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Immigration and the Wage Distribution in the United States

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Demography

Abstract

This article assesses the connection between immigration and wage inequality in the United States. Departing from the focus on how the average wages of different native groups respond to immigration, we examine how immigrants shape the overall wage distribution. Despite evidence indicating that an increased presence of low-skilled immigrants is associated with losses at the lower end of wage distribution, we do not observe a similar result between high-skilled immigrants and natives at the upper end. Instead, the presence of foreign-born workers, whether high- or low-skilled, is associated with substantial gains for high-wage natives, particularly those at the very top. Consequently, increased immigration is associated with greater wage dispersion.

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Notes

  1. The census does not release detailed geographic information of the respondents in less populated areas, so no individual could be identified with the released information.

  2. To be clear, we are not claiming that high-skilled immigrants do not face discrimination or that they have any advantages over natives in the U.S. labor market. Because our models do not consider industry and occupation, the immigrant premium at the upper end is likely driven by their clustering in high-paying industries and occupations.

  3. These estimates are smaller than previous findings and are likely due to sample restrictions.

  4. See https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/conspuma.shtml for more information.

  5. We use the share of workers with a college degree as a proxy of skill in a separate analysis, which yields similar results.

  6. The TAA Program is a federal program developed in 1962 to weaken the impacts of free trade on workers. It consists of four subprograms, each of which addresses the needs of workers, farmers, firms, and communities. The TAA Program provides cash payment, training, and job-searching assistance for workers who lost their jobs as a result of increased imports.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Yinon Cohen, Thomas DiPrete, Olivier Godechot, Gianluca Manzo, Etienne Ollion, David Pedulla, Kelly Raley, Eiko Strader, Stephen Trejo, the attendants of the PRC Brown Bag Series at the University of Texas-Austin, the attendants of Center for the Study of Wealth and Inequality seminar at the Columbia University, and the attendants of Paris Seminar on the Analysis of Social Processes and Structures for their comments on the earlier versions of this article. We also thank the editorial team at the Pennsylvania State University and the anonymous reviewers for their generous comments and suggestions. This research was supported by Grant P2CHD042849, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

    Ken-Hou Lin & Inbar Weiss

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Lin, KH., Weiss, I. Immigration and the Wage Distribution in the United States. Demography 56, 2229–2252 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-019-00828-9

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