Foreign Born Populations and Unemployment in the United States: Myth or Reality?

Abstract

Immigration to the United States has played a crucial role in the founding and development of the nation. However, there has also been a consistent trend of native born United States citizens to pin employment struggles on new immigrant populations. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election and the rhetoric espoused about immigrants, the relationship between new immigrant populations and employment has continued. Is there a relationship between areas with high foreign born populations and high unemployment? By conducting a regression analysis using U.S. Congressional districts as the unit of analysis, I find that there does appear to be a statistically significant relationship between areas with high foreign born populations and high unemployment rates. However, there appears to be a more statistically significant and larger change in the unemployment rate caused by median family incomes and the commuting time to work. I concluded that efforts to better address transportation systems in the United States and addressing income inequality will be more effective at solving unemployment issues than divisive rhetoric towards immigrants. I also recommend that policy initiatives to better integrate new immigrants into U.S. society be studied to curb the relationship between high unemployment areas and high foreign born populations.