Immigration and Public Benefits
May 5, 2021
In this episode of EconoFact Explains, we highlight current evidence on the long-term fiscal impacts of immigrants.
EF Explains
Immigration has historically been an important driver of U.S. population growth and immigrants are a significant share of the nation’s workers: About 45 million foreign-born people lived in the United States in 2022, making up about 14 percent of the U.S. population and around 17 percent of the labor force. Our posts cover research on the impacts of changing immigration policies; the contributions of immigrants to economic growth; how immigration affects the wages of native-born workers; the contribution of immigrants to government coffers as well as their use of public benefits; among other topics.
May 5, 2021
In this episode of EconoFact Explains, we highlight current evidence on the long-term fiscal impacts of immigrants.
March 25, 2021
Deportations ramped up during the Trump administration but fell far short of levels reached in the Bush and Obama years of 2008-2011. The use of detention rose.
August 10, 2020
Tara Watson (Williams College) discusses her and Kalee Thompson’s forthcoming book, Unauthorized: The Human and Economic Costs of Immigration Enforcement in America.
June 17, 2020
COVID-19 job losses are particularly large among non-citizens, who are especially vulnerable because they have limited access to social safety net protections.
January 27, 2020
Under the new public charge rule, usage of Medicaid and SNAP would be considered for some immigration decisions. The reduction in spending would be non-trivial.
January 13, 2020
There is evidence that the impact of increased enforcement and deportations had ripple effects on the employment and safety net participation of citizens.
December 11, 2019
Secure Communities led to a large increase in immigrant deportations between 2008-2014. Research does not find evidence that this reduced rates of serious crime.
July 24, 2019
Individuals lacking legal status face obstacles that limit their job options and lower their productivity.
June 11, 2019
The Public Charge rule would change the way immigrants access U.S. public benefits. An underlying assumption is that immigrants are a burden on native-born taxpayers. But is this true?