Economic research consistently shows that immigration helps grow the economy, sustain federal budgets, and can keep down prices. Unfortunately, America’s broken immigration system and failed policies have undercut the potential for these benefits and, instead, caused the problematic immigration patterns we are seeing today.
Immigrants don’t take from a fixed pool of jobs – they help to grow local economies
- Evidence going back to the 1980s shows that immigration does not bring down wages for similarly-skilled workers.
- Immigrants are more likely to start both small and large businesses, have higher rates of innovation, and are critical to sustaining the U.S. labor force.
- Immigrants help to keep our economy more dynamic by moving between different labor markets in response to changing levels of demand.
- Immigrants from most countries arrive with more education than the average American, and the children and grandchildren of immigrant groups who arrive with less education catch up to the U.S. averages.
Restricting immigration causes worker shortages that raise prices across the economy
- Former-President Trump’s immigration policies reduced the size of the U.S. labor force, which led to widespread worker shortages when combined with the effects of COVID-19.
- In various industries, these worker shortages lead to higher inflation, pushing up prices.
Immigrants commit fewer crimes
- Areas with more immigrants do not have more crime, and may have less crime, than areas with fewer immigrants.
- In particular, data on arrests in Texas suggest that undocumented immigrants are far less likely to commit arrestable offenses than native-born people.
Immigrants help to secure the future of key government programs
- Increased immigration would help to preserve Social Security, and restricting immigration would put more pressure on the program’s finances.
- Immigrants are less likely to require costly healthcare than native-born Americans, and immigration reform could help extend Medicare solvency.
- Immigrant households paid $467.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2019.
