The Wall Street Journal picked up Harvard professor George Borjas’ study that shows how the employment gap for hiring illegal aliens over native born American workers has increased dramatically in the last twenty years. The study suggests that the reason for this is that while American workers would do the jobs they are not willing to work for below average living wages.
The study uses labor information from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is the same survey used in the Labor Department’s monthly employment report. Professor Borjas used new statistical methods to show that the preference for hiring illegal aliens is much larger than any other population group.
In 2014 the likelihood of an illegal alien finding employment was 12% higher than that of native born workers. The study also suggests that the labor supply for illegal aliens is perfectly inelastic keeping wages down for lower-skilled jobs that have high levels of competition with illegal aliens.
Read more on this study at The Wall Street Journal.
