Question

How is the United States impacted economically by immigration of low-skilled labor, whether legal or illegal? Who benefits and who is hurt by such immigration?

Answer 1

Immigration has inconclusive short term effects. The reason being that if we consider illegal immigration, the number of immigrants through such channels is unknown. There is an increase in supply of labour which is undocumented and could lead to a reduction in wages. But the wages for low skilled workers could also reduce when there is more technological advancements or the capital is replacing the workers. With the coming of robots and automated machines, the work for unskilled workers would have reduced. This could also be tje reason for the change in wages and job opportunities.

Another view point could be that if there is more illegal as well as legal immigration, the demand for the goods and services would increase. This would increase the economic activity,but would also lead to an increased competition among the people for the limited resources.

The benefitted parties or groups would be the workers from foreign countries while the people who would be hurt would be the teenagers or the dropouts. The reason behind this is that the immigrant workers would tend to do any job that would keep them in the country especially the illegal ones. This would mean that they, even with a higher qualification , would want to work at a lower wages. So the companies would prefer them, leading to the loss of part time or full time jobs for the teenagers and dropouts.