Unending supply of illegal workers undermines labor laws, unemployment, Social Security systems

Low-skilled, young, U.S.-born workers are the economic victims of unlimited illegal immigration, said a recent study by Northeastern University. The segment of the U.S. labor force that has been most affected by the massive influx of illegal immigrants into the United States over the past five years are low-skilled, young native-born workers, according to a recent study issued by the University's Center for Labor Market Studies. ”It appears that employers are substituting new immigrant workers for young native-born workers.” said the two economists who authored the study.

The uncontrolled rise in employment by illegal workers over the past decade has also contributed to a breakdown in the U.S.’s labor laws and labor standards, and has undermined the unemployment insurance program and Social Security systems that had evolved over the past century, the authors said.

The federal government’s Current Population and Current Employment surveys over the past few years also bear out this trend. The number of people reporting themselves as employed has been growing much faster than the number companies are reporting. Illegal immigration, the authors said, is creating a growing dark side of the labor market where employers operate outside the market’s legal framework.

Real wages for the lowest-paid American workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, have been stagnant or declining for years.