American Teenagers Compete with Immigrants for Jobs
Article subtitle:
Studies find low-skilled migrants, both legal and illegal, disrupt labor market for U.S. youth
Article publisher:
PoliZette
Article date:
7 June 2017
Article category:
Our American Future
Medium
Article Body:
The number of teenagers in the U.S. with a job has been cut in half since the 1980s, and researchers who’ve studied the issue closely say it appears immigration has a lot to do with it.
Christopher L. Smith, an economist with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, found in 2012 that a 10 percent increase in the number of employed immigrants with no more than a high school diploma reduces the average number of hours American teenagers work in a year by 3 percent.
There are now four times as many foreign-born people in the U.S. than there were in 1970 — and fewer teenagers working than at any time in recent history...
In the first quarter of 2017, just 18 percent of 16- and 17-year-old, U.S.-born Americans had jobs — a historic low...