Do Immigrants Take U.S. Citizen Jobs

Allison Andrade

Jason Lobell

Research Essay

            In 2015 Donal Trump said this “They’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our manufacturing jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re killing us” (Benen, 2015. Boak, 2019). This quote is from one of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns around July 2015. This argument that immigrants take American jobs has been going around for many years around as late 1960s-70s. I want to discuss whether this argument is statistically true or if this argument is indeed just for political gain to persuade those who do not know the actual economics and numbers behind this claim. The reason for this is because if the argument is unfound and only for political gain then it is very detrimental. Many Immigrants who are deported cannot take their children under eighteen with them which is very mentally and emotionally damaging to those children. I experienced that fear as a child worried that because of the increase support on Donald Trump and his campaign against immigrants, I was worried that I would lose a parent or an aunt even if they have been residents for the required years. That argument only helped Donald Trump persuade his audience and gain political favor however is what he and others have said true. Based on the results it should become clear that immigrants do not steal jobs of Americans and immigration can help the U.S. economy.

            To determine whether immigrants do take American or U.S. citizen jobs we first need to look at the job demographics or the average percentage of what kind of jobs do Americans or native-born citizens accept and the percentage of non-native born, or immigrants accept. As well as the general demographics are in those given jobs. The EPI report “Racial representation in professional occupations” issued in 2021 shows us what we need to know. In figure 1, it shows the overall average for all jobs that it was considering with the total workforce for white being 61.4%, Black with 12.8%, Latinx 17.4%, and AAPI (with respect to this study refers to non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, and non-Hispanic Asian Americans/Pacific islanders) with 7.4%. The figure then goes on to show the percentages for more specific jobs like Management, computer and mathematical science, architecture and engineering, and community and social service occupations (Wilson, 2021). Looking at the data over all the categories White rangers from highest being 79.8% in legal occupations, and their lowest being 60.8% in community and social service occupations. For Black the highest is 20.5% in community and social service and the lowest being 5.9% in architecture and engineering. Latinx with a 12.8% in community and social service and 6.2% in legal occupations, respectively. Finally, with AAPI with a 17.1% in life, physical, and social science and a 4.6% in community and social services (Wilson, 2021). Across the occupations shows in the table White people assume a hefty portion of the total workforce even within the specific fields. Another study from Pew Research Center, “A majority of Americans say immigrants mostly fill jobs U.S. citizens do not want” went into the percentage that immigrants fill. The article states “Americans generally agree that immigrants – whether undocumented or living legally in the country – mostly do not work in jobs that U.S. citizens want [with] about three-quarters of adults (77%) say undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs U.S. Citizens do not want, while 21%” they do (Krogstad, 2020). The first figure shows the percentage of those who say whether they believe immigrants accept jobs Americans want or do not want. Overall, the percentage shows that most can agree that immigrants accept jobs U.S citizens do not want and in total with 72% democrats or lean democrats and 54% republicans or lean republicans believing that immigrants take jobs U.S. citizens do not want (Krogstad, 2020). In the third figure it shows the percentage of labor force each demographic takes up with U.S. born making up a total of 82.5% of the total U.S labor force. Legal immigrants assume 12.9% and unauthorized immigrants taking up the final 4.6% of the total U.S. labor force (Krogstad, 2020). With this information we can derive that while immigrants do assume a portion of the labor force it is not a great extent to what it is believed to be, and U.S. citizens assume most of the demographic and labor force.

            What does this mean for the U.S. economy. First, we need to consider wages. According to EPI, in table 3 it shows that even in the same profession a racial wage gap is present. While the reason is another topic it does not change that this does affect people’s wages which is important to consider if immigrants are taking U.S. citizens jobs and hurting the economy. In the table across the years from 2017-2019 the median weekly earnings in the total workforce are $965 for Whites, $702 for Black people, $673 for Hispanics, and $1,042 for AAPI (Wilson, 2021). This shows us that while it is not specifically determined what percent of the Black, Hispanic, and AAPI are immigrants this still shows that there is a wage gap and does not support the statement that immigrants are taking U.S. citizens money. On the topic of wages looking at an old study from 2012, “What Immigration Means for U.S. Employment and Wages”, as the title suggests it discusses what kind of affect immigration has on wages and employment. According to the essay, in a survey it was found that economists do not find that immigrants cause any significant decrease in wages and employment of U.S. citizens. Instead, economists believed that immigrants could help raise wages and lower prices. The article goes on to say that one of the reasons behind the economist’s reason is because U.S. born workers and immigrants do not compete for the same jobs. This can be confirmed by the demographics presented before as well as the figure that showed people believe that immigrants take jobs Americans do not want (Greenstone, 2012). “Another way in which immigrants help U.S. workers is that businesses adjust to new immigrants by opening stores, restaurants, or production facilities to take advantage of the added supply of workers […] Because of these factors, economists have found that immigrants sightly raise the average wages of all U.S. born workers” (Greenstone, 2012). While studying the effect of immigration on wages it was determined that while immigration does improve living standards there is still division on whether immigration reduces wages for certain workers, with two studies looking into level of education of the immigrants and how much they affect wages. One study finding that from 1990 to 2006 immigrant workers reduced low-skilled wages by 4.7% while the second study found that immigrants raise the wages of U.S. citizens regardless of educational level (Greenstone, 2012). This helps us understand that immigrants do not have a negative impact on the U.S. employment opportunities and wages, however this is a study from 2012 and things could have changed from then and now.

To further determine whether these findings could be true we can look at what an earlier study/thesis by Carol O. Bruce-Tagoe found. The study looked at the relationship between its variables of unemployment, immigration, college competition, inflation, and real GDP (Gross Domestic Product). In page 36, it showed that table 6, for the Hausman test accepted the null hypothesis test and the results from the unemployment growth and the dependent variable in table 5 had equivalent results (Bruce-Tagoe, 2022). This then implied that there was no significant difference across the seven states looked at in the study. Later in page 42, the results for its wage model showed that the p-value of the Hausman test passed the null hypothesis of random effect (Bruce-Tagoe, 2022). Page 45 then goes on to state “by focusing on seven states (containing key gateway cities) with the highest proportion of immigrants, the study expects the true impact of immigration growth on unemployment and wages growth rate […] Per the pooled OLS estimation result, immigration showed a positive but insignificant effect on the unemployment rate […] Similarly, immigration’s impact on the growth of wages in the U.S. reveals a positive but statistically insignificant effect [with this information it was concluded that] the growth in immigration has no substantial impact on the US labor market” (Bruce-Tagoe). This study correlates with what the previous study in 2012 found, this is significant because this proves that immigrants do not have a substantial negative impact on the U.S. economy and labor market and in fact could improve it in small but significant ways than it was predetermined.

However, some may be wonder how immigrants can help the economy, wages, and employment when the stigma is that immigrants are uneducated. Kellog insight “Immigrants to the U.S. Create More Jobs than They Take” talks about a study by Jones and his colleagues Pierre Azoulay, Daniel Kim, and Javier Miranda who are from MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Census Bureau, respectively. They looked at the contribution immigrants imposed as both employees and founders, focusing on the numbers and sizes of the companies. Looking at the size of the companies founded is important because a small business would not create enough jobs to cause a huge job creation effect. However, if it is a big company then it becomes significant. Looking through three datasets the first in which was from the “U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business Data, which included information on every business founded between 2005 and 2010 that lasted for five years” (Azoulay, 2020). However, that dataset while it was detailed and had a large sample size, it only included recent businesses, so the second dataset included more older companies with a sample size of “200,000 firms from the U.S. Census Survey of Business Owners” (Azoulay, 2020). The third and final dataset the researchers used the 2017 Fortune 500 that represents the largest firms in the U.S. With these three datasets the researchers found that immigrants founded firms at a higher rate than native born citizens. The article states “0.83 percent of immigrants in the workforce between 2005-2010 started a firm, while just 0.42 percent of U.S. born ones did. The survey data, which also considers older and more stable firms, found that 7.25 percent of immigrants were entrepreneurs, compared with about 4 percent of native-born individuals” (Azoulay, 2020). These businesses not only created more jobs in a wide range of business sizes, but the researchers also found that the businesses were more innovative given immigrant firms were more likely to have patents than U.S. born founded firms. Among other things, it was found by looking at the wages paid by the firms between 2005-2010 that “immigrant-founded firms pay somewhat higher wages than native-founded firms” (Azoulay, 2020). Another study from JEC backs up these findings. Looking at data from before and after the pandemic the study first looked at the ratio between employment and population for immigrants and U.S. citizens. The first figure showing data from 2010 to 2020 that between February and April 2020 there was an increase in unemployment and immigrants were more likely to be actively employed by July 2020 and as of today “about 64% of foreign-born workers are actively employed-strengthening the ongoing economic recovery and helping alleviate pressures that cause inflation-compared to about 59% of native-born workers” (“The Contributions”, 2022). The second figure showed data from 2010-2020 the labor force participation rates and it showed that immigrants are more likely to be participating in the labor force than U.S. citizens. However, in the data its shows a shortfall of immigrant workers with there being about 1.7 million fewer working-age immigrants “relative to the number expected if pre-pandemic immigration trends continued” and because of this shortfall it is hurting the U.S. economy and labor market. The third figure went more detailed into the pre 2020 working immigrant trend and the actual trend from 2010-2022 (“The Contributions”, 2022). The figure showed the shortfall which has been increasing since its fall around 2020 but has not reached the pre 2020 trend line. The study then states, “the decline is partly explained by efforts to mitigate virus transmission during the pandemic, it is also the result of former President Trump’s extreme and highly restrictive immigration policies” (“The Contributions”, 2022). Later in page 8, the researcher goes to state that immigrants were more likely to be entrepreneurs and start their own businesses and that while immigrants assume 14% of the population “they create about 25% of new firms. In 2021, more than 41% of Fortune 500 companies in the United States were founded by an immigrant or child of an immigrant” (“The Contributions”, 2022). Immigrants have been deemed dangerous and uneducated however while some are that doesn’t apply to all and this information shows that immigrants make a variety of firms which create more jobs and they are more likely to be working thus contributing to wages and the economy but because of increased immigration restrictions it has come to negatively impact the U.S. economy.

As stated, with the increased immigration prevention policies put in place it has negatively impacted the United States. Brookings’ “Do immigrants “steal” jobs from American workers” talks about this in a more detailed manner, with a quote from Felbab-Brown, who is an American expert in internal and international organized crime as well as a senior fellow for the 21^st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy Program, where she argues “fixing immigration is not about mass deportations of people but about creating a legal visa system for jobs Americans do not want” which are more physically demanding, “it is about providing better education opportunities, skills-development and retooling, and safety nets for American workers. And to date, Trump hasn’t offered serious policy proposals on many-if any-of those areas” (Hoban, 2017). Trump has proposed to cut quotas for illegal immigration in half and William Frey, a noted American demographer and author as well as research professor at the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center, argues that the proposals made would “fly in the face of census statistics” because the immigration levels are important to the growth of America and more recent arrivals are more educated than past years and it is unnecessary to try prioritizing highly skilled immigrants when “college graduates are more prevalent among recent immigrant adults than among all adults in 90 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas” (Hoban, 2017). The article goes on to say that by cutting on immigration like Trump has proposed America would miss out on the possibility of new inventions that could generate jobs the very thing former President Trump was striving to achieve, this is mainly because immigrants account “for around a quarter of entrepreneurs and a quarter of investors in the U.S. and that over one third of new firms have at least one immigrants entrepreneur in its initial leadership team” (Hoban, 2017). While the ethics about immigration as somewhat intertwined with this topic this essay will not go into it, rather what we learn from this information is that immigration should be regulated enough to where immigrants could still come into the U.S and help the economy and still regulate it enough where immigrants have to work to get into the U.S. and not mass deport working and (something) citizens.

            Throughout this essay I covered topics to help prove my initial claim that immigrants do not “steal” jobs and can positively impact America. The first part of the argument was that immigrants are taking U.S. citizen jobs. It was evident that while there are immigrants in the U.S., native born Americans took a majority percentage in job demographics. A survey showed that Americans and immigrants believed that immigrants take the jobs U.S. citizens do not want, this is mainly because immigrants are more likely to compete for more labor demanding jobs rather than U.S. citizens. Not to mention, immigrants help create more jobs because it has been shown that immigrants are more likely to participate in job-multiplier firms/companies. This then helps rebuke the second part of the argument which is that immigrants negatively affect the U.S. economy. While it is not significant, given that immigrants are a contributor to creating a wide variety of firms and they are more likely to be employed than native born citizens it can be deduced that immigrants positively affect the economy. Even when immigrants have been positively affecting the U.S. there is a fall because of the pandemic as well as increased immigration restrictions imposed and proposed by former President Trump which is slowing down the economic recovery and negatively affecting the U.S. Immigrants are helpful in their respective ways and their contributions should not be overlooked because of stereotypes or wanting more political gain.

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3. Boak, J. “AP fact check: Trump plays on immigration myths”. PBS News Hour. February 8, 2019
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7. Krogstad, J. Lopez, M. Et al. “A Majority of Americans say immigrants mostly fill jobs U.S. citizens do not want”. Pew research center. June 10, 2020.
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