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Commentary - Ron Haskins: New look at trends of immigrant wages
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Given the low educational attainment of a large number of immigrants, it is not surprising that average immigrant wages are low and falling relative to those of non-immigrants ...
Relative wages of the first generation show steady decline. In 1940, the average first-generation immigrant earned 5.8 percent more than the average non-immigrant worker, but relative wages fell to only 1.4 percent more in 1970, and then dropped precipitously by 2000 to almost 20 percent less than those of the typical non-immigrant worker. ...
Second-generation immigrants not only exceed the wages of first-generation immigrants but also exceed the wages of non-immigrant workers. This pattern demonstrates clearly that there is impressive upward economic mobility from the first to the second immigrant generation.
But before we conclude that the great American wage escalator for immigrants is working well, we should note ... relative wages of the second generation dropped consistently over the period from 17.8 percent to 6.3 percent above those of non-immigrant workers.
Thus, the pattern of declining relative wages of first-generation immigrants is associated with a similar pattern of declining relative wages in the second generation. Second-generation mobility is still in operation, but the second generation is earning relative wages that are lower than those of previous second-generation workers.
You can read the full report on The Brookings Institution Web site at: www3.brookings.edu/es/ccf/haskins200707.pdf.
Comments from Examiner Readers
10:53 AM MST on Fri., Jul. 20, 2007 re: "Pietro S. Nivola: Uncle Sam suffering from attention deficit disorder"
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4:57 AM MST on Wed., May. 9, 2007
re: "Sunlight study sees 10 ways to open the House"
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Mr. Mirth Alert said:
Mr. Nivola should thank the Lord that he's allowed to put his ignorance on public display, for he knows little about division of labor & nothing about attention deficit disorder. Division of labor was a mfr.'ing scheme, to produce more for less, i.e., increase profit. Despite Mr. Mellon's early 20th-century claim that good govt. is good business, govt. neither mfrs. nor turns a profit. & This notion of doing a little of everything need not be explained by some questionable medical diagnosis but rather by the very dictum that got the guy who appointed all the policy makers elected: "I can please all of the people all of the time." Overstretched govt. is the product of deliberate planning, not some behavioral miscue.
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Examiner Reader said:
Sorry, but this Open House Project commentary reads like an Onion parody column: who @the Sunlight Fdn. sincerely believes that Congress has any interest in empowering the public? The gulf betw. haves & have-nots widens a little more each day, & as "haves" Congress sure as shootin' has nothing to gain by reducing that gulf. Never mind all this techno nonsense, Sunlight Fdn.: arrest members of Congress & detain them for 48 hr; if for no reason other than to shake it outta its "have" stupor.
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