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Illegal workers have mixed impact on economic activity Jeannfne Duersa THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — They pick fruit and vegetables and clip hedges. They hang drywall and clean houses, hotels and office buildings. The millions of illegal workers in the United States have come under a fresh spotlight as Congress and President Bush grapple with revamping the nation’s immigration policies. Illegal workers’ relationship to the economy is intricate. They are willing to work for lower wages than legal workers, helping to keep down prices. But illegal immigrants also can depress wages for unskilled, legal workers and strain local hospitals and schools. “There is not a simple economic case here. It is complex. It is interwoven, and it is very hard to extract,” said Terry Connelly, dean of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. “It is like pulling some sort of piece of thread out of a fabric. If you pull that thread out, you don’t know to what degree you have weakened the fabric.” There are an estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Some 7.2 million of them are employed — about 5 percent of the U.S. labor force — according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization. The illegal workers are mostly men and are heavily concentrated in construction, agriculture and cleaning jobs, Pew says. Those jobs tend to be low skill or unskilled manual labor, economists said. “From lawn services to meat packing. You name it. The primary benefit to consumers from illegal workers is lower prices,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight. For businesses, cheap labor can translate into fatter profits. If owners use those profits to expand their businesses, it would boost economic activity. While consumers and businesses may benefit from such cheap labor, the U.S. aorn-worker could be hurt ay it, according to some -esearch. Between 1980 and 2000, egal and illegal immigration ■educed the average annual earnings of U.S. aorn men by an estimated Si,700 or about 4 percent, according to research done :n 2004 by George Borjas, economics professor at the [ohn F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. • The situation was worse if one considers only the 10 million U.S.-born men who !ack a high school degree. For them, the increased supply of workers depressed wages by 7.4 percent, he found. Economists at the Federal Reserve banks in Dallas and Atlanta found no evidence in 2003 that wages of higher skilled U.S.-born workers were hurt by immigration, although lower-wage workers were affected. Illegal immigrants use federal, state and local resources, including schools, medical care and emergency services, straining government coffers and costing taxpayers money. However, many of the costs are tied to their kids — many of them American born children who are U.S. citizens. At the federal level, the big cost is through Medicaid and food-assistance programs, according to Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter immigration rules. Camarota acknowledges that some illegal immigrants pay federal taxes, but he said their cost to the federal government — $12 billion, according to his estimate — is greater. There’s another way to look at it. Since they pay payroll taxes, they’re helping to bankroll Social Security and Medicare but won’t get to participate in the programs because of their immigration status. “From our standpoint, this is not a top fiscal issue,” said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union. Experts note that illeg^B immigrants also spena part of their paychecks in this country — for food, clothes, furniture, living expenses and other things — all of which contribute to economic growth. But many also send some of their earnings to their families in their native countries. Still, they expand the nation’s overall labor pool and productivity. “We can _-_ _i ^ iiiarv^. muiv Jiuix axxu uiai can add to overall economic activity,” said Andre^^ Bernard, professor international economics at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. House-passed legislation takes a tough approach on the issue, including provisions making illegal immigrants’ presence in this country a felony. A Senate proposal sets out a path that would make illegal immigrants who came to the United States before 2004 eligible for permanent residency. If all the illegal workei^k in this country were boote^F out tomorrow, economists believe wages would have to rise significantly to get U.S.-born workers to take their jobs. -- • , Ed Reinke / The Associated Press Hundreds of demonstrators rally outside the federal courthouse in support of immigration reform Tuesday in Louisville, Ky. Research shows that illegal immigrants working in the U.S. has good and bad effects on the economy. STU ENT resident, t ommy Preston, Jr. - 777.3851 Ipj J^^VVcre President, Ryan Holt - 777.5065 Treasurer, Jennifer Guest - 777.3857 ’'5 B^F !,-f aj^Sm Ari-,:?V ^ ^ ■•'VrM-fa I , -' -, ^ v. ,';: .«afc S^Hfe&j. £1^. C, SSMBBT — t—i—“ i - Student Senate has vacant seats that need to be filled by ambitious an hardworking students. Come by the SG office and pick up an applica tion. The vacant seats are as follows: HRSM(2), Social WorkO BusinessO), Education(1*), Engineering^), Med(2), Nursd). Public Health(2), Music(2). Congressional Advisory Board and Student Comptrollers will be accept ing applications in the next couple of weeks, so look out for announce ments in the weekly ads! * All applications are available in the front of the Student Government Office ___