William F. Smith: “Raising the minimum wage is touted as a way to help many blue-collar workers. And there are millions of others who earn…”

“Raising the minimum wage is touted as a way to help many blue-collar workers. And there are millions of others who earn more than the proposed minimum wage increase but who still struggle to make ends meet. Reform of our immigration policies would help all these workers. Each year, almost a million legal immigrants enter the United States. Of these, about 300,000 lack a high school education. This policy destroys the opportunities of American workers with a similar education level. Our immigration policy should create opportunities for those in the workforce. But it does the opposite. The National Academy of Sciences concluded in a study that competition from immigration was responsible for 'about 44 percent of the total decline in relative wage[s] of high school drop outs.' The Center for Immigration Studies calculated that 'immigration may reduce the wages of the average native in a low-skilled occupation by . . . $1,915 a year.'”