Immigration Isn't That Bad for Native Workers

Does immigration cost native workers their jobs or drive down their wages? This is one of the most contentious issues in economic policy right now. Fortunately, a lot of academic economists are doing some very smart, careful and thorough empirical work to figure out the effects of immigration on local labor markets. For a survey of the literature, see this 2011 paper by Sari Kerr and William Kerr. For a meta-analysis of the effects of immigration on wages and employment, see this 2008 paper by Simonetta Longhi, Peter Nijkamp, and Jacques Poot.

These and other surveys and meta-analyses all reach one overwhelming conclusion: Immigration has at most only a small harmful effect on the native-born. If this were biology or astrophysics, that would be that -- the media would accept the scientific consensus, until new research came along and overturned it. But this is economics, and so politics and ideology inevitably get in the way. There will always be people who are in favor of immigration restriction, and they will always have reason to question what would otherwise be a well-accepted consensus.