The Increasing Importance of Immigrants to the U.S. Economy

A thoughtful immigration scholar, Dowell Myers has a new paper “THINKING AHEAD ABOUT OUR IMMIGRANT FUTURE: New Trends and Mutual Benefits in Our Aging Society,” which is worth reading   Here is the summary:

There are two stories now being told about immigration and the future of America. Each has some basis in fact, although one is based on newer trends and is more optimistic than the other. These stories differ in their answers to three crucial questions: whether immigration to the United States is accelerating out of control or is slowing; how much immigrants are assimilating into American society and progressing economically over time; and how important immigrants are to the U.S. economy. The pessimistic story-in which immigration is portrayed as increasing dramatically and producing a growing population of unassimilated foreigners-draws upon older evidence. But more recent data and analysis suggest a far more positive vision of our immigrant future. Immigration has not only begun to level off, but immigrants are climbing the socio-economic ladder, and will become increasingly important to the U.S. economy as workers, taxpayers, and homebuyers supporting the aging Baby Boom generation.

KJ