O Immigration and the Economy – – Part Ii

NE OF THE difficult questions that arises in the ongoing public debate on immigration is whether immigrants to the United States represent an overall cost or benefit to the U.S. economy. The answer to this question centers in part on the extent to which immigrants contribute to the labor force, compete for jobs with native workers and provide goods and services that otherwise would not be produced. The answer also centers on the fiscal impact of immigration— the amount of taxes immigrants pay relative to the amount of government services they receive. This final article of a two-part series on immigration addresses these issues, drawing on the research and ideas presented at " Immigration and the Economy, " a conference sponsored by the El Paso Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The most basic impact of immigration in any country is on its population growth and, therefore, the size of its labor force. Assuming current levels of immigration, a little more than half the growth in the U.S. population between 1995 and 2025 will come from new immigrants and their descendants. Similarly, more than half of the growth in the U.S. labor force — 16.5 million people — will be attributed to