Photo by jphilipg/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Construction signs, August 2008
According to a UC Riverside study out today, granting legal status to undocumented workers would help get them into jobs that are better suited to their skills and increase their wages, while not having an adverse effect on the wages of native-born workers.
From the executive summary:
We find that a legalization program would increase immigrant wages by more than 20 percent. We also find that most of this effect can be attributed to immigrants switching into higher paying occupations after legalization, rather than receiving higher wages in the jobs they previously held.
These results, combined with other studies, suggest that a path to legal status will likely: a) help immigrants by improving their earnings, b) increase U.S. economic productivity by allowing immigrants to find jobs better matched to their skills, and c) have a negligible impact on the wages of native-born workers.
The effect of unauthorized workers on native-born workers’ wages in low-skill industries such as construction has long been debated, with employers who pay less to undocumented immigrants blamed for driving down pay rates.
The study was conducted by economists Fernando Lozano of Pomona College and Todd Sorensen of UC Riverside and appeared in UCR’s quarterly Policy Matters journal. The full report can be downloaded here.
