There are indications that The Heritage Foundation may soon release an updated version of its 2007 report, “The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer,” by Robert Rector. That 2007 report’s flawed methodology produced a grossly exaggerated cost to federal taxpayers of legalizing unauthorized immigrants while undercounting or discounting their positive tax and economic contributions – greatly affecting the 2007 immigration reform debate.

Before releasing its updated report, I urge the Heritage Foundation to avoid the same serious errors that so undermined Mr. Rector’s 2007 study. Here is a list of some of its major errors:

1. Count individuals, not households.[1]  Heritage counts household use of government benefits, not individual immigrant use. Many unauthorized immigrants are married to U.S. citizens and have U.S. citizen children who live in the same households. Counting the fiscal costs of those native-born U.S. citizens massively overstates the fiscal costs of immigration. 
2. Employ dynamic scoring rather than static scoring. [2] Heritage’s report relies on static scoring rather than dynamic scoring, making the same mistake in evaluating the impact of increased immigration on welfare costs that the Joint Committee on Taxation makes when scoring the impact of tax cuts. Instead, Heritage should use dynamic scoring techniques to evaluate the fiscal effects of immigration reform. For example, Heritage should assume that wages and gross domestic product are altered considerably because of immigration policy reforms. In contrast to that economic reality, immigrant wages, gross domestic product, and government welfare programs are unrealistically static in Mr. Rector’s study. His study largely ignores the wage increases experienced by immigrants and their descendants over the course of their working lives, how those wages would alter after legalization, and the huge gains in education amongst the second and third generation of Hispanics.[3] Heritage is devoted to dynamic scoring in other policy areas – it should be so devoted to it here too.[4]
3. Factor in known indirect fiscal effects.[5]  The consensus among economists is that the economic gains from immigration vastly outweigh the costs.[6] In 2007, Mr. Rector incorrectly noted that, “there is little evidence to suggest that low-skill immigrants increase the incomes of non-immigrants.” Immigrants boost the supply and demand sides of the American economy, increasing productivity through labor and capital market complementarities with a net positive impact on American wages.[7] Heritage should adjust its estimates to take account of the positive spill-overs of low-skilled immigration.
4. Assume that wages for legalized immigrants would increase – dramatically.[8]  Heritage did not assume large wage gains for unauthorized immigrants after legalization.  In the wake of the 1986 Reagan amnesty, wages for legalized immigrants increased – sometimes by as much as 15 percent – because legal workers are more productive and can command higher wages than illegal workers.  Heritage should adopt similar wage increases to estimate the economic effects of immigration reform if it were to happen today.[9] 
5. Assume realistic levels of welfare use.[10]  Vast numbers of immigrants will return to their home countries before collecting entitlements,[11] the “chilling effect” whereby immigrants are afraid of using welfare reduces their usage of it, and immigrants use less welfare across the board.[12]  100 native-born adults eligible for Medicaid will cost the taxpayers about $98,000 a year.  A comparable number of poor non-citizen immigrants cost approximately $57,000 a year – a 42 percent lower bill than for natives.  For children, citizens cost $67,000 and non-citizens cost $22,700 a year – a whopping 66 percent lower cost.  Heritage should adjust its estimates of future immigrant welfare use downward. [13] 
6. Use latest legislation as benchmark.[14]  The current immigration plan, if rumors are to be believed, would stretch a path to citizenship out for 13 years.[15]  Most welfare benefits will be inaccessible until then, so Heritage’s report must take that timeline into account.
7. Remittances do not decrease long term consumption.[16]  Remittances sent home by immigrants will eventually return to the U.S. economy in the form of increased exports or capital account surpluses.  Heritage should recognize this aspect of economic reality rather than assuming remittances are merely a short-term economic cost.  
8. Factor in immigration enforcement costs.[17]  Heritage did not compare costs of legalization and guest workers to the costs of the policy status quo or increases in enforcement.  The government spends nearly $18,000 per illegal immigrant apprehension while the economic distortions caused by forcing millions of consumers, renters, and workers out of the U.S. would adversely affect income and profitability.[18]
9. Use transparent methodology.[19]  Heritage’s methodology should replicate that of the National Research Council’s authoritative and highly praised – even by immigration restrictionists – study entitled The New Americans.[20]  That study is the benchmark against which all efforts at generational fiscal accounting – including Heritage’s 2007 report – are measured.  If Heritage deviates from their methods, it should explain its methodology in a clear and accessible way that states why they altered practice.[21]
10. Don’t count citizen spouses.[22]  Heritage counted U.S.-born spouses of unauthorized immigrants as fiscal costs.  Counting the net immigrant fiscal impact means counting immigrants and perhaps their children at most,[23] not native-born spouses who would be on the entitlement roles regardless of whether they married an immigrant or a native-born American.
11. Suggest changes to the welfare state.  Heritage has elsewhere called low-skill migrant workers “a net positive and a leading cause of economic growth”[24] and accurately reported that “[t]he consensus of the vast majority of economists is that the broad economic gains from openness to trade and immigration far outweigh the isolated cases of economic loss.”[25]  Instead of arguing against low-skill immigration, Mr. Rector should instead suggest reforms that would, in the words of Cato’s late Chairman Bill Niskanen, “build a wall around the welfare state, not around the country.”[26]

It is imperative that the economic costs and benefits of increased immigration be studied using proper methods and the most recent data.  A previous report by the Heritage Foundation in 2006 entitled, “The Real Problem with Immigration … and the Real Solution,” by Tim Kane and Kirk Johnson roundly rejected the negative economic assessments of Mr. Rector’s 2007 study.[27]  Not only does Mr. Rector not speak for the broad conservative movement; it appears that economists who have worked for the Heritage Foundation also disagree with Mr. Rector’s conclusions. 

For decades, the Heritage Foundation has been an influential intellectual force in conservative circles.  Its economic analyses have been predicated on consideration of the dynamic effects of policy changes as opposed to static effects.  Unfortunately, Mr. Rector’s past work has not been consistent in this regard, employing the same static scoring conservatives have traditionally distrusted in other policy areas. 

Many conservatives rely on the Heritage Foundation for accurate research about immigration’s impact on the economy.  Before releasing another study assessing the net fiscal impacts of immigration reform, Heritage should correct the errors outlined above to guarantee the most accurate information on this important topic is available.

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Union and business negotiators have supposedly reached a deal on the major aspects of the guest worker visa program.  The details have not been released yet and the utility of such a proposal will rest there, but here are some brief observations on the broad strokes released:

1. Tiered visa program.  The plan appears to create a tiered guest workers visa program based on the state of the economy.  Under the first tier, firms will be allowed to hire 20,000 visas in 2015 that would ratchet up to 75,000 in 2019.  The second tier could then kick in if the economy is growing quickly and unemployment is below a preset threshold, going up to an annual cap of 200,000 per year.  Under a third tier, employers sound like they would be able to hire a large number of guest workers if they are willing to “pay significantly higher wages.”  According to the Mexican Migration Monitor, almost 700,000 unauthorized immigrants entered in 2006, up from 500,000 in 2005.  If the regulations, fees, and wage controls for the third-tier are minimal, this tiered program could reduce unauthorized immigration significantly if the sectors of the economy that employ unauthorized immigrants can apply for them.
2. Sector limitations.  The construction industry would be limited to no more than 15,000 visas annually.  As I wrote here, housing starts provided a huge incentive for unauthorized immigrants to enter to work in construction or other housing-related sectors of the economy.  Unauthorized immigration collapsed beginning in mid-2006 as housing starts declined precipitously, reducing demand for construction workers.  But with housing starts picking up, unauthorized immigration will increase again too.  15,000 total annual visas is not enough to siphon most unauthorized immigrants seeking construction employment into the legal market.  However, details in the tiered visa system could allow for some wiggle room there.       
3. Wage controls.  It appears that guest worker wages will be determined from complex formula that considers actual wages paid by employer to similar U.S. workers, industry wage scales, and regional variations in compensation.  Current guest worker visas are similarly regulated with disastrous and expensive results that encourage illegal hiring.  Replacing all of these regulations with a fee is a much simpler, cheaper, and effective way of incentivizing employers to hire Americans first.  Stacking the regulatory deck too much in favor of hiring Americans, even in industries for which there are very few American workers, will just incentivize employers to look in the black market – defeating the purpose of immigration reform.  More enforcement (code for bureaucracy) will either fail to halt that behavior or halt it by destroying large sectors of the economy through regulatory micromanagement.   
4. Worker mobility.  An unambiguously positive development is that guest workers would be allowed to switch jobs very easily.  Tying guest workers to employers was always a bad policy, one that could lead to employer abuse and justified numerous bureaucrats to intrusively inspect working conditions.  By allowing labor mobility, guest workers can look out for their own conditions and switch jobs when appropriate – obviating expensive bureaucratic oversight of employers and guest workers. 

These preliminary observations are based on broad policy outlines in numerous news stories rather than actual legislation.  I will update these observations as more details are released or the actual plan is published.