Here is the most recent IGM Economic Expert’s Panel answers. They were picked to be a representative sample of economists.
Non-economists tend to misunderstand the tradeoffs associated with low-income immigration. Immigrants are a net good for the economy. They raise the general standard of living of citizens. The tradeoff: those who closely compete with foreigners lose out. Creative destruction in economic growth has always been a 2-steps-forward 1-step-back kind of process. What we need to remember is that the people who lose out to foreigners are also receiving the gains from consuming other foreigner’s outputs. Protecting from foreign competition helps workers more than it helps consumers, who are by the way, also workers.
Of course we know that overall we’re moving forward by trading with foreigners (whether they’re immigrants or not), because total production has gone up.
