Immigration and Wages: Evidence From the 1980s

Author
Keywords
Abstract

More immigrants entered the United States during the l980s than
in any comparable period since the 1920s. Although at a national
level the inflow rates were relatively modest, most of the newly
arriving immigrants settled in only a handful of cities. In this
paper, we study the effects of immigration during the 1980s on the
evolution of wages within a sample of 24 major cities. We
concentrate on changes in wages for relatively low-paid workers,
and on changes in the gap between highly-paid and low-paid
workers. Our analysis reveals significant differences across
cities in the relative growth rates of wages for low-paid and
highly-paid workers. However, the relative growth rates of wages
at the low end of the earnings distribution bear little or no
relation to the relative size of immigrant inflows to different
cities.

Year of Publication
1991
Number
281
Date Published
02/1991
Publication Language
eng
Citation Key
American Economic Review, 81, May, 1991
URL
Working Papers