Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Blog


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
July 26, 2016 1:15PM

Why Unemployment Is Lower When Immigration Is Higher

By David J. Bier

SHARE

“We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people,” Donald Trump told the Republican National Convention last week. “Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens.” But the candidate is wrong in two respects. First, the United States has not seen “record” immigration in recent years, and second, higher immigration is not associated with higher unemployment. Immigrants are heralds of growth, not portents of economic disaster. 

Recent immigration is no record

The amount of immigration to the United States can be measured in two ways. The most obvious is the absolute number of people receiving permanent residency in the United States. By this measure, the peak year was 1991 with 1.8 million. Even by this measure, Trump is wrong. Rather than "decades of record immigration," out of the top ten highest levels of all time, five occurred since 1990 and five before 1915.

But measuring immigration in terms of the absolute number of permanent residents is narrow and misleading. The biggest problem is that it implies that a million immigrants entering China, with a population of 1.4 billion, would have the same effect on employment as a million entering Estonia with a population of 1.2 million. Clearly, to understand the impact of immigration, you need to control for the size of the destination country.

Table 1: Top Ten Immigration Rates and Immigration Levels 1820 to 2014

  Year Rate   Year Number
1 1854 1.61% 1 1991 1,826,595
2 1850 1.59% 2 1990 1,535,872
3 1851 1.58% 3 1907 1,285,349
4 1882 1.50% 4 2006 1,266,129
5 1852 1.49% 5 1914 1,218,480
6 1907 1.48% 6 1913 1,197,892
7 1853 1.43% 7 2009 1,130,818
8 1849 1.31% 8 2005 1,122,257
9 1881 1.30% 9 2008 1,107,126
10 1906 1.29% 10 1906 1,100,735
Present 2014 0.32% Present 2014 1,016,518

Source: Department of Homeland Security. “2014 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.”  

By this measure, that “record year” of 1990 comes in 52nd overall. Rather than decades of record immigration, we see decades of below average immigration. Indeed, per capita immigration during the current decade is almost 30 percent lower than the historical average, and five times less than the record rates in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Figure 1: Immigration Rates (1820 to 2014) and Unemployment Rates (1890 to 2014)

Media Name: unemploymentimmigration.png

Sources: Immigration: Department of Homeland Security. “2014 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.” Unemployment: Census Bureau. "Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970." p. 135 and Bureau of Labor Statistics via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "Fred Economic Data: Civil Unemployment Rate." 

Higher immigration is not associated with higher unemployment

The other obvious aspect of the above visual is that the years with higher immigration do not coincide with the years with highest unemployment.* In fact, the reverse is true. Unemployment is highest when immigration is lowest. During years when immigration was above the historical average, unemployment was 5.7 percent. During all other years, it was 7.2 percent, a difference of 1.5 percent. If you exclude years where unemployment dropped solely because of the draft, during the World Wars, the difference rises to 1.8 percent.

Figure 2: Unemployment During Years with Immigration Rates Above and Below the Average (1890-2014)

Media Name: unemploymentimmigrationbarchart.png

Sources: See figure 1.

This relationship is statistically significant, but its magnitude is obscured by non-market phenomena, such as the draft as well as immigration quotas that interfere with market forces. If we confine our focus to the pre-World War I period, we can see a much higher degree of coincidence between low unemployment and high immigration.

Figure 3: Immigration and Unemployment Rates (1890 to 1915)

Media Name: unemploymentimmigration1890.png

Sources: See figure 1.

The years in which the immigration rate exceeded the average for the period had an unemployment rate 5.5 percent lower than those below the average. The magnitude of the relationship is also quite large: roughly 20 percent of the variability in the immigration rate can be explained by the unemployment rate alone over this period.

The relationship becomes much stronger when you focus on economic migrants only. I’ve previously noted this phenomenon in H-1B temporary work visa applications. When unemployment is high in the top H-1B fields, employers submit dramatically fewer applications. Companies hire foreign workers when they are making general increases in employment, not when they are laying off workers.

To be clear, immigrants are not causing the unemployment rate to move up or down. The economic literature on this point is quite unambiguous: immigrants cause essentially no effect on the unemployment rate one way or another. Rather, the causation is the other direction. Immigrants come during periods of economic growth when companies are hiring new workers, both immigrants and natives.

Trump is mistaken to associate unemployment with immigrants. They are a sign of good times, not bad.

 

*Unemployment did not begin in 1890, but that is the first year in which comparable numbers are available. Note that pre-1948 numbers refer to individuals over the age of 14, all others over 16

Related Tags
International Economics, Development & Immigration

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW,
Washington, DC 20001-5403
(202) 842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org