The Washington Post had an editorial on immigration today telling readers that "immigration equals growth." Well, duh, other things equal, if immigration increases the U.S. workforce by 10 percent, it would be really amazing if it didn't increase GDP by at least a little. The questions that serious people would ask is whether it increases per capita GDP (India is richer than Germany in terms of having a larger GDP, its per capita GDP is less than one quarter the size), and how the gains are distributed. The serious economic argument against the current pattern of immigration (in my view) is that it tends to lower the wages of low and moderate income workers. We can redirect immigration to favor the entrance of high-end workers which would lower wages of doctors, lawyers, economists and people who write for the Washington Post. (The proposed legislation takes modest steps in this direction.) This would produce large gains for the economy (lower prices for health care and other services provided by highly paid professionals) and greater equality.
--Dean Baker
