Illegal’s gain jobs while Americans lose jobs

Information procured from the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor data by the Pew Hispanic Center found American citizens lost 1.2 million jobs while illegal aliens racked up 656,000 in new jobs. The lopsided jobs numbers should alarm many in Washington D.C.

During a time of great economic recession those in the country illegally are driving down their overall employment numbers showing their ability to work, most likely for less, over American citizens whose unemployment rate hovers around the 10 percent mark.

According to Pew, “the unemployment rate for immigrant workers fell 0.6 percentage points during this period (from 9.3% to 8.7%) while for native-born workers it rose 0.5 percentage points (from 9.2% to 9.7%).”

The U.S. Census Bureau says the illegal alien employment block makes up almost 16 percent of the labor workforce and the study indicated that this demographics’ full-employment numbers grew instead of contracted as the native born citizens.

“These gains occurred at a time when native-born workers sustained ongoing losses. The native born engaged less in the labor market (labor force participation rate fell from 65.3% to 64.5%) and a smaller share was employed in the second quarter of 2010 than in the second quarter of 2009 (58.3% vs. 59.3%),” Pew said in a statement.

However, Hispanic groups across the country are saying this recovery is far from complete and the 656,000 new jobs still falls short of the 1.1 million jobs needed to give illegal aliens full employment in the United States.

“Over the two-year period from 2008 to 2010, second quarter to second quarter, foreign-born workers have lost 400,000 jobs and native-born workers have lost 5.7 million jobs,” Pew found. “The unemployment rate for immigrants is still more than double the rate prior to the recession when it stood at 4.0% in the second quarter of 2007.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau and Pew, illegal aliens experienced the sharpest drop in wages of 4.5 percent while their native-born counterparts who kept their job only experienced a 1 percent income loss.

The majority of jobs illegal aliens qualify for are the low-skilled positions in the manufacturing, construction, leisure and hospitality fields. Advocates for open-borders/amnesty contend if America severely cracked down on employers who hire the undocumented workers the U.S. economy would grind to a halt.

While that blanket statement could happen in the short term leading economists contend the majority of those industries would rebound quickly as the large number of unemployed would return to jobs as their unemployment benefits run out as well as those looking to get off government welfare.


As far as the economic impact of illegal immigration on the U.S. economy, those in the agricultural industry would most likely increase their use of automation to ensure production and global trade.


Americans’ wealth is another area that makes little difference to illegal immigration. Harvard's George Borjas said the average American's wealth would only increase by 1 percent.


One area that does have a large impact on the American taxpayer is the money Uncle Sam doles out to illegal aliens in the form of health care, education and incarceration. Conservative estimates of those costs are $100 billion per year.


In the end it will come down to the economics and the American taxpayer who will ultimately decide if the country can sustain high-levels of illegal immigration as it correlates to the cost, benefits ratio.


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