By Christine Park
Yahoo Finance editor Adriana Belmonte reports on the effects of increasing immigration on the American workforce. Belmonte cites PWBM’s interview on Knowledge@Wharton Business Radio SiriusXM 132, along with a policy brief written by Georgetown University professor Harry Holzer and the U.S. Census data, to illustrate the effects of increasing immigration on the U.S. economy. She refers to PWBM to demonstrate that increased immigration can lead to a rise in GDP.
PWBM shows that recent immigrants are better educated than ever before. Since 2007, the share of immigrants with a college degree grew while the share without a high school degree fell (Figure 1). Among legal immigrants who arrived since 2014, half held a bachelor’s or advanced degree, compared to a third of native-born Americans. In addition, PWBM’s Immigration Policy Simulator suggests that increasing the flow of legal immigrants will have a positive impact on employment, GDP, and GDP per capita. The simulator also indicates that “the largest positive impact on employment would come from increasing the net flow of immigrants.”
Immigration is proving to be a key part of policy platforms for 2020 Presidential election candidates. You can use PWBM’s Interactive Immigration State Map to learn about immigration in your state.
Figure 1: Educational attainment of recent immigrants
Percent of immigrants aged 25 and older who arrived in the previous 5 years
Source: PWBM calculations based on Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 1997-2017.
Year,No high school degree,Bachelor's or advanced degree 1997,31.67951,30.32166 1998,31.19011,30.68057 1999,31.01283,33.01889 2000,31.18653,31.37709 2001,31.90356,33.70778 2002,31.34068,33.62067 2003,31.83888,34.32307 2004,32.03357,31.75735 2005,32.48421,31.92799 2006,32.77914,31.08915 2007,34.88388,32.65837 2008,30.60129,33.69902 2009,29.45883,36.10853 2010,26.98403,35.27859 2011,23.42236,39.98163 2012,21.45318,42.14853 2013,22.11701,42.25308 2014,23.72578,42.80817 2015,21.33446,46.04929 2016,17.70347,46.41018 2017,17.43114,47.85938