Immigration and the Impact on Native Wages

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the impact of recent low-skilled immigration on the average earnings of native workers of the United States. I try to answer a number of questions that are important to the immigrant debate that is currently undergoing in the United States. These questions include if immigrants hurt the employment opportunities of native workers and who is actually benefiting from immigration. To do this, I focused my paper on the theoretical research that is being conducted in the field, in conjunction with a brief case-study with empirical evidence. I find that the impact of immigration on the native population is highly dependent on the skill class of those in question, and the difference of immigrants acting as complements or substitutes is the most contributing factor when analyzing the impact.