Immigration not to blame for high unemployment among blacks

Immigration moderately impacts the employment of young black men, according to the presentation presented to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. At the Economic Effect of Immigration on Black Workers briefing, Dr. Gordon Hanson, Professor of Economics UCSD, said that in 1960, 75% of black men were unemployed, versus 68% unemployment in the year 2000. The decline is accompanied by a rapid increase in incarceration, and he would expect any increase of immigration to impact blacks more because they have less education.

Dr. Gerald D. Jaynes, Professor of Economics and African-American Studies at Yale University, said that data forced him to conclude that negative effects of immigration on the employment of blacks were mostly absent and modest at worst for only a segment of lowest skilled workers. More so than immigration, having a significant minority of disadvantaged young people persisting in low educational achievement, dropping out of high school, and engaging in criminal activity are likely to blame for low employment rates.

Dr. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at Cornell University, disagreed. Immigrants, he said, take low skilled jobs from native born blacks, and an enormous amount of those immigrants are illegal. A major problem is that a high skilled person can take a low skilled job, but it doesn’t work the other way around. In competition for employment, illegal immigrants are likely to be hired because they can be paid less.

Overall, there are negative effects on the employment of blacks by immigration, but the effects are not major, Dr. Harry Holzer said, Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University. People do seem to prefer immigrants to native born blacks, he said, but part of that may be that blacks don’t appear to be interested in working certain jobs, such as jobs in agriculture. The solution, he said, has six parts. We must improve education, enhance youth mentoring, improve occupational training, reduce incarceration rates (and the barriers to work faced by ex-offenders), extend the Earned Income Tax Credit to childless adults including non-custodial fathers, and lastly reform child support regulations.

The general consensus in the room was that although immigration does have some impact, lack of education and skills are the main problem causing unemployment in young black men.