Immigrants Help Local Economies

Via change.org:

A new report, Immigrants and the Economy," released by the Fiscal Policy Institute concludes that immigrants in the United States, regardless of immigration status, contribute to the economy in proportion to their population.

While focusing on just fiscal issues such as taxes and budgets in 25 metro cities, the research found that immigrants, regardless of legal status, make up 20 percent of the population and are responsible for 20 percent of economic output in 25 cities combined.

Countering claims of job losses among native workers, the fiscal study also concludes that both native and immigrant workers struggle at the bottom end of the wage specturum, throwing the cause-and-effect scenario out the window.

Also, check out another report released by the Migration Policy Institute on the economic benefits of illegal immigration, which concludes that the overall impact of illegal immigration is positively small and that enforcement-only policies quite expensive.

From the report:

The most striking finding in the analysis of 25 metro ar¬eas is how closely immigrant share of economic output matches immigrant share of the population. From the Pittsburgh metro area, where immigrants make up 3 percent of the population and 4 percent of economic output, to the Miami metro area, where immigrants represent 37 percent of all residents and 38 percent of economic out¬put, immigrants are playing a consistently proportionate role in local economies.