Immigrants Includes all foreign-born individuals

Immigrants' wages down, study says
But later generations move up economically
By Eunice MoscosoCOX NEWS SERVICE
July 26, 2007
WASHINGTON – The economic progress of immigrants in the United States is slowing, a trend that does not bode well for future generations, according to a study released yesterday.
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The trend is partly due to a larger influx of immigrants with lower levels of education who earn less money, said the study by the Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts.
The study also said, however, that immigrants continue to experience upward mobility in the United States and become more affluent with each generation.
“The economic assimilation machine continues to be a powerful force,” said John Morton, managing director of economic policy at Pew. “But in recent years we have seen notable downward trends. Wages are decreasing substantially for both first-and second-generation immigrants, raising questions about the degree of future potential economic mobility.”
The study said that immigrants' wages have dropped steadily over the past six decades.
Recent immigrants are poorer compared with native-born Americans than at any other time since World War II, it said.
In 2000, the average first-generation immigrant earned about 20 percent less than the typical U.S.-born worker. By comparison, first-generation immigrants in 1970 earned 1.4 percent more than native-born workers, and first-generation immigrants in 1940 earned 5.8 percent more than native-born workers, the study said.
The report also found that education remains a crucial factor in an immigrant's economic success.
Although current immigrants are arriving with a mix of educational backgrounds similar to the mix of earlier waves of immigrants, the larger volume of immigrants with low levels of education could make it difficult for the next generation to move up the economic ladder, the study said.
Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who authored the study, said there has been a large increase in the numbers of immigrants who have less than a 12th-grade education and will therefore have lower wages.
“Historically, the U.S. economy has successfully created opportunity and economic mobility for immigrant families, but the scale of recent immigration – and especially of poorly educated immigrants – could be cause for future concern,” he said.
The report also found that recent immigrants from industrialized nations tend to earn more than native-born workers, but those from non-industrialized nations tend to earn less than native-born workers. By the second generation, however, the differences based on country of origin tend to disappear as wages for all immigrants move toward the U.S.-born average.
Currently, about 1 million legal immigrants enter the country each year, compared to about 300,000 per year in the 1960s. In addition, recent studies estimate about 500,000 illegal immigrants arrive each year.
The study was based heavily on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which does not identify whether immigrants are legal or illegal. Therefore, the term “immigrants” includes all foreign-born individuals.