Immigration is good for the U.S. economy, but reforms are needed to maximize gains

A new Economic Policy Institute report reviews the economic literature on immigration and immigration policy. It finds that immigration largely benefits the U.S. economy, but that a smarter set of policies is needed to maximize gains.

Among other key findings, the report shows that research strongly supports the following conclusions:

• Immigration does not reduce the number of jobs available for U.S.-born workers and has provided a useful source of deflationary pressure in recent years.
• Immigration leads on average to better, not worse, wages and work opportunities for U.S.-born workers.
• On net, immigration has played at most a tiny role in rising housing costs over the past decade and may contribute nothing to rising costs.
• Immigration is clearly positive for the balance of taxes and spending at the federal level.
• Historically, immigration has boosted economic growth in the U.S.

However, the current U.S. immigration policy regime squanders too many of its potential benefits by depriving immigrants of their full rights as workers and granting employers too much power to manipulate the system. Further, labor standards enforcement is greatly underresourced, which enables low-road employers to abuse immigrant workers with impunity and flout basic worker protections.

The report offers recommendations on how to craft a better immigration policy regime-one that grants immigrants their full rights as workers in U.S. labor markets. Among the reforms outlined in the report, the most pressing priority includes providing a quick and broad path to legal status and a green card-and eventually citizenship-for the current immigrant population that lacks a permanent status. Green cards and citizenship would instantly raise wages and improve conditions for all workers. The reforms proposed would allow the nation to benefit even more from immigration, and the benefit could be shared more widely by U.S. and foreign-born workers alike.