Low-skilled immigrants beneficial for US consumers-Study

United States, 18th January: Low skilled immigration has been found to be beneficial for the US consumers, skilled workers as well as employers, states a recent study by Migration Policy Institute.

According to a press release by the MPI (Migration Policy Institute), the issue of role played by low-skilled immigration in the US remains controversial while the highly-skilled immigration is accepted to be advantageous for the US economy.

It’s a common notion among the Americans that the immigrants coming to the US, especially, the illegal or the undocumented workers, take up the jobs of the Americans.

Several economists also seem to be disagreeing on the benefits and the costs of low-skilled immigrants in the US apart from the rules governing the low-skilled immigration in the US.

According to the lead author of the report by the MPI, Harry J. Holzer, who is a former chief economist in the nation’s Department of Labor, the aims of the US immigration policy must be to maximize the advantages of low-skilled immigration to the US economy.

It should also help in minimizing the costs of bringing low-skilled immigrants to be borne by native US workers who are less-educated. And, the last but not the least aim of the US immigration policy should be to facilitate the successful integration of low-educated immigrants without hurting the economy of the US.

A professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Holzer states that the immigration of low-skilled workers in the US will only result in a marginal decrease in the relative wages received by low-educated workers.

He maintained that the low-skilled immigrants in the US are employed for doing jobs which are not taken by native US workers and such low-skilled jobs exist only due to the immigrant workers.

Hence, low-skilled immigration in the US is beneficial for the US consumers as it keeps the wages down and as a result, helps in keeping the prices of goods and services quite low. The reason being that low-skilled immigrants who are also consumers of the local goods help in, at least, partially off-setting the impact of these immigrants workers on the US labor market.

Moreover, since quite less interaction takes place between the low-skilled immigrant workers and the customers, so, the effect of such immigration is less on native US workers as compared to the other immigrants in the US.