You might think that income inequality is an issue that is a winner for Democrats. Democrat politicians, including the current presidential candidates bloviate about the trend in increasing inequality and suggest income redistributive policies to address it.But those same Democrat politicians embrace large-scale immigration, support increases beyond today’s million-plus level of immigration, and advocate accommodating illegal aliens. So, it seems that they do not understand – or choose to ignore – the relationship between immigration – especially illegal immigration – and income inequality.A March 30
commentary by Ryan Girdusky on the Red Alert website should serve as a reminder to those politicians that there is no free lunch on this issue. Girdusky writes about a recently released London School of Economics study found that
, “…low-skill immigrants raise income inequality while high-skill immigrants lower income inequality for certain selective income pairings…” The researchers concluded that
, “One possible way to mitigate the effects of immigration on income inequality is to see changes in immigration policy that result in a change in the mix of immigrants admitted to the United States.”This conclusion that the current immigration policy and practice of the United States exacerbates the problem of inequality is not new. FAIR research reached a similar conclusion in
studies published in 1996 and 2007.
