Illegal immigration's economic impact on the United States

Illegal Immigration

During the past recent years, humanity has been confronted with major changes that affected all features of life. Including the technological advancements, the social emancipation and the search for equality, a more increased focus onto the customer and the employee in the detriment of production operations or larger focus on the human rights across the globe is not sufficient to getting the best idea into the mutations. The largest and most important modification derived from the international expansion of numerous thoughts, practices, concepts, and resources. All these modifications are organized under the term of globalization and refer to changes in the social, political, economic, technological and even cultural fields. The concept of globalization has often been assimilated with Americanization, revealing as such the great importance and power held by the United States in the international context. But this Americanization has functioned in two distinct directions. First of all, it allowed American corporations to internationally expand and increase their profits on a global scale. Secondly, and most importantly in the current discussion, is the fact that the success registered by the United States has drawn the interest of millions of foreigners who entered the country in search of a better life. All these people represent the immigrants in the U.S. And they are both praised for their economic and social impact, as well as blamed for the negative outcomes.

It is generally imputed to the immigrants, mostly the illegal ones, that they steel the jobs of the native born American population, they increase crime rates and they always consume more financial resources in governmental services (medical care, education for the children of the illegals and incarceration) than they ever pay back in taxes. But even if there is some truth to the statements above, fact remains that the American population is retiring or becoming more educated and the immigrants only come to fill the gap and take the low paid and underskilled jobs that Americans no longer want. In other words, while there is a perceived negative economic impact of illegal immigration, with a large portion of our workforce reaching retirement age and with more educated Americans unwilling to perform unskilled labor, immigrant workers are essential for the country's sustained economic growth

2. Short History of U.S. Immigration

The United States' history of immigration begins in the days not too long after the Columbus "discovery" of the Americas. Immigration has always been a controversial subject with each generation of immigrants fearing the effects of the next group of immigrants" (Gurucharri). The first immigration movements occurred in the early seventeenth century and were basically motivated by the search of a better life in a new country, with a more prosperous future and more stable economic conditions.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the immigration phenomenon increased in importance and came to be considered a federal matter. The first Office of Immigration was established in 1891 through the Immigration Act. The wave of immigrants to the United States continued to increase up until the twentieth century. All immigrants (entering the country to flee the oppressive rulers, wars and industrial revolution in Europe, which introduced mechanized work and caused them to lose their jobs) were allowed to enter the country and considered legal citizens. The Black Tuesday and the Great Economic Depression of the 1929-1933 had a direct impact on immigration as it significantly reduced it. "For the first time, more people were leaving than arriving" (Gurucharri). In the 1940s however, with the World War II, immigration increased once again and the American authorities were forced to impose the first restrictions.

Retiring Americans

The main argument in regard to why illegal immigrants should be accepted and viewed as a benefit for the U.S. economy in terms of the aging population is given by the generation of Baby Boomers. These represent the generation with the highest natality rate in the history of the country. The generation has supported the United States through its hard times and has constituted a solid and reliable workforce. However, they are aging and some of them have already reached the retirement age. And their current and future retirement throws America in an unprecedented situation when they will not have sufficient workforce, negatively affecting as such the country's economy. In this line of thoughts, the illegal immigrants are able to fill in the available positions, replace the retired baby boomers and carry on their legacy of continuing the support the state's economic growth and development. "Some proponents, for example, have said that enabling the 12 million existing illegal workers to remain in the United States will safeguard the size of the country's labor force. This is particularly important as Baby Boomers retire, and active workers have to shoulder such hefty costs as their Medicare expenses" (Wharton University of Pennsylvania, 2007). Some statistics which reveal the importance of illegal immigrants to filling the positions left void by the retiring baby boomers are presented next:

85% of the entire population in older than 25 only 28% of the population over the age of 25 holds at least the high school diploma one baby boomer between 45 and 54 spends an average of $2,695 per year on medical bills, revealing as such high budgetary expenses and the need to finance these expenses; social services costs will also increase and the numbers of social workers will decreases relative to the served individuals when all baby boomers retire in 2006, 7,918 individuals were turning 60 years per day, meaning 330 per hour (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006)

Higher levels of education second important argument in regard to the benefits derived by the illegal immigrants for the U.S. economy and the general population materializes in that they are most often uneducated. In other words, since very few of the illegals possess a high school diploma, not to mention a college diploma (however, large numbers of the legal immigrants have superior education and are highly specialized), they often occupy the lowest paid and unskilled positions that the Americans often refuse. It has been said that the illegal aliens occupy the positions initially destined for the unskilled and little educated native born Americans, but the fact of the matter is that the number of these American citizens significantly decreases. The native born Americans get better education, they take more classes and know more languages.

The current state of U.S. education shows both promises and challenges. In the long-term, since the early 1970s, there has been improvement in the scores of 9- and 13-year-olds on national reading and mathematical assessment [...] Other measures of progress indicate that high school graduates are taking more courses and completing more advanced courses than they did in the early 1980s; status dropouts have declined since the 1970s and rates of crime and violence have declined since 1992. At the same time, the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English at home more than doubled between 1979 and 2005. In addition, differences between states in amount spent on instruction per student by unified public school districts have increased since 1997-98. The U.S. education system also shows signs of continued growth for years to come. In elementary and secondary education, enrollments have followed population shifts and are projected to increase each year through 2016 to an all-time high of 53 million" (Schneider, 2007). Other features that reveal Americans' growing interest for better education (and consequently the need for illegals to perform the unskilled and low paid jobs) could be organized under the following:

the number of college students who spend more than 10 hours on their weekly homework has increased from 7% in 1980 to 37% in 2002 dropout rates among college students have also decreased; the highest remain among Hispanics and the lowest among whites the number of high school graduates who enroll to college immediately after graduation has increased from 49% in 1972 to 69% in 2005 about 86% of the population aged between 25 and 29 possessed a high school diploma or equivalent in 2006 (Schneider, 2007)

And aside from the fact that education levels increase, the American corporations have implemented several human resource strategies and policies that sustain the promotion of worthy and hard working individuals to better positions. In other words, as the native born American gets promoted at the workplace, his position will not be left empty but will be occupied by an immigrant. Finally, another argument related to the education system and the illegal immigrants is given by the education of the children of the illegals. In this particular instance, however this is generally perceived as a high cost, the educated children of the illegals are formed in the American culture and will grow up to be reliable U.S. citizens who will occupy positions in high industry departments, such as communications or technology. "Minority students accounted for roughly a half of the growth in the number of associate's and bachelor's degrees earned between 1976-77 and 2004-05, and for 73% of the increase in the number of first-professional degrees earned" (Schneider, 2007).

Illegals' contribution

The United States takes pride in being a nation of immigrants. There is no more popular story than the one about the penniless immigrant who comes to America, works hard, overcomes adversity, and makes a good life for himself and his family. These ideals persist today as immigrants continue to contribute greatly to U.S. economic growth" (Orrenius, 2003). The specialized economists generally grant that the economic growth had not been possible without the aid and support of the millions of immigrants. This often materialized in three different directions:

The immigrants fill various and increasing numbers of jobs per total

They take positions in labor-scarce regions, and They occupy the jobs that the native born Americans do not want

Even if the immigrants only account for 14% of the entire U.S. workforce, their numbers are growing at amazing rates, as revealed in the chart below:

Source: Orrenius, P.M., November / December 2003, U.S. Immigration and Economic Growth: Putting Policy on Hold, Southwest Economy

In other words, the basic contribution to the American economy is given by a large and reasonably cheap workforce that supports American companies in increasing the productivity and efficiency of their operational process. These companies then register high profits and pay large taxes to the state budget, revealing as such an indirect contribution to the governmental financial resources. Foremost, due to their requesting of low wages, the immigrants help companies maintain a lower rate of salaries and help them invest their funds in other directions, all to support the overall economic growth of the country.

4. Conclusions

The illegal immigrants to the United States are most often perceived as a threat to the native born American population and most of this fear derives from incidents that cannot be generalized and from a media campaign centered on presenting the negative impacts of immigration. The most common con argument is the increased federal payments that have to be made for the services offered to the illegals, but this can be counter-argued with their own contributions in both direct and indirect taxes, as well as in that of offering a cheap and reliable workforce. Then, the immigrants are a necessity within the U.S. As they occupy the low paid jobs which require few skills and which are generally refused by the native born population. A third argument in favor of illegal immigrants as a source of economic growth is given by the aging of the baby boomers who have to be replaced, but the national resources are limited. Finally, the con argument that illegal immigrants steel the low paid jobs from American workers is counter-argued with that Americans are most focused on education and show reduced interest for low paid positions.