Immigration produces net economic benefits for the United States as a whole, says a new report, but slightly reduces the wages and job opportunities of low-skilled American workers, especially high school dropouts.

The two-year study by a panel of 12 experts was published by the National Academy of Sciences for the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The researchers found that:

• Immigrants add about $10 billion annually in net economic output due to the increased supply of labor and resulting lower prices.

• And a typical newcomer pays in $80,000 more in taxes than he or she receives over the course of a lifetime.

However, immigrant households are costly at first because they tend to be younger and have school-age children using public education; after 15 to 20 years, they produce fiscal benefits as their children leave school.

• But the gap between the wages of immigrants and native-born workers is widening, due to recent immigration of poorer, less-educated and less-skilled immigrants.

• Furthermore, immigration has contributed to an increase in the number of high school dropouts and accounts for about 44 percent of the total decline in real wages of high school dropouts from 1980 to 1994.

The researchers said revenue from the future earnings of immigrants far outweighs the fiscal impact of benefits they receive, since immigrants receive proportionately fewer benefits from programs such as Social Security and Medicare, but proportionately more from programs such as Supplemental Security Income, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and food stamps.

Source: James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston, editors, "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration," National Academy Press (Washington, D.C., 1997).

For the full text of this study http://www.nap.edu