Study: Immigrants boost native-born pay.

Byline: Susan Ferriss

Feb. 28--In a surprising new study with national implications, a University of California economist found that immigration boosted the average wages of the native-born worker in California by at least 4 percent between 1990 and 2004. The boost in wages due to immigrants' impact on the workplace is across the board, but higher for those with at least a high school diploma, according to the detailed analysis of 44 years of U.S. Census data on immigration and the workplace. Native-born high school dropouts, who are assumed to have lost ground to immigrants in the workplace, have not suffered any wage losses as a group because of immigration, according to the study, which was produced by UC Davis associate professor Giovanni Peri for the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco. "In fact, there has been a small uptick in their wages," Peri said of native-born high school dropouts, who account for about 8 percent of the state's native-born workers. The gain in real wages for that group is less than 1 percent, Peri said, only 0.2 percent, "which is not much, but certainly not a negative." "These results," Peri wrote in the report, "should certainly be taken into account by policymakers as they consider immigration reform. The findings would seem to defuse one of the most inflammatory issues for those who advocate measures aimed at 'protecting the livelihood of American citizens.' " The Public Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, will take the findings to Washington, D.C., next month for a briefing on Capitol Hill. If California were a country, Peri pointed out, it would be second only to Russia in the number of immigrants it receives. California's experience "makes a good economic case," Peri said, for reforming the U.S. immigration system to allow more immigrants to enter legally to perform work. Peri's study used hard data from the Census and the Census' 2004 American Community Survey. He looked at how wages of native and immigrant workers varied over time as their numbers changed. He divided groups by age, education, and other characteristics and then found that groups with increased numbers of foreign workers also showed increased wages of native workers.

Peri said he calculated the positive impact of California's immigrant influx on wages by separating it from other phenomena, including business cycles and technological changes. Steven Camarota, research director at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors letting fewer legal immigrants in, challenged Peri's focus on California and his methods. He read a synopsis of the report and said it started with assumptions rather than proof that immigrants' labor complements the labor of natives. Peri defended his work.

"The data tells me this," Peri said of his conclusions. "It seems to me there is no hard economic ground for believing that immigrants hurt natives' wages." Peri found that between 1990 and 2004, natives with a high school diploma or a college degree saw wages increase by about 3 ...