graphs to support his findings. Nevertheless, some of his rationalizations do not hold up when you examine them closely.

Peri reasons that immigrant workers in the American workforce produce a positive outcome for native-born workers because of a complementary effect. This complementary effect creates increased work opportunities and wages for native born workers according to Peri. He said that as more immigrant workers become available for certain jobs and tasks it increases the need for complementary jobs in managing, organizing, and training that are typically filled by native born workers.

The problem with this theory of complementary effect is that Peri and others who believe it must make some questionable presumptions to make it work. They must presume that native-born workers’ always have better qualifications for employment than immigrants do. In addition, they must presume those native workers will continue this American advantage over immigrants for decades. Americans should remember that political leaders made a similar argument to support the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other free trade treaties.

Political leaders told us that NAFT and other free trade agreements would cost the United States some factories and low paying manual labor type jobs to their foreign trade partners like Mexico and China. However, they assured us that American workers would gain from the exchange as they migrated upwards to the more complicated and better paying jobs providing the world with information and technology.

American workers in electronic, automobile and steel manufacturing definitely saw their jobs move to foreign plants. However, American electronic technicians and computer specialist also saw many of their jobs outsourced to places like India. Many of them face unemployment or lower paying jobs, because the part where they advance into information and technology jobs is slow to happen. This same argument to support open immigration is false for the same reason it was wrong about free trade. Anybody who knows about the low percentage of American students who test proficient in English-language, math, and science should question a presumption that American workers will have and sustain a technological edge over other workers. Only people whose vision of the world is distorted by ethnic stereotypes could believe this argument.

The complementary effect argument fails for another reason. Employees in most companies and corporations fit the pyramid shape. Lower skilled workers at the bottom of the pyramid usually outnumber those at management levels. Presume, for example, there is a crew of five native-born American workers replaced by immigrants. This crew already has a supervisor, so it is not likely that any of them will advance to the higher paid supervisory position. Only one of the five can do so in any case. Peri also assumes that more immigrant workers will create a bigger demand for products and a demand for more jobs for immigrants and management workers.

Realistically, only a small percentage of those displaced workers will have the education and skill to advance into those management positions. It is more likely that better educated high school and college will fill those positions. Native-born American workers lose employment to immigrant workers either directly as displaced workers, or indirectly as new high school and college graduates blocked from management level jobs by those retrained workers displaced by immigrants.

Peri reported higher wages for native-born workers during the four decades of rapidly increasing immigration than before. However, his study also showed that recent immigrations did cause lower the wages for previous immigrants. Those immigrants who came to California before 1990 suffered 17 to 20 percent lower wages in 2004 than they would have earned if not for new immigration.

It is not believable that new immigrants depressed the wages of previous immigrants, but not the wages of native-born Americans. Peri explains this condition happens because native-born workers probably are more adapt at moving into work positions not affected by immigration. This explanation is not reasonable. Many immigrants are better educated than native-born workers. They already showed resourcefulness by emigrating to improved employment opportunity. They are not likely to remain stuck in an employment situation where new immigration erodes their wages.

This was some of many questionable assertions in a report designed to ease American workers’ concerns about the increasing influx of immigrants.

Kenneth Brooks is a freelance writer and speaker. Contact him at P.O. Box 882, Vallejo, CA 94590. Send email to opinion@ethicalego.com