The Washington Post has given Donald Trump’s claim about “low-skilled” immigration burdening U.S.-born workers three Pinocchios—for “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions—writing “that in the long run, immigration … is a net positive to the U.S. economy.”
The researchers cited an expansive, decades-long study, noting that while “low-education immigrants” were costlier to states in the 1990s due to being new and thus having contributed less in taxes than someone who had already been here working for years, their descendants were “a net positive for the states in general”:
The NAS report also found that in the long run, immigration — both high- and low-skilled — is a net positive to the U.S. economy. For example, the availability of low-skilled immigrants at lower wages allows businesses to expand, which increases total employment, the report says. The report found that over 75 years, each immigrant represents $259,000 in net present value for federal, state and local governments.
Trump exaggerates the impact of immigration on U.S. workers’ wages by saying that the immigration of low-skilled workers has created substantial pressures on American workers, taxpayers and resources. Over time, immigrants are a net positive to the U.S. economy.
“Overall, there is no evidence that immigration depresses wages or employment of natives,” the fact-finders noted, concluding that “his over-the-top rhetoric, which is more hyperbole than fact, pushed his rating to Three Pinocchios.” When it comes to Trump, that could be applicable to just about anything he says.