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Briggs, Vernon M., Jr.

English

DigitalCommons@ILR

Cornell University ILR School 
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Briggs Volume IV Briggs Papers and Speeches 
April 1995 
Income Distribution: The Adverse Effects of Immigration Policy 
Vernon M. Briggs Jr. 
vmb2@cornell.edu 
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Income Distribution: The Adverse Effects of Immigration Policy 
Keywords 
Effect, immigration, policy, economic, national, U.S., unemployment, foreign, born, labor, work, market 
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Volume 4 - Paper #59 
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National Planning Association
Baltimore, MD
April 28, 1995
Income Distribution: The Adverse Effects of Immigration Policy
Vernon M. Briggs, Jr.
Cornell University
In the Economic Report of the President: 1994, it is stated that "immigration has
increased the relative supply of less educated labor and appears to have contributed to
the increasing inequality of income" in the United States (p. 120). This is the first
official government statement, to my knowledge, that recognizes the adverse economic
effects that contemporary U.S. immigration policy is exerting on the U.S. economy since
mass immigration was accidentally revived in 1965. This acknowledgment of what has
transpired was followed by a qualifying observation the "the effect has been small."
Unfortunately, as everyone who studies the post-1965 immigration experience knows, the
macro level (i.e., national level), is the wrong perspective for the analysis of the
phenomenon. Immigration is highly concentrated in its geographic and labor force
impacts. If the negative effects of immigration show-up at the national level, it can be
safely concluded that the local effects of immigration have to be significantly worse in
their consequences to offset the aggregation effects of the domination of economic
indices by the majority of persons who are not immigrants. Hence, whether the effect on
the distribution of income is "small" or not is a matter of contention; that its effects are
adverse to the national interest are not.
The human capital attributes of the immigrant flow of the 1980s and the early
1990s are completely out of synchronization with emerging labor demand trends. The
1990 Census data confirm what some labor economists have been saying for some time:
the flow of immigrants is disproportionately and significantly characterized by person
who are unskilled and poorly educated. It disclosed that 25 percent of the adult foreign
born population (those over the age of 25) had less than a 9th grade education
(compared to only 10 percent of the native born adult population) and that 41 percent of
the adult foreign born population had less than a twelfth grade education (compared to
23 percent of the native born adult population). The unemployment rates of both of
these low educational attainment groups are considerably above the unemployment rates
of the better educated. Hence, the flow of immigrants is disproportionately and
significantly impacting the segment of the labor force that is having the greatest
differently adjusting to the rapidly changing labor market conditions currently affecting
the U.S. economy.
It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the unemployment rate for foreign
born workers was 7.8 percent in 1990 (10 percent for foreign born workers who have
arrived since 1980) compared to 6.2 percent for native born workers in 1990. The fact
that a disproportionate number of the nation's native born black and Hispanic
populations are concentrated in these same low skilled segments of the labor market
should not be ignored either. Other elements of the nation's social policies have
manifested concern for the economic status of these groups. It is ironic, that
immigration policy has been allowed to undermine the effectiveness of these efforts.
2The 1990 Census also disclosed that 79.1 percent of the foreign born population
(5 years old and over) speak a language other than English (compared to 7.8 percent of
the native born) and that 47.0 percent of the foreign born (5 years old and over)
reported that they do not speak English "verywell". The ability to speak English in a
service-oriented economy has been definitively linked to the ability to advance in the
labor market of the post-1965 era. For these reasons and others, it should come as no
surprise that incidence of poverty among families of the foreign born population in 1990
was fifty percent higher than that of native born families or that 25 percent of the
families with a foreign born householder who entered the country since 1980 were living
in poverty in 1990.
As for immigrant children, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported in 1994
that two million immigrant youth emolled in U.S. public schools in the 1980s. It found
that they are "twice as likely to be poor as compared to all children" and that many,
"including those of high school age, have had little or no schooling and are often
illiterate even up in their own language." Children raised in poverty have a bleak future
in the labor market of the 1990s and of the next century.
There is also a strong pattern of geographic concentration associated with the
post-1965 immigration experience. The 1990 Census revealed that 66 percent of the
foreign born population resided in only six states (California, New York, Florida, Texas,
New Jersey, and lllinois). Furthermore, within all states, the foreign born population
tends to be concentrated in urban centers and especially in their respective central cities.
The current immigration phenomenon is overwhelmingly an urban experience. Indicative
of this urban concentration is the fact that 24 percent of the foreign born population of
the nation in 1990 lived in only seven cities. These cities and the percentage of their
respective populations who were foreign born in 1990 is as follows: New York (28
percent); Los Angeles (38 percent); Chicago (17 percent); Houston (18 percent); San
Francisco (34 percent); San Diego (21 percent); and Miami (60 percent). The real
percentages are certainly higher if allowances are made for uncounted illegal immigrants.
The unemployment rates in these cities in the 1990s have been consistently above the
rates for the states of which they are a part and have generally exceeded those of the
nation as a whole.
It is time for real immigration reform. There should be no effort to try to patch-
up the hodge-podge of laws that currently constitute the nation's immigration policies.
An entirely new approach is required. To do this, it is necessary to recognize that
immigration is primarily an economic policy, not a political or social policy. Immigrants
must work to support themselves or be supported by those who do. Even the children of
immigrants have economic consequences by their presence because they represent future
workers. The economic conditions under which such children are raised can have
significant intergenerational effects that affect the opportunities for preparation for the
future labor force. The perspective for the design of immigration policy, therefore, must
be its congruence with emerging labor market needs. The extant policy does not meet
that standard.


Income Distribution: The Adverse Effects of Immigration Policy

Briggs, Vernon M. Jr.

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Income Distribution: The Adverse Effects of Immigration Policy

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