Jennifer Fregia
ECON 103
Macro Paper
September 21, 2014
Immigration & the Economy Immigration has been a big subject that many politicians bring up in debates and speak about in order to get the public onboard with the idea. Immigration is essentially how this country was founded, so I don’t agree with turning people away who desire to earn a better living for themselves and their families. However, I do agree there is a right way to go about it now that we are a country, and it can do an incredible thing for our nation and our economy. US News has an article “Immigration Reform Boots Economic Recovery” that was written in October of last year. This article analyzes a report from a reform bill and shows that “during the next 20 years, immigration would bolster the country’s economic growth by 4.8 percent.” That would be an incredible increase for the nation alone, but the report also goes on to mention that the increase will reduce our deficit by $1.2 trillion. Reducing the deficit by that much would be due to the fact that the immigrants will come in, be legalized, and furthermore take on jobs and with that said, pay taxes. The biggest challenge of all of this is having all of the immigrants come in and be legalized. There are a lot of illegals here that yes, they do work, however since they are illegal, they do not pay taxes. They find work that allow them to be “paid under the table” for lack of better words, and so while they are here benefiting from the freedoms our country has, they’re not contributing like the rest of us. A lot of lawmakers and politicians are not for extending legal status to a lot of undocumented illegals, and I don’t disagree with that. Yes, we are a country of freedom, of dreams and the limits here are endless, but come about it the right way.
The report on US News, as mentioned before, also states that a lot of anti-reform advocates are against immigration due to the fact that it takes away jobs from Americans, and will also make wages tumble down. Yes, obviously the immigrants who come in will be looking for jobs. Also, they may take jobs away from able bodied Americans, but a lot of the immigrants that come in do work like landscaping and construction. They come here to do what they can to pay the bills and provide for their families, and also to provide a way for their children to have a chance at a better education and opportunities than what they had. There are lots of opportunities for the children of immigrants to get an education. While I do not agree with it fully, those opportunities are there for them. This is also a whole other topic that I could rant and rave about, but their children coming and getting higher educations will eventually help with the economy, as stated before to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion.
That number, $1.2 trillion, could even triple in years to come since immigrants usually don’t travel alone. There have been 11 million or more immigrants that have moved into the United States, and according to analysisonline.org’s article “An Economic Perspective on Immigration – both legal and illegal – and the prospects for reform”, on average about 850,000 people a year enter the country illegally. A lot of them bring their wives and children, and those children have so many opportunities that their parents never had in their other countries. If all of these people came in, were legalized, that would boost the economy incredibly. Again, just by them coming in and being legal and paying taxes would be the help our economy needs to see right now.
Our country is based on diversity. We are a country that is colorful and full of different backgrounds. The title of American is so different for many people because of their ancestry. According to the analysisonline.org’s article as mentioned before, “Today, one in 8 workers [are] foreign born.” That’s incredible. Not only does it allow us to be the most diverse country in the world, and a huge
