Comment: Rural Immigration
Center for Rural Strategy has released a study that shows the positive impact of immigration on rural areas.
Rural counties with more immigrants also tend to be performing better economically. Rural America’s foreign-born residents may be moving to counties that have more jobs, but immigrants also create more economic opportunity when they get there, economists say. Roberto Gallardo, Ph.D., the author of the study, looked at the percentage of a rural county’s population that was born beyond U.S. borders and correlated that information with some basic economic data. He found that, in general, as the proportion of the immigrant population grows in rural areas, positive economic indicators like per capita market income rise, as well. And negative economic indicators like the rate of poverty and unemployment go down.
Rural America is plagued by serious loss of population, and these communities are being saved by the influx of immigrants. Share your thoughts by writing toeditor@ilw.com.
Ten Myths of High-Skilled Immigration BY ADAMS B. NAGER AND ROBERT D. ATKINSON | APRIL 2015 THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION FOUNDATION | MAY 2014
Until recently there was a widespread agreement that the United Statesfaced a STEM worker shortage. However, that consensus has begun to fracture, largely due to the assertive campaign of some liberal economists more interested in protecting the salaries of high-wage professionals than helping the broad base of American consumers and workers. In particular, in their single-minded campaign to eliminate the H-1b visa program, these advocates have engaged in a campaign designed to call into doubt the reality of the U.S. STEM shortage. For leading advocates like Ron Hira, Hal Salzman, and Michael Teitelbaum who make this claim, economic policy reflects a fundamental tension between capital and labor: if capital gets less, labor gets more. One sure way of ensuring capital gets less is to restrict the supply of labor so that businesses must bid up wages. To be sure, these labor advocates have every right to make this argument, but they should be upfront about their real agenda and its implications, including on progressivity. Engineers, for example, earn 2.5 times the median national wage with a median yearly income of $88,720.1 This places them in the top 5 percent of single income earners.2 Why is it progressive to raise their incomes by restricting the supply of STEM workers, when the result would be fewer jobs in the rest of the economy, higher prices for American consumers of all incomes, and reduced U.S. global competitiveness? Indeed, limiting the supply of STEM professionals in the United States will raise prices for consumers, reduce the output of U.S. firms in globally traded sectors (like manufacturing and software), and cost the jobs of tens of thousands of Americans who work alongside engineers and IT professionals.
