Do Illegal workers help or hurt the economy Essay

spell growing up in Mexico, I heard many stories of people who were exit to scarper in the join States, some penally, so they could provide a better life for their families. To them, they were going to the land of opportunity, where jobs were plentiful for people who were willing to lick hard. They planned to go to the United States and do the drill that Ameri nookys didnt want, while getting remunerative more than(prenominal) than they could make in Mexico.Many of them sought work in construction, where their cut down pay would mean cheaper homes and buildings for Americans. Although there was the risk of getting arrested and deported, it seemed alike(p) a risk worth taking to many people. Now that I digest in the United States, I carry seen the other case of the story. I have seen the economic difficulties that Americans face in their own country. It is rase harder for someone like me, who came here well-groundedly, only faces challenges that many Americans seize t.I have met people here who are working iniquitously, and see their workaday struggle to survive. I have as well as met Americans who were innate(p) here and have difficulty finding work. Instead of plenty of jobs for everyone, good jobs are scrimpy with many people fighting to get them. I see the vexation some people have toward those who are here dirtyly, and working for lower wages, fashioning it harder for others to complete. These observations have made me wonder do illegal workers aid or hurt the economy?Dr. George Borjas, Professor of Economics and genial indemnity at the John F. Kennedy School of political science, found that the earnings of US born workers were reduced by an average of 3.7% by immigrant workers, both legal and illegal. The greatest effect was to US born workers without a senior high school school leg as well as young workers. In his research, published in the paper Increasing the Supply of Labor finished in-migration, Dr. Borjas writes The 10 o ne thousand thousand domestic-born workers without a high school degree face the intimately competition from immigrants, as do the eight million jr. natives with barely a high school education and 12 million younger college graduates.In the psychoanalyse conditionize The Economic Logic of Illegal immigration by Gordon H. Hanson, Professor of Economics at University of California, Gordondiscovered that immigration has a modest impact on the economy, pushing incomes slightly lower for low-skilled native workers, and pushing incomes slightly high for highly-skilled native workers.However, because legal immigrant workers encounter more restrictions and delays in entering the work force, it is illegal immigrations that provide a fluid, low-skilled workforce that is needed during economic booms. Gordon states It (Illegal immigration) provides U.S. businesses with the types of workers they want, when they want them, and where they want them. If policy reform succeeds in making U.S . illegal immigrants more like legal immigrants, in wrong of their skills, timing of arrival, and occupational mobility, it is likely to lower rather than raise issue welfare.In June of 2011, the state of aluminium passed the strictest anti-immigration law in the United States, cognise as HB 56. Alabama is an unlikely state for such a law, since only 120,000 of the countrys 11 million illegal immigrants live in Alabama. However, politicians painted illegal workers as an epidemic, contributing to budget short spills and high unemployment. Included in the law, is a requirement for police to validate a persons immigration status if they have reasonable perplexity.The law penalizes anyone who employs, transports, or rents to an illegal immigrant. As a result of this law, Alabama farmers, who opposed the law from the beginning, saw their workforce disappear. In an article appearing in Mother Jones magazine entitled garter Not Wanted, by Paul Reyes, Alabama farmers expressed their frustration with HB 56. Their problem is that the work they have is difficult and requires experience and training that to the highest degree native workers dont have or are unwilling to do. In the article, Jerry Spencer, who runs enkindle Alabama, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) project, is quoted. During a single month, Spencer employed 75 Alabamians to work on a farm, picking tomatoes. Of the 75 workers, 15 of them showed up more than once and only 3 lasted for the whole month.Spencer says A Mexican can honestly make $300 a day at the upside of tomato season, but thats based on $3 per box. The (Alabamian) workers we took up there couldnt come close. Im going to be generous and say $20 a day was average. I in reality was proud to see how hard they did work, but they couldnt live up to the efficiency, and therefore the speed and production, that Mexicans couldAn earlier law that prohibited employers from hiring illegal workers was the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which was passed by congress in 1986. This act created penalties for employers who wittingly hire illegal immigrants. However, illegal workers have found a office to counter this by obtaining fake Social security numbers and greenness cards, which can be purchased easily in most immigrant neighborhoods for a fiddling fee. These false documents allow employers to claim ignorance if caught hiring an illegal worker.This also means that the illegal workers are paid the same way as other workers, on with tax deductions. In an article appearing in Generations magazine entitled Not on the Radar Illegal Immigrant are Bolstering Social earnest, author Eduardo Porter provided the following statistic, The estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a reward of as much as $7 billion a year. It is definitive to none with this statistic, that illegal workers are not eligible for Social Security benefits. Their Social Se curity deductions are being paid to retired legal workers.While illegal workers with false documents are paying taxes and contributing to the Social Security system, illegal immigrant workers also add a financial strain on city and state budgets. For example, in states like California, where one third of unknown born people in the United States live, children of immigrants are affecting reality schools. In the book Immigration in a Changing preservation Californias Experience, authors Kevin F. McCarthy and George Vernez advocate that more education needs be provided in California public schools for English proficiency for immigrant children lest they, and California with them, fall behind the rest of the country warns McCarthy and Vernez.Illegal workers may have dreams of making lots of money while working in the United States, but the truth is that they will face low-level jobs with the likelihood of exploitation.In a study of illegal Mexican workers, which is documented by Franc isco L. Rivera-Batiz in the study Undocumented workers in the labor market An analysis of the earnings of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States, published in the ledger of PopulationEconomics, it was found that 93.2% of male illegal workers and 87.4% of female illegal workers worked in service occupations. Furthermore, they made significantly less(prenominal) income than legal workers performing the same functions.Although some of the pay discrepancy is repayable to their time spent in the United States and English proficiency, it does not explain all of the pay discrepancies. Rivera-Batiz writes, The overlarge proportion of the gap in wages between legal and illegal immigrants unexplained by differences in the measured characteristics of these two groups strongly suggests the armorial bearing of systematic discrimination against undocumented workers.After conducting my research, I have been affect to learn that illegal immigration has a minimal impact on th e overall US economy. The most negatively affected are young, low-skilled, less educated native workers, who experience slightly lower wages due to illegal immigrant workers. Highly-skilled native workers actually receive a slightly higher income due to illegal immigrant workers.Illegal workers benefit of course, but they are also easy targets for exploitation, since they are often not paid the same as legal workers performing the same job functions, and do not receive the same benefits that legal workers do. The real winners from illegal immigration are the businesses that knowingly employ illegal workers. They receive a workforce willing to work for minimal wages, and perform jobs that many native workers are unwilling to do. Government agencies also benefit by receiving tax payments from illegal workers, while not having to pay out such benefits as Social Security. For these reasons, I forbid little change in Immigration laws, since the current situation benefits those with the most power and money.Works Cited(1) Borjas, G. J. (2004, May). In Increasing the Supply of Labor Through Immigration Measuring the Impact on Native-born Workers. Retrieved Mar. 29, 2013, from http// www.cis.org/articles/2004/back504.html(2) Hanson, G. H. (2007, Apr. 26 ). In The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration. Retrieved Mar. 29, 2013, from http//www.cfr.org/content/publications (3) McCarthy, Kevin F., Vernez,George. Immigration in a Changing Economy Californias Experience. Rand, 1997 338 EBSCOhost. Anoka Technical College, Anoka, Minnesota. 19 April 2013 http//www.ebsco.com (4) Reyes, Paul. Help Not Wanted. Mother Jones promenade/April 2012 EBSCOhost. Anoka Technical College, Anoka, Minnesota. 19 April 2013 . (5) Rivera-Batiz, Francisco L. Undocumented workers in the labor market An analysis of the earnings of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States Journal of Population Economics (1999) 91-116EBSCOhost. Anoka Technical College, Anoka, Minnesota. 29 March 2013 . (6) Porter, Eduardo. Not on the Radar Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security. Generations Spring 2005, Vol. 29 Issue 1 100-102EBSCOhost. Anoka Technical College, Anoka, Minnesota. 29 March 2013 .