Immigration, Wages, & Ethnicity: An examination of immigration's effect on the wages of native Hispanic workers

Abstract

Current literature is mixed on immigration’s effect on native wages in the United States. Some researchers find positive wage effects, while others find mixed or negative effects. The lack of consensus is due to variance in sampling, assumptions, and functional forms. This paper seeks to determine what relationship, if any, exists between immigration and wages for native-born Hispanics. We find that the ratio of immigrants to the labor force is a statistically significant variable at the national level, as well as for native Hispanics and white non-Hispanic workers. However, this variable translates to very few changes in the wages for these groups. This suggests that there is some other factor shielding natives from immigration’s effect, such as language ability.