New York Times.

Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S.Economy?

Illegal immigration does have some undeniably negative economic effects. Similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. Labor economists have concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent.

The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them. Economies, as Adam Smith argued in “Wealth of Nations,” work best when workers become specialized and divide up tasks among themselves. Pedro Chan’s ability to take care of routine tasks on a work site allows carpenters and electricians to focus on what they do best. In states with more undocumented immigrants, Peri said, skilled workers made more money and worked more hours; the economy’s productivity grew. From 1990 to 2007, undocumented workers increased legal workers’ pay in complementary jobs by up to 10 percent.

I saw this in action when Chan took me to his current work site, a two-story office building on Coney Island Avenue. The skilled workers had already installed wood flooring in a lawyer’s office and were off to the next job site. That left Chan to clean up the debris and to install a new toilet. As I looked around, I could see how we were on one end of an economic chain reaction. Chan’s boss no longer had to pay a highly skilled worker to perform basic tasks. That lowered the overall cost of construction, increasing the number of jobs the company could book, which meant more customers and more money. It reminded me of how so many restaurants operate. Without undocumented labor performing routine tasks, meals, which factor labor costs into the price, would be more expensive. There would also be fewer jobs for waiters and chefs.

Earlier that day, I was reminded of another seldom-discussed fact about immigrant life in the United States. Immigrants spend most of the money they make. Chan had broken down his monthly expenses: $400 a month in rent, another $30 or so for gas, electric and Internet. He sends some money home and tries to save a few thousand a year in his Citibank account, but he ends up spending more than $10,000 annually. That includes the $1,400 or so he pays the I.R.S. so that he can have a taxpayer I.D. number, which allows him to have a credit score so that he can rent an apartment or lease a car.

ANÁLISIS DE LA NOTICIA:
Esta noticia nos da a entender que en Estados Unidos los inmigrantes ayudan a la economía pero perjudican a sus nacionales, ya que la mano de obra de un inmigrante es mas barata que la de un estadounidense, el problema de la inmigración radica precisamente en que a los nacionales les toca someterse a adquirir un salario mas bajo de lo que "merecen", pero algunos analistas de economía dicen que este impacto en el mundo es muy positivo, ya que no es bueno concentrar las tareas en un solo trabajador, y los inmigrantes precisamente como han aprendido varios oficios pueden trabajar en varias áreas y ayudar a que sea mas eficiente y eficaz el trabajo; de hecho uno de los análisis hechos sobre este tema revela que de  1990 a 2007, por causa de los trabajadores indocumentados, se aumento el salario de los trabajadores legales sin perjudicar a ninguna de las dos partes, en conclusión lo que Estados Unidos necesita es que la nueva reforma migratoria no perjudique ni a los legales ni a los indocumentados, tampoco se puede pretender que se les trate como iguales, pero si deben tener un mínimo de garantías inviolables.

SENTENCES ENGLISH:
*The legal or illegal workers deserve to be respected labor rights, financial remuneration depends on how employees carry out their work as.
*Immigration reform in America should generate more opportunities for immigrant workers, leaving aside their priority are domestic workers.