Labor secretary Tom Perez says that allowing more overseas workers to enter the United States would increase the wages of Americans, which is in contrast to the findings delivered by a number of studies. Perez made the comments during a speech in Washington on Monday and cited a different study, conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found that economic activity in the US would increase by 5.4% over two years if the Senate immigration bill was passed.
Perez insists that allowing more immigrant workers into the United States would add jobs, help to stabilize social security and put upward pressure on wages; however, the CBO report he cites is somewhat mixed when it comes to the latter point, saying that wages would fall and only increase over time if new workers were accommodated.
Perez’s comments also stand in direct opposition to the study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which is opposed to the plan by the Obama administration to give millions of undocumented immigrants some form of legal status. In June the CIS released its own report indicating that since 2000 all new net jobs created in the United States have been given to immigrants.
Senator Jeff Sessions has also stated that in his view the administration’s immigration plan would further crush the millions of American workers currently unemployed or not working enough. “In spite of this, the president continues to champion legislation that would place further substantial downward pressure on wages,” he says.