| The Immigration Equation
Lowenstein, Roger
New York Times Magazine, July 9, 2006, pp36-43, 69-71
“Do illegal immigrants take jobs? Expand the economy? Drag down wages? Create opportunity?” The author explores these questions from an economic perspective, mainly examining two oppositional theories. One theory, based on labor economics, argues that increased supply of low skilled labor by the illegal immigrant significantly decreases job opportunities for low skilled Americans. It comes to the conclusion that illegal immigrants hurt economic prospects of U.S. citizens. Opponents of this theory argue that the available data does not support that argument, since the unemployment rate in the U.S. is pretty low, even though 21 million immigrants are employed in the U.S. job market. Because of this ability to absorb these numbers of immigrants, some economists argue that immigration is one of the strengths of the U.S. economy, as it has been since the beginnings of the country. With the current debate about immigration, the U.S. legislators have to find a way to integrate these different approaches into a coherent immigration policy. Roger Lowenstein is a contributing writer. He has written cover articles for the magazine on Social Security and pensions.
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