Low wage immigrants: Good for the economy

by: Jeremy Burton

Sun Oct 31, 2010 at 09:23:57 AM EDT

Now it can be told: Just in time for election day, a new study, "Immigration, Offshoring and American Jobs" is being reported on today and demonstrates that cheap immigrant labor prevents offshoring of jobs, resulting in more higher wage jobs for Americans.  From the NYTimes:

when companies move production offshore, they pull away not only low-wage jobs but also many related jobs, which can include high-skilled managers, tech repairmen and others. But hiring immigrants even for low-wage jobs helps keep many kinds of jobs in the United States, the authors say. In fact, when immigration is rising as a share of employment in an economic sector, offshoring tends to be falling, and vice versa, the study found.

In other words, immigrants may be competing more with offshored workers than with other laborers in America.

Funny how a little thing called data gets in the way of all that fear and vitriol aimed at immigrants this year.  Al Tirah! Fear Not!