How immigrants might actually boost wages

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This tendency is evident in research published by the Pew Hispanic Center, showing that illegal immigrants, mainly from Mexico, who account for about 5 percent of the nation’s 149 million workers, generally are clusters in low-wage and low-skill occupations in businesses where employers frequently report difficulty finding workers.

In the farm industry, for example, which accounts for only 0.5 percent of U.S. jobs, undocumented workers make up nearly a quarter of the work force, according the Pew study, which is based on Census data. Illegal aliens account for 17 percent of workers in cleaning occupations and 14 percent of construction workers.

The study also found that 94 percent of undocumented foreign-born men ages 18 to 64 are in the work force, compared with 83 percent of native-born adult men.

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The debate over immigration reform has created some strange political bedfellows, with some pragmatic Republicans including President Bush lined up on roughly the same side of the issue as many union leaders and liberal Democrats. They all recognize the growing political and economic clout of the nation’s nearly 40 million Hispanics – a hint of which has been on display in recent weeks as hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest a House bill that would crack down on illegal immigration.

Jared Bernstein, senior economist of the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute, said immigration seems to depress wages for the lowest-skilled workers, but even that effect disappeared completely in the 1990s when the unemployment rate bottomed out at less than 4 percent, compared with the current 4.7 percent.

“The solution to the problems facing a native-born high school dropout is probably not less immigrant competition – it's gaining more skills,” he said. “In this economy, the lack of even a high school degree means you barely have a ticket for entry.”

He also said that raising the federal minimum wage, which has been at $5.15 an hour since 1997, “would be an important complement” to any new immigration laws that allow temporary “guest” workers as Bush has urged.

“It’s unclear how many Americans are really, truly displaced by illegal aliens,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for Global Insight. “To me it’s kind of a red herring.”

Immigrant labor makes a wide range of services more affordable and generally raises the standard of living, he said. And he said unlike Europe, which attracts immigrants because of the generally good public welfare benefits, immigrants come to this country to work and chase the American dream.

“The evidence suggests that immigrants, legal and illegal, tend to give more than they take,” he said. “They are here for the work -- not for the benefits.”

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