Monday - May 28, 2007

Importing Poverty

Here is an article by Robert Rector, from The Heritatge Foundation.  If you look at the data, you will see we are importing low skilled workers with limited educations.  But then again, what do you expect when you allow hordes from a third world country to invade your nation?

Since the immigration reforms of the 1960s, the U.S. has imported poverty through immigration policies that per­mitted and encouraged the entry and residence of millions of low-skill immigrants into the nation. Low-skill immi­grants tend to be poor and to have children who, in turn, add to America’s poverty problem, driving up governmental welfare, social service, and education costs.

Today’s immigrants differ greatly from historic immigrant populations. Prior to 1960, immigrants to the U.S. had education levels that were similar to those of the non-immigrant workforce and earned wages that were, on aver­age, higher than those of non-immigrant workers. Since the mid-1960s, however, the education levels of new immigrants have plunged relative to non-immigrants; consequently, the average wages of immigrants are now well below those of the non-immigrant population. Recent immigrants increasingly occupy the low end of the U.S. socio-economic spectrum.[2]