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STUDY: Immigration Fattens Our Paychecks, Makes us Richer

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A new study by the San Francisco Fed, highlighted by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg,  and Reuters, provides state-level proof that immigrants, well, make us richer.

According to the author of the report:

[T]otal immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real income per worker. That equals an increase of about $5,100 in the yearly income of the average U.S. worker in constant 2005 dollars. Such a gain equals 20% to 25% of the total real increase in average yearly income per worker registered in the United States between 1990 and 2007.

The study is making the rounds in the blogosphere.  Matt Yglesias writes, in “How Immigration Boosts Living Standards:”

When new workers come onto the scene and do jobs, they create more surplus. To get the kind of zero-sum effect that people think occurs when you get rid of immigrants, what you would actually need to do is send retirees to the Death Panels and turn them into Soylent Green.