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Excerpts from: The Economic Costs of Mass Immigration
— Why Mass Immigration is Bad for Business, Bad for the American Worker, and Bad for Taxpayers—

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Bad for Business: The Numbers

Business often lobbies for more immigration because it is clear to all that rapid growth in the labor force drives down the cost of labor (wages and benefits). Harvard economist George Borjas calculates that mass immigration increases profits by $160 billion, but depresses wages by $152 billion, annually. The $8 billion net addition to GDP is negligible in our $8 trillion economy.

The $8 billion that immigration adds to GDP in the $8 trillion annual U.S. economy is very small. And that little bit is more than off set by the costs of the population growth that mass immigration generates. These costs are felt primarily as tax increases at the state and local level.

For example, each person added to a community cost existing residents (a national average) $15,378. Given that, if current immigration-generated population growth continues, the U.S.A. will exceed 500,000,000 by 2050, and one billion by 2100, one can see the costs to taxpayers are staggering.

...in 1997 fiscal year alone, immigration imposed a net (i.e. after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) tax burden of $3,463 on each native -headed household in California.

Specifically, immigrant-related costs are major. All taxpayers shoulder the burden for funding schools, medical care, transportation, criminal justice system, and infrastructure used by immigrants and their families.

About 80% of immigrants are less educated than the average American. They are, on average, paid less than the typical American, so immigrant-headed households draw on social services at a greater rate. Statistically, immigrants use more welfare and food stamps than the average for native-born Americans despite the 1996 reform legislation that imposed an eligibility requirement of a ten-year residency on non-citizens. And even these requirements have since been watered down.

Taxpayers, especially at the state and local level, bear the brunt of immigration's costs, which all credible studies have shown that, in the 1997 fiscal year alone, immigration imposed a net (i.e., after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) tax burden of $3,463 on each native-born household in California.

Employers of immigrant labor do profit from low labor costs, but even they need to calculate their net profit (or loss) from immigration. Is their lower labor costs offset by higher taxes? For everyone who does not employ immigrant labor, the calculation is a no-brainer. Most Americans lose.

A complete copy of Carrying Capacity Network's "The Economic Costs of Mass Immigration" is available to order online in our publications section for $5 at http://www.carryingcapacity.org/pubs.html

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Note: CCN is anti-mass immigration but NOT anti-immigrant.