Who Benefits from Mass Immigration

A business can benefit from immigration without its employees receiving a raise. A landlord can benefit from population growth while a tenant loses more of each paycheck to rent. Both gains appear in the economy, but neither guarantees that the worker or tenant is better off.

People who can benefit

Concentrated

The gains are often visible to a specific employer, owner or institution.

• Employers seeking more applicants and customers
• Property owners receiving stronger housing demand
• Workers whose skills complement new arrivals
• The federal government’s tax base

People who may pay

Distributed

The costs can be spread across households and local services.

• Workers competing for the same jobs
• Renters and first-time home buyers
• Local taxpayers funding schools and infrastructure
• Residents facing higher costs for fixed services

Reading guide: the two columns describe competing interests, not mutually exclusive identities. A person can appear on both sides through different parts of the economy.

That division explains why employers, property owners and residents can have different interests in the same immigration policy. Companies want workers and customers. Households need wages that cover a home, children and savings. The number of people admitted affects both sides of that calculation, and the costs depend heavily on where they settle and how quickly they arrive.

Employers gain workers and customers

An employer with more qualified applicants has more hiring options. When recruits can perform the same work as existing employees, the company has less reason to compete for those employees through higher pay. Expanding recruitment can also allow a business to fill vacancies and increase production. Whether employees share in that expansion depends on their jobs and bargaining position.

New arrivals also buy groceries, rent apartments and use services. Businesses can gain from those sales as well as from hiring. Consumers may benefit when additional labor lowers the cost of services, and workers can benefit when newcomers bring skills that make their own work more productive.^[1]

The wage evidence requires a specific argument. The National Academies’ review found very small effects on native-born wages overall over periods of at least ten years. Negative effects, where found, were concentrated among earlier immigrants and native-born workers without a high school diploma.^[1] Those findings do not establish a wage loss for most Americans. They do show why an overall average cannot settle the position of workers facing direct competition.

An employer seeking additional foreign workers should therefore face a practical test: what wages has it offered, what training has it provided, and why cannot the job be filled on those terms? Difficulty recruiting at the current wage is insufficient evidence that the country needs more admissions.

Property owners and households seeking a home

Additional households need somewhere to live. Where homes cannot be built quickly, extra demand can raise rents and purchase prices. A landlord may receive more rent; an owner selling a property may receive a higher price. A renter renewing a lease or a young family buying its first home faces the other side of that transaction.

The affordability problem is already substantial. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of renter households spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities rose from 20.4 million to 22.4 million. In 2022, 12.1 million spent more than half their income on those bills.^[2]

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201920.4 million households

202222.4 million households

Source: Harvard JCHS, America’s Rental Housing 2024; linked below.

Chart source: America’s Rental Housing 2024.

Higher rents leave less money for a down payment. Higher purchase prices then increase the amount a buyer must save and borrow. Existing owners with fixed-rate mortgages have some protection from these costs, although moving can expose them to the same expensive market as a first-time buyer.

Immigration adds housing demand, but these national figures do not measure its contribution to the increase in costs. Interest rates, construction costs, zoning and domestic migration also affect affordability. An admissions policy still has to account for housing capacity: additional workers cannot be treated as a benefit to employers while the homes they need are left out of the calculation.

Local taxpayers fund the adjustment

Federal immigration decisions can require spending by governments that did not make them. A school district needs teachers and classrooms when enrollment rises. Water systems and roads need capacity where households settle. Those expenses can arrive before the local tax base has grown enough to cover them.

The fiscal evidence reflects that split. The National Academies’ long-term projections generally found positive federal effects and negative state and local effects, with substantial variation and sensitivity to assumptions. Education accounted for an important part of local costs; the children of immigrants subsequently made strong tax contributions as adults.^[1]

Future revenue does not pay a current construction bill. Congress should identify the local costs attached to admissions and how they will be funded. Employers’ gains and federal tax receipts should not be counted as though they automatically compensate the communities facing additional expenses.

Population also affects representation

The census counts citizens and noncitizens in the resident population used to allocate House seats. Immigration can consequently affect a state’s representation before newcomers become citizens or vote. Seats depend on each state’s population relative to the others, so additional immigration does not guarantee an additional seat.^[3]

This gives population growth consequences beyond wages and property values. Representation can shift even when the households facing higher rents or crowded services receive no financial gain. Electoral effects belong in the assessment, but they do not establish that every immigrant supports the same party.

Admissions should serve residents’ living standards

Nation of Settlers favors lower admissions. The economic case should rest on what residents can earn, afford and obtain from public services. A company’s ability to recruit cheaply is one interest among several; it should not determine the number admitted.

Lower admissions should accompany measures that make the existing workforce more productive: training, investment in equipment and wages that attract workers already here. Housing construction and infrastructure also need to keep pace with demand. Reducing immigration cannot substitute for those decisions, but government can control admissions while addressing them.

The test is whether a working household can pay for a home, raise children and save without an ever-larger share of its earnings going to rent and basic services. National output can rise while that household falls behind. Immigration policy needs to account for who receives the gains and who pays the costs.